At the beginning, let's take a look at the evaluation of "Kill Bill I" by mainstream review sites in the East and the West.
The freshness of this film on rotten tomatoes is as high as 85 percent. Why?
There are many movies about revenge that we have seen before, such as "Gladiator", "Old Boy", "Confession" and other movies. These film reviews are generally the product of multi-angle thinking around the theme of revenge. For example, in the movie "Gladiator", the protagonist's revenge is a struggle for freedom and rights, which represents the initiative of the people's will, and is not merely an act for personal revenge.
Many films tend to focus only on the surface of the subject of revenge without going into a deeper discussion. The processing of the film in this way is itself a soulless thing with only a glamorous appearance, lacking deeper thinking and analysis, and also Will make the audience feel boring.
Back to the topic.
In "Kill Bill I", we can feel a very strong atmosphere of revenge. In addition, Quentin has cleverly combined the two elements of animation and video, resulting in a powerful visual impact and a multi-line narrative structure. The perfection.
The subtitles at the beginning actually set the overall tone of the film, cold, violent, and even a little magical.
Subtitle: Revenge is cold-blooded
It is about the process of revenge for the heroine, but in fact this is a very tricky and weird movie. It is about the past, the killers themselves. (The effect of the black and white film presented at the beginning actually exacerbated the "cold blood" that the opening clip wanted to express. The high contrast between black and white creates a confrontation between light and dark, white and black. This is a color film. It can't be achieved.)
Another way of expressing confrontation is a symmetrical composition shown in the process of the heroine's revenge. The confrontation between the two formed a relative sense of conflict, and the daughter of the black killer Vinita (left) who returned home by school bus was a weight to temporarily resolve this conflict. The shape is just like a balance, this kind of conflict expression actually intensified the tension of the film, and it began to develop in the direction of emotion and love in the narrative structure.
The director gave us the right to get the perspective of God, so we can have a relative understanding and familiarity with the two people's every move. At the same time, in the plot, the relationship between the two has changed from the initial confrontation into an "invisible duel". This "invisible duel" is largely due to the appearance of the black woman's daughter, which has caused the overall change in the overall situation.
However, the conflict between the two women has never disappeared, and an explanation must be made at the end.
Listening carefully to the dialogue between the two of them, it can be seen that the confrontation between the two has begun to change from an invisible confrontation to an obvious confrontation. The content of the dialogue is cold-blooded, rational, and can not be questioned or opposed. This has exacerbated the conflict between the two people. The biggest, only wait until one of them breaks this seemingly quiet environment, thereby breaking this balance.
In the end, it was the killer Vinita who broke this apparent balance and died tragically by the heroine.
This is the first chapter about revenge, and it is also the first killer killed by the heroine.
From this chapter, we can see many things Quentin wants to express. The most critical and important point is: cold blood, followed by violent aesthetics, chapter structure, multi-line narrative, etc., and if you look carefully, , I feel that Quentin wants to express a very strong feeling. This feeling is very similar to allegory stories. We can say that the story tells the story of a woman's revenge. At the same time, we have also understood him as one. Kind of legend-a legend about everyone.
Why would I say that?
In the prelude to kill the second killer, in the gap between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, Quentin uses sound to transition the picture, which is what we often call metaphoric montage.
I borrowed this paragraph to make a very subjective summary of the first chapter. At the same time, this narration is also the beginning of the second chapter, laying the overall tone of the second story: blood, magic, reason, cold blood, if more There is actually freedom in what you say subjectively .
Here I need to explain in detail why freedom is mentioned here: In the film "Born Murderer" (screenplay by Quentin), there is a passage: My pure moment is better than your dirty life.
The background of this sentence is also similar to the bridge segment of self-repression and the release of the id expressed in "Kill Bill I". In the subjective perception of director Quentin, the pursuit of freedom depends on the self The process of releasing (i.e., the first thought that exists in the inner subconscious mind of the self). At the same time, Quentin also manages this cognition as an art.
