I was in a cold sweat after watching this Mexican film that won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. The whole movie shows what it means to be "out of control" and the horrific consequences of losing control.
It is really admirable how such a film that tells the story of the domestic violence and chaos in Mexico and has no light and hope at all was made, released, and entered the film festival. Not to mention the celestial dynasty, Americans can't make such a movie. Americans are good at using horror movies as a metaphor for reality, but they often need to be very commercialized and entertaining, making it fictional at first glance; but this movie definitely has the shock of horror movies, but it makes people feel that everything is so realistic. As if based on a true story.
The film tells the story of a wealthy Mexican wedding, which is suddenly disrupted by the surrounding riots, and instantly turns into a bloody massacre and looting. The two most shocking things about the film are:
1) The visually deceptive part of describing the wedding really just shows the "peaceful and beautiful" side of the rich family. I don't know what the outside world will be like. The director gives the audience a very narrow vision. But suddenly, from the moment a few thugs entered the mansion, things changed dramatically. Not only did the employees in the mansion immediately become cold-blooded gangsters, but the camera also expanded from the mansion to the streets, to the entire city, where gunpowder smoke and corpses were everywhere, which made people realize that this was not just a small-scale massacre. It's a huge war. It gives people a feeling that the end of the world has come without warning.
2) The deceptiveness of the plot On the other hand, what is shocking is that there are many twists in the film, each time it makes people feel like "finally seeing hope" or a fluke, but it blows the audience again and again. Almost every human content is followed by a disappointment in human nature. When the subtitles came up, all that was left was despair.
The film uses a much more extreme way than "Parasite" and "Joker" to show the anger and division caused by the class divide. Although there are many characters in the film who show the humanized part, it is a pity that they failed to escape the series of effects caused by this crazy riot.
Maybe because I watch relatively few foreign-language films, at least I can say that I have never seen such despair in American films. Even if it is a horror movie, in the end American movies are about good triumphing over evil, or the villain committing suicide, etc. But this one really seems to be a backstory in Star Wars: the birth of a new order after mass killings, but without the rebellion, heroes and victory that followed. When the subtitles rise, I can only hope that there will be a sequel.
The bloody and violent content of the film is obviously the level of an R-rated horror film, and a short scene of corpses everywhere is shocking enough at the beginning. But at the time, I thought it was just a nightmare. . . I didn't expect what happened next to be more terrifying than this.
In fact, there are many riots caused by demonstrations in the United States. During the BLM this year, there have been beatings, smashings, and looting, but very few people died. And if you watch this film, you will be more afraid of any form of riots.
Although the film was released in Europe, it has no release date or even a rating in the United States. But now Neon has sent the film to the various awards season judges. This film may not be recognized by mainstream awards such as the Oscars in the United States, because the content it shows is too dark, a bit similar to last year's "Hotel Mumbai" (Hotel Mumbai), although everyone who has seen it is shocked, but in the end it can only be Bypass the awards season and wait for a quiet release next spring.
I saw a lot of places full of hope, and occasionally saw a completely desperate one, which was very shocking.
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