Polanski's film "The Shadow Writer" also captures this essence and explores what happens to those who stray in. In the film, Ewan McGray plays a shadow writer, like his code name "Ghost", who hides behind the scenes and writes memoirs for celebrities from all walks of life. Until one day, the ghost was given a new assignment to help retouch the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Long. Previously, the book was in charge of Adam Lang's assistant Mike McCalla during his tenure, but McCalla mysteriously committed suicide. While writing the book, Adam was charged with war crimes, and a political storm loomed. And the ghost also began to deliberately explore Adam's unknown past and the reason for McCala's death, but he didn't know that this would lead him to a dangerous path... From this perspective, there are still many movies of the same kind, such as Akira Kurosawa's "Shadow" Samurai", the protagonist who is also "Shadow", ends up dying. In fact, Polanski's "The Pianist" is very similar to "Shadow Warrior", except that one is about a pianist who strayed into the war, and the other is a warrior who strayed into the war. And "Shadow Writer" is not a war movie after all, but a "suspense movie" that moves IQ, telling stories around detours and creating a gloomy atmosphere - after all, it is Polanski's deep work.
Would there be any fun with a writer and a group of conspiratorial politicians on a desolate island? Of course not, the "shadow writer" as an outsider cannot communicate normally with anyone on the island, including the British Prime Minister. He wrote an autobiography for the British Prime Minister, but the job was really boring. First, the Prime Minister's extremely insincere attitude made him disgusted. Then the hotel room he lived in was secretly searched, and he moved into the Prime Minister's villa and lived in the Prime Minister's house. The room of the previous "shadow writer" (the ghost writer is dead). He found a package of photos when he was cleaning his room, then he was seduced by the Prime Minister's wife, and after this one-night stand, he decided to go back to the hotel. At this point in the story, this writer is eager to finish this autobiography as soon as possible. Although he was in the position of an outsider, he didn't actively want to get involved in this group, he just couldn't work with peace of mind.
The more he tried to get the job done as soon as possible, the more difficult it was, he found some secrets in the photos, but he couldn't figure out what those secrets were, he was confused, he left the island and drove to visit the people in the photos, but was followed , he got rid of the tracking, but it was too late to return to the island. The desperate writer makes a phone call behind the photo, and next, he knows all the secrets... (suspense films always give answers at the end) Knowing too much is not necessarily a good thing, although in such a fictional story, The protagonist still places his sustenance on "curiosity". The most seemingly idle outsider becomes the decipherer of the truth.
The absurd lies in the indifferent rationality of the protagonist after he discovers the secret; and the rationality lies in his perceptual behavior of exposing the secret. At the end of the movie, the shadow writer was invited to attend the "autobiography" conference. He actually wrote the secret on a note and passed it on to the person who wanted to cover up the secret the most. This behavior is both ridiculous and cute. He was quite proud of this, and then he ran to the street, as if he had regained his freedom, a state of weightless freedom that was exactly what Camus said: "How many people have committed crimes simply because they cannot bear evil." However, immediately , he was also assassinated.
"Shadow Writer" is not actually a story about a knifeman as seen on the surface, or even, it is not a story. A non-existent person tells a non-existent story. Polanski's message is hidden in every little detail and every line of dialogue—there's a lot he wants to say, but it's certainly not the story itself. What is the secret in the movie? I think I should shut up. Knowing too much is not necessarily a good thing. Camus told all the secrets of human beings and asked him to go.
(Published in "100 Days of Holidays")
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