In Martin McDonagh's last work "Seven Neuropathy", the protagonist Marty is a screenwriter who is writing a script called "Seven Neuropathy" (it sounds very self-projecting). His friend Hans commented on the script It’s "The female character in your writing is really bad, and you have no right to speak. And it was shot to death or stabbed to death in less than 5 minutes." Self-black. Under the point of this comment, I will review McDonagh’s few previous movies "Six Bullet Pistol", "The Killer Has No Holiday" and "Seven Neuropathies". It is true that male characters dominate, females The character either dies hastily or is not vivid and full.
It seems to be a response and reflection to this critical voice. In his latest work "Three Billboards", McDonagh portrays an absolute female protagonist such as Mildred Hayes, a sad mother, an angry citizen, and a tough fighter. .
Dominoes overturned by three billboards
In the fictional town of Ebbing, Missouri, Mildred Hayes' teenage daughter Angela was brutally abducted and raped and burned to death. After more than seven months, the case has not made any progress, and the murderer is still at large. At the beginning of the movie, Mildred lost his thoughts when he passed the three billboards on the roadside where his daughter was killed while driving home. Then he decided to rent them from the local advertising company and pointed the finger at the local police station with three questions:
"Raped While Dying"
"And Still No Arrests?" (No murderer has been caught yet?)
"How Come, Chief Willoughby?" (Why, Chief Willoughby?)
This is Mildred's angry opening remarks, expressing blood and tears of the sadness of his daughter's tragic death, hatred of the murderer, and resentment of the powerlessness of law enforcement agencies. Three questions with black letters on a red background, fast forward to the tragedy seven months ago and seven months of clueless police investigations, like the first card of a domino to be overthrown, several related to this case People and others have been involved in a massive condemnation and battle.
It was Sheriff Willoughby who was named on the billboard. Willoughby, who was trying to reach a settlement with Mildred, told her that the police had tried their best to find the culprit and confessed that he was running out of time because of pancreatic cancer. Mildred, with a tight jaw and a gloomy face, was not moved by this. She told Willoughby: "I know it... Well, they wouldn't be as effective after you croak, right?" Doesn’t the card say it’s useless?")
Although determined to reopen the investigation of Angela's case, and despite the fact that there were still a wife and a daughter in the family, Willoughby, who could not bear the torture of cancer, committed suicide after spending a beautiful day with his family, leaving three suicide notes, one for his wife and one for his family. Mildred, another letter to his agent Dixon. Mildred, who was originally objected by many residents because of the content of the billboard, was considered to be the murderer who indirectly killed Willoughby and became the target of public opinion crusade.
Dixon, who was still living with his mother at a young age, had problems with alcoholism and emotional management, in addition to his poor brains. He was disgusted by the residents of the town because of his bad reputation for torturing and torturing blacks. Stimulated by Willoughby's suicide, Dixon rushed to the opposite advertising company with a gun and beat and threw the red-haired boy in charge of the three billboard business out the window.
The violence escalated further. Someone secretly burned Mildred's billboard, and Mildred, who mistakenly thought it was police retaliation, burned the police station with tooth for tooth, but didn't want to burn Dixon who came back to collect letters. Willoughby's letter and the file Dixon rescued from the fire became the beginning of the two's reconciliation with the outside world. Faced with the provocation of his ex-husband, Mildred chose not to pursue the matter and regrouped and put up a billboard; Dixon, who was expelled from the police station, was no longer in despair, in order to gain suspicion Human DNA was severely injured, although the real murderer of Angela was not found in the end.
The cause of the three billboards is a murder, but this movie has nothing to do with the suspenseful crime. It abandons the narrative clues centered on solving the case. There is no reasoning or a process of solving puzzles. It does not reveal the murderer's mystery until the end. Instead, it leaves the truth and suspense to question the broader human nature and justice. . Although the film spends a considerable amount of space to describe a battle between blood for blood and violence against violence with Mildred as the core, and the social problems brought out by this battle: police violent law enforcement and excessive churches Intervention, the director is not only concerned about the confrontation between Mildred alone and law enforcement forces, but after the billboard was posted, how the entire town of Ebbing faced the trauma caused by Angela's death and the victim’s mother chose not to forget , Unforgive, uncompromising recourse.
Revenge of Blood and Fire: A Modern Parody of Western Gestures
The story of "Three Billboards" is set in Missouri in the Midwest of the United States. Whether it is geographical location, soundtrack or video style, the film has a temperament close to traditional Western films. Compared with modern westerns like 2007's "Old Nowhere" and last year's "Going Through Water and Fire", "Three Billboards" did not pursue the wild symbols and scenery in the artistic conception-the vast wilderness and the crisis-ridden town. It does not highlight the infiltration of modern civilization into western culture, but there is a back-to-basics re-enactment of the classic gestures of western films.
A series of classic elements from Western films appeared in the film: southern accents, tavern fights, horses, guns, sheriffs, churches represented by priests...At the same time, the characters and relationship settings in the film also have a typical western setting. Features of the film: The police representing law and order, the criminals who are at large, and Mildred who despises and resists law enforcement order is like a maverick cowboy who seeks revenge and justice. The character setting echoed by Mildred's role is more helpful to understand Her tough, persistent and violent methods.
The melody called "Mildred Goes To War" in the original soundtrack has appeared in the movie twice. The first time was when Mildred walked into the Ebbing advertising company to interrogate the police by renting three billboards. The second time was Mildred's colleague and When her friend Denise was detained by the police, she rushed into the police station to confront Dixon. The melodious and desolate guitar plucking gradually turned to the sound and rush, as Mildred walked toward the battlefield duel-like decisive and resolute figure, full of tough guy colors like a wandering nameless cowboy. Mildred's toughness is also reflected in her confrontational attitude when facing dissidents single-handedly, such as exposing church child abuse in front of priests, drilling a hole in the fingers of the dentist who supports Willoughby, and throwing objects at her unceremoniously. The student of Xiaoyi color, and threw a molotov cocktail to set the police station on fire in the middle of the night.