Similarly, when watching Quentin’s other films, you can also feel this very strong atmosphere of self-releasing. In the film "Falling Water Dog", the discussion of violence and humanity, in "King Kong Is Not Bad", does not kill people. The emotional rendering of the protagonist divided into left and right, and the reprocessing of the violent elements of the western film in "The Hateful Eight" all combine the discussion of human nature with the release of the id, not only giving new life to the film type, At the same time, it has relatively rational control over the overall ideology of the story.
For example, the ring structure and the reorganization of the story appearing in "Pulp Fiction" are both a novel attempt to the film's narrative method. If it is only to elevate the violence in the film to the height of aesthetics, Quentin His work may not necessarily be called a masterpiece, but because of the novel structure, the film has a very complete performance in structure, form, ideology, and story integrity. So after watching Quentin’s work, you There will be deep thinking, and this thinking is permanent, not just "violent fast food."
Back to the topic.
The second killer, named Ishii Oren, is the woman on the far right in the picture.
Before watching this film, I never knew that the original violent clips could be expressed in this way. In the recently released film "The Guardian", the cold and fast editing of the violence mentioned in "Kill Bill I" The use of the method of "The Great Guardian" creates an atmosphere of depression, weirdness, and absurdity. But on the whole, the discussion about human nature that the "Da Guardian" wants to show is insufficient. Although it also discusses the suppression of human nature, "Killing The discussion of "Dead Bill I" is multi-faceted: such as the repression of human nature, the release of the self, the influence of the past on the present (inner conflict), and the growth process of female heroes.
Especially when it is expressed through an extremely open medium like animation, its ideology becomes very vivid and concrete.
What is even more eye-catching is that it is probably this kind of expression that integrates multi-national cultural elements. The use of "fables" to tell a story makes the story itself very dramatic. The same kind of movie , As well as "Sea Pianist", "Tin Drum", "The Great Gatsby", etc., through a narration or symbolic image to give the film a strong sense of religious ritual, making it ideologically Some have strong legends and different styles, but their themes are exactly the same-based on a main character to create the historical background of the grand scene and the shaping of multiple personalities of the individual.
For example, in the films "Tin Drum" and "The Great Gatsby", although the story is about a small person living in a big environment, the lens perspective is limited to the small person, but the real narrative core is the entire environment. , Through the lens of a single perspective, it metaphors the social status quo and human irony of the big environment.
The samurai sword shown in the picture also has such a "big environment", which also provides an opportunity for the appearance of the killer Ishii Oren.
In addition, many of the background music quoted in the movie also has the effect of setting off the atmosphere. I have to say that director Quentin has a good sense of music, and his music is particularly suitable for the scene. If his film is a cooking pot, Then his music is just a spoon. Whether the dishes are noisy or not depends on whether the spoon is used.
The aesthetics of violence from God’s perspective has become more beautiful. A picture can completely explain the relationship between the opposing parties. The symmetrical composition and the centering of the characters not only create a regular beauty, but also It also attaches a layer of movement to the protagonist placed in the middle, and this movement is the most delicate balance in the entire conflict.
In addition, the three conflicts of black and white, light and shadow, name and darkness established the following three fragments of ideology.
At the end of the film, a quote from Miyamoto Musashi is quoted: Revenge is not a straight road, but a forest, just like getting lost in the forest, getting lost, and not finding where you came from.
The road of revenge is very easy for people to lose themselves. The road of the heroine is also so difficult. In many cases, the road to revenge is not the road you want to go.
He has become an established religious ritual in your mind that must be performed until death.
This is the end of the analysis of this film. Later, the analysis of "Kill Bill II" will be launched. At the same time, I will make a summary of the two works. In the following articles, I will analyze the works of director Quentin one by one. Uncovering the mystery of Quentin's violent aesthetics, let us walk into Quentin, and at the same time, slowly get to know ourselves deep in our hearts.
Those who come to see my film critics, we have the fate for those who stay, and we have the fate of goodbye for those who leave, quietly listening to me telling a story, watching a movie, a lifetime is just as long as a film critic.
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