I originally came to watch this movie just for this idea. I didn’t expect it to make me think hard after watching it. The dystopian story itself is very exciting and scary, and there are all kinds of similes and metaphors. I can't understand it. After reading the comments and the interpretation of the major gods in the area, I seem to understand but I always feel dissatisfied, so I still have to try to record my own thoughts. The ability to think independently is very important. come out.
(1) The number of floors and the number of people on the hunger platform: The hunger platform is also called the prison pit. There are a total of 333 floors, and there are two people on each floor, which means that there are 666 people in the entire prison. Some film critics explained that the number of people set here is a metaphor, It refers to what was originally recorded in the Bible, Revelation 13:18: "Here is wisdom: but there is understanding, who can reckon the number of the beast; for this is the number of men, and his number is six hundred and sixty. Six." This is very obvious, such a number means that the hunger platform is the whole society, and the people in it are the general public. At the same time, the number 666 represents the devil in the West, and it also implies that such a place is a very evil place against humanity.
(2) Two major mechanisms of the Hunger Platform:
(1) Each layer flows once a month. This symbolizes the mobility between classes under the social system. We all know that a society where class mobility is relatively easy can give people the motivation to struggle. "As long as I work hard and live, one day I will be able to join the upper class." But in the starvation platform, I don't think such a mechanism is a manifestation of free flow, on the contrary, you wake up after a month in the starvation platform and you have no idea which floor you will be on. This kind of flow has no direction. , random. That is to say, the changes in the external environment have no continuous beneficial effect on class mobility, but instead lead to a disorder, and the uncertainty it brings is enough to make people nervous. (Therefore, there will be many people who will commit suicide by jumping on the floor.) Therefore, most people here will not consider climbing up through their own efforts. Anyway, they will change places after a month, and they cannot control this change. If you switch to the upper level, then you can eat and bully the lower level. If you switch to the lower level, you will have to look at the faces of the upper-level people. That is to say, the concept of the upper and lower floors is relative. The people on the upper and lower floors are always changing, but the things done by the upper and lower floors have not changed. The concept of the upper and lower floors is more rigid than the cement in the prison pit, and it is difficult to be broken. From this point of view it is more like a place of class solidification.
(2) The daily top-down rationing of food: Food should not be understood in detail here, but should be a symbol of resources. There is a wide variety of foods that symbolize the different resources everyone needs: health care, food, education, housing, and more. And these foods have to be conveyed from the top to the last layer every day. The lower class can only eat the scraps of the upper class. The simple truth is that people in high positions in society can always enjoy more. With more and better social resources, what the people at the bottom can get is indeed the scum after others enjoy it. Although this is disgusting, it is very realistic.
(3) Group portraits
(1) Male protagonist: From the book he brought, it can be seen that Don Quixote, a symbol of idealism, was born in the middle class at the beginning, and neither knew the upper class nor the lower class, and was full of his own. Principles and obsessions, ideas for change, rebellious spirit (forbidding smoking during the interview, he still continues to smoke) and action (you can see that the male protagonist dares to go to such a prison for a diploma is enough to explain the problem) It belongs to the middle class waiting to be activated. But he also has his own limitations. For example, after he was tied up by his roommate (when social cruelty came his turn), he blamed the person in front of him instead of the system. This shows that his vision is still short-sighted. Only after the innocence of the upper level can we have the power to change.
(2) The first roommate old man: I have experienced the upper level and the bottom level of hell, and I understand the game rules of this mechanism, which symbolizes the bottom level of realism. And his way of living is the epitome of some of the 666 people. In order to survive, he will do anything to survive. This is human nature. From him, I seem to see the phantom of capitalism: acknowledging the survival of the fittest, natural selection, laissez-faire, and obtaining space and resources for survival by plundering. When he has enough food, he can share resources with you, but it is also to extract your value (reading symbolizes spiritual food), but when he changes to the bottom (survival becomes a problem), he immediately tries to find a lot of money, not only to Cutting your flesh to eat to maintain your life, and cutting your meat for you to eat to maintain your life for sustainable exploitation, is highly coincident with the ugly face of capitalists depicted by Marx.
(3) The second former management roommate: The female roommate who had managed the platform for 25 years was too ideal from the beginning, and had an image of an upper-class person who always abides by elegance and compassion. Her starting point is very good. She hopes to lead by example and distribute the amount of food to encourage the lower class to realize the optimization of the system. She is even willing to take turns eating with the dog. However, the actual situation is not as she wished, because for the lower class, survival is the first One important thing. Such a person symbolizes a kind of reformer who is out of touch with reality. He is in the top all the year round, represents the internal system that has serious problems (has cancer), and has no understanding of the actual situation (actually there are 333 floors and thought there are only 200 floors). The improvements proposed in the actual integration process still cannot escape their limitations. After switching to a lower level and seeing a more terrifying reality and the killing of the dog (symbolizing the connection with the past beliefs), in such a purgatory to survive either you or me, she chose to self-terminate, which may well be A decent relief. Think of the reformism proposed by the Manchu officials and nobles, and you will have a deeper understanding.