However, the complexity and fascinating aspect of Mildred’s role is that she is not limited to the modernization of a cowboy image and the feminization of a male hero. The wife of her ex-husband domestic violence, she has more fragility and unbearable, sadness and despair. While resenting the murderer and blaming the police, Mildred also suffered from his own condemnation. He could not forget that the death of his daughter might be related to her excessive restraint. The fierce act of accountability with billboards was not only aimed at the murderer and the police, but also It is seeking the salvation of inner guilt.
The image of the police in the film has long lost its lofty and authority to maintain justice and order. One is Sheriff Willoughby, who is about to suffer from cancer, and the other is Dixon, who has a worrying IQ and irritable mood. Mildred ridiculed him as “busy to abuse black people and have no time to bring the murderer of my daughter to justice”. The decline of police authority is accompanied by the public’s anxiety and anxiety about the system and order. What is behind this anxiety is also the internal friction and tearing of American society due to the division of class, race, belief, sexual orientation, and capital. . The grievances between Mildred and the police appear on the surface to bring justice for their daughters. In fact, they are ordinary people’s angry questions about the current system and order. The essence of the grievances between Mildred and the police is the contemporary “injustice, inequality, and insecurity”. The outpouring of insecurity in the United States. The escalating violent conflict of blood and fire seems to be more detached from the genres of westerns and crime films, and has become a public sentiment, a kind of public sentiment directed at "Wall Street, Muslims, trade agreements, Washington, police shootings, presidents, Republicans, People are angry about health insurance, tax reform, immigration and other issues.
When recreating the classic elements of Western films, the film stripped away the legendary and heroism in the traditional American ideology, eliminated the rebellious consciousness and the spirit of freedom, and the Western formulas that had created ideal ethics and national character became A nostalgic and absurd satire prop. The relationship formed by Mildred, Willoughby, and Dixon was born out of the strong, black-and-white character setting of "cowboy-sheriff-gangster" in the western genre, but they are not always in a state of opposition like water and fire. It is full of subtlety and reversal of richness. This is reflected in the footage of Mildred being grabbed by Willoughby to talk because he drilled a hole in the dentist's finger.
A moment ago, Willoughby was still using the dentist's accusation to intimidate him to try to persuade Mildred, who was not well-paid, to remove the billboard. Then he suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood and sprayed it on Mildred's face. After the atmosphere stagnated for a second, Willoughby immediately began to apologize, telling Mildred that he didn't mean it. "I know you didn't, baby." (I know you didn't mean it) Mildred knew Willoughby's condition well and reached out to comfort him. At this moment, the sharp tension between the two of them suddenly broke, and both Mildred's long-standing resentment and Willoughby's physical and mental exhaustion under the multiple pressures of Willoughby fell to the ground. They are no longer fierce enemies, but like a pair of friends who have known each other for a long time and quarreled occasionally. They are both in their own troubles and have no time to take care of them, struggling in their respective difficulties. The surprise and shock in this scene is even sadder than the two scenes of Mildred encountering wild deer and rescuing the billboard.
And the murderer who killed Angela never appeared in any face from beginning to end. The suspect considered by Dixon to be the murderer, a man who showed off his "deeds" of rape in a bar, was soon ruled out of suspicion because of his DNA inconsistency and alibi. When the hope was ignited, Mildred fell into sadness and despair again. Dixon suggested to Mildred: "I know he isn't your rapist. He is a rapist, though." (I know he is not the rapist in your case, but he He was a rapist after all). The two once rivals decided to go hand in hand to hunt down "another rapist."
The vacuum of the real murderer destroys the regular relationship between the characters in the traditional narrative, and makes the "cowboys" and "policemen" consume each other's struggles, so that the justice of anti-violence and peace has nowhere to vent, let alone an outlet for conflict resolution. The victims were pushed into despair and anger. The metaphor of the murderer vacuum also symbolizes that the original pioneering west and the obstacles in the process of civilization (robbers, bandits, Indians, etc.) are no longer a threat. Instead, what plagues Americans is the alienation, class, race, and religion of the "American Dream". The survival crisis caused by the fragmentation of the country, as well as the loss of confidence in the existing system. Although Mildred and Dixon embarked on the path to justice at the end, they are still not sure whether they want to kill "another rapist." The open ending also makes the direction of justice confused, which is also the dilemma and sentimentality of where American society will go.
Martin McDonagh’s work inherited one of his dramatic elements: death, anger, violence, regret, revenge, and ambiguous positions, mixed with sharp and peculiar humor and the powerless loneliness of reality, suddenly let the sadness pinch in the careless absurdity Your throat. McDonagh is a theater director, and he is also well versed in the interaction between actors and characters, giving actors more space in "Three Billboards". So there are Frances McDormand, Same Rockwell and Woody Harrelson's outstanding performances that are very personal and very consistent with the roles. The seamless matching of the roles of McDormand and Mildred Hayes gives the movie a rich and complex texture. In my opinion, McDormand's most exciting performance was not her Oscar-winning "Ice and Blood Storm", but HBO's "Olive Kitridge". She did not rely on makeup or ugliness to change herself to cater to the role, but integrated the performance into every wrinkle, every expression and every expressionless inner turbulence of her, always letting the role move closer to her, although not much. But it has the power to hit the chest and lungs directly.
View more about Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri reviews
