In 2019, when the vision is invaded by excessive color, it is surprising that we can still see a black and white film on the screen, and it is also a real black and white film. Interestingly, in recent years, black and white films have once again become one of the expressions of abnormal images of art films, such as "August", "Roma" and "Village Play", and these films are not simply decolorized and made into black and white, but Using ever-advancing techniques, the images are sculpted with lights, making black and white a way rather than an end.
"The Lighthouse" tells a relatively simple story, and the selection of scenes is relatively closed and single, but the meaning and content that the director wants to show is not the same. The film picks up some Cruise-style visual motifs, such as the more traditional sirens and mermen and tentacles. The deliberate replacement and blurring of the protagonist's identity and the externalization of the spiritual world in the second half of the film bring the film from reality to allegory. And the film is full of formalism for the construction of the scene and the presentation of the image. The superimposition of the formalist video style and the allegorical narrative creates an ambiguous, classical-style text.
What the film wants to show is the mental breakdown of human beings in a closed environment, that is, claustrophobia and the resulting aggressive sexual behavior and abnormal behavioral cognition. First of all, the scene of the film is a lighthouse on an isolated island, and this setting determines the major premise of closure from the beginning. Secondly, in order to express the spiritual destruction of people in enclosed spaces, it is necessary for the audience to directly empathize with the protagonist, so the most direct way is to use visual images. The film selects an approximate 1:1 classical aspect ratio used in the silent film era, which greatly reduces the visible range of the audience visually. At present, 16:9 is the mainstream, and various wide-screen, IMAX and even Screen X viewing experiences that are striving for immersion, the central field of view and even the full field of view of the audience are fully utilized. The occupation of the field of view is not actually giving up. "The Lighthouse" is a black and white film, and there are a lot of night scenes in the scene. When watching a movie in the theater, the redundant screen and the entire theater space are black, forming a kind of oppression and surround on the visible picture, which not only enhances the effect on the characters The closed effect of the theater also makes the audience feel a strong sense of claustrophobia through the natural field characteristics of the theater. Such a frame is more claustrophobic than a scene with a crowded and short interior space.
At the same time, in addition to showing the claustrophobic nature of the closed space, it is also necessary to show how effective it is. The film award focused on the aggressive sex drive of the protagonist, Ephraim. From the mermaid statue pulled out from under the mattress, to the mermaid seen in hallucinations, to the top of the lighthouse with huge tentacles, to the beating Thomas when his masturbation behavior in the storage room was revealed. He has been trying to vent his sexual desires, but he has never been successful. It does not mean that he successfully masturbates, but that he has not successfully vented spiritually. Every time the masturbation reaches its climax, the sound of the waves will appear in the background. Just like the never-ending waves of wind and waves that block the ships and supply ships that pick him up in the film, his sexuality has never been successfully vented. So when he turned to resist Thomas's mental oppression, Thomas and him had their identities replaced before and after the film, and the mental abuser and the abused also changed. Ephraim, who had been oppressed in the first half, finally became Thomas with a brutal temperament. He vented his suppressed sexual desire through the replacement of his identity, beating Thomas and even killing him. When he got the key and went to the highest end of the lighthouse, he saw the abnormal image with extraordinary psychedelic meaning, the sound of the waves that had always existed stopped, and he finally got a real vent and relief.
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