(4) Asian woman looking for "children": The male protagonist escapes the old man's clutches with the help of the Asian woman, and thus has a yearning for her (Spring Dream) I think this Asian woman represents the image of the failed revolutionaries catalyzed within the system. Combined with what the male protagonist's second roommate said: Asian women came here voluntarily 10 months ago, dreamed of becoming an Asian Monroe (ideal), and chose a ukulele (naive). Ignorance) came to the prison pit, and there was no one under the age of 16 on the platform, which means she had no children at all! (Assuming what the second roommate said is true) So what's the deal with finding children? I think one possibility is that this child represents the next generation, represents such a bright future, represents a new concept, and does not really exist. After all, Asian women have never admitted this matter personally, it is from the perspective of others. And it is this idea that supports Asian women from top to bottom again and again, saving those kind people (such as male protagonists) and teaching them how to survive (cannibalism), like liberators who want to break the shackles. Another possibility is that the child did exist, but was stillborn. At the beginning, the Asian woman was also a person who came here innocently with ideals, but 10 months later, when the male protagonist saw her, she had become a decisive person who was looking for children. The ukulele (ideal) she brought ) has long since disappeared. Combining various information, it is reasonable to speculate that Asian women may have been QJ in such a hellish environment when they first came in, became pregnant with a child and had a miscarriage. It is very likely that the child was already formed at that time, so it was still possible Identify male and female. After that, she fell into a madness, and her spirit was greatly stimulated. After changing floors a month later, the child's body had been disposed of, and the Asian woman has since fallen into the obsession of looking for the child (unwilling to believe that the child is dead), looking for the child. How can one succeed with something that does not exist? So in the end it was death (meaning failure) that greeted her. A tragic figure, a symbol of revolutionaries who took the wrong path with firm beliefs.
(5) Little black brother: Representing people of color and religious believers, he brought a rope as soon as he appeared, trying to escape the prison by himself, but after all, it was too ideal, and he didn’t see that there was a huge gap between the upper class and the lower class: the upper class Who would be willing to let the lower class climb up and occupy their own resources? Although it cannot be ruled out that there may be saints, most people are inherently evil. The existence of such a gap determines the system. Information flows downward with resources in one direction. The promotion channel is too narrow and almost invisible. The floor height is only 6 meters, but the gap is like an abyss. The result of not seeing the gap is that not only was someone slapped on the face, but also the rope was confiscated.
After seeing the reality clearly, the black brother made up his mind and became the best helper for the male protagonist. Ironically, the way the two tried to reason first was completely abandoned. It was originally intended to allow people at all levels to coexist peacefully and share food, but they could only use violence to communicate with violence through starvation and food.
(6) Others: The people on each floor represent the epitome of today’s society, there are wise men like Mahatma Gandhi, the Virgin Mary who is merciful, the wicked who use force to solve everything, and the miser who keeps holding on to money Wait, race, class, gender, color, and color form a hodgepodge of people who make up this miniature world.
(4) About the ending: I prefer that the ending is already buried in the film. The little girl on the last floor does not exist. The male protagonist figured it out when he was dying, because there are too many contradictions in the facts: 1. Gender: It is rumored that Asian women have always said that they are looking for a son, but in fact they found a little girl on the 333rd floor; 2. The testimony of the female roommate of the former Administration Bureau; 3. The heating and cooling mechanism triggered by privately leaving food fails. To sum up, the Italian pudding was not eaten, but seeing the little girl eating the pudding (the last human outburst of the male protagonist) was imagined by the male protagonist. At this time, the little black brother had already died. Everything she has experienced in the past has combined the image of the Asian woman with the child she is looking for. Knowing that this little girl is the message, this is a sign of new hope for the next generation. In the end, the male protagonist suddenly sobered up and walked into the darkness with his male roommate. In fact, the pudding was left, and it was sent as a message, but unfortunately, the staff saw the pudding and thought it was a hair on the pudding (probably the man's own hair according to the length) and was sent back, the man 's efforts turned into a puddle.
(5) Personal thoughts: It is said that this film is an anti-communist propaganda film, but I don’t think so. Without considering breaking the starvation platform system (referring to all escaping the starvation platform and erasing the difference between the upper and lower classes), maintaining the existing system, what the male protagonist practices is similar to primitive communism, a bit like absolute average is too idealistic. With a certain amount of total resources, it is impossible to ensure that everyone can be allocated resources to support life, and naturally it is impossible to achieve, even if it is achieved, it will not last long. Let's not forget that true communism is built on the condition of great material abundance, that is, if there is a way to achieve industrialization and greatly increase productivity (increase the food supply in the hunger platform, increase the number of cooks), greatly surpass For personal needs, such a change can maintain the operation of the hunger platform system and prevent the terrible phenomenon of cannibalism, but it also means that it is possible to practice by escaping from the hunger platform, which is too difficult (inexplicably thought of Grandpa Mao's greatness)
If it can't be done, it can only start from the distribution, as an institutional community, design a set of rules (laws) to allocate resources to ensure survival and fairness. But on second thought, the staff on the 0th floor of the starvation platform are not the top of the class, and there are managers, management bureaus, etc., and I am extremely afraid that the system maintained in this way may not have a fair existence at all, it is too desperate.
(6) Finally: what this film wants to tell us: this is reality, it is such despair, but fortunately we can still see a glimmer of humanity in such deep despair, there are always people who have the courage to try to make changes, They are fearless even if they are doomed, because they know that the struggle will continue and hope will last.
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