When it comes to vampires, the first thing that comes to our mind is "eternal life" and "bloodthirsty nature". For "eternity", it is often used by "love", and the two cooperate to highlight the conflict between life and emotion and the yearning for eternal love in human hearts. In the movie "Four Hundred Years", Count Dracula lost his beloved, Elizabeth, in an expedition, and was extremely regretful, and turned into a vampire to save love and the memory of his lover. Four hundred years later, Elizabeth was reincarnated as Mina, and the two met again on the streets of London. Due to their fate and mutual bond, they fell in love and could not resist. In the movie, the vampire Dracula turned into a wisp of smoke and came to Mina's bedroom, saying, "Then, I will immortalize you and give you lasting love... Come with me until the end of our immortal life. ”, Mina also begged him to transform himself into a vampire, only to ask the two to be together forever, back to the end of time.
However, lasting love alone is not attractive enough. The "bloodthirsty nature" of the vampire itself endows it with evil and dark qualities. To fall in love with a vampire means to suffer a departure from noble and worldly values. Mina made such a choice in "Four Hundred Years". When Dracula told Mina her true identity, Mina recalled that he was the murderer of her friend Lucy and resented him. Extremely, but still said "I love you, God forgive me, I love you... I want to be like you, see what you see, and love what you love." Painfully asked Dracula to bring her into another The world, where there is love and eternal life, is full of sin and darkness. However, out of love, Dracula was reluctant to let her lose her life and go into evil. This dilemma, the situation of being separated by a human and a ghost, vividly describes the entangled and painful psychology of both parties in sinful love. In the movie "Never Come Near", the vampire is a girl. He is 12 years old, but he has been 12 years old for many years. The relationship between her and the boy Oscar is also the same. The time is set in modern America. The vampire Ellie is wanted on the charge of a murderer. Oscar is very disappointed and frightened of her after knowing the truth of the matter, but Ellie still has to kill in order to prolong her life. Choose to flee with her. Whether it is the value judgment of religion or the legal judgment of modern society, the feelings of vampires are always separated from the two. It is not beautiful, but it is extremely pure. At this level, love is once again elevated, transcending morality and the mundane, creating an emotional utopia of a two-person world for us.
Love, which transcends time and space, morality and secular judgment, has become pure and uncompromising. In the final analysis, it is related to the individualistic culture of Westerners. Chinese love is often the life of the parents, according to the matchmaker, the cause of love tragedy is often " The beginning is chaotic and the end is abandoned" - warns lovers that love cannot last long without a combination that conforms to the basis of etiquette. The love shown in vampire movies is very different. Emotions are magnified as a normal human need, and then magnified again. After abandoning everything, they become as holy and pure as the relationship between Adam and Eve.
In addition, vampires are also the perfect platform for a literary "love and death" motif. The peak of passion is often accompanied by the thrill of imminent death. Vampires mingle in the crowd, attacking the prey in an ambiguous atmosphere, and the prey welcomes death at the moment when erotic and sexual desires are satisfied. In "Interview with the Vampire", the vampire Lester chooses a beautiful woman or a prostitute in the upper class to start, all of which first perform seduction and charm, and finally anesthetize her in a deep kiss on the woman's neck, and smother her. She leads to the abyss of death.
At such a moment, the vampire's desire for blood is combined with erotic desire and sexual desire, and the desire is infinitely exaggerated and linked with sin, which creates the position of aestheticism - only seeking the infinite satisfaction of desire, ignoring morality and the lives of others. "Interview with the Vampire" is a typical example of exploring the point of view of aestheticism. Louis, who had no expectation of life due to family changes, met Lester, a vampire from Paris. Lester turned him into a vampire, but he still maintained his "search for meaning" and "life". Awe" has always refused to take the initiative to kill, but as a vampire, born to be a killer, the tear of identity and soul makes Louis feel "alive but hell is everywhere". The search for good and evil becomes meaningless, and pleasure becomes the sole purpose and meaning of life. This kind of thinking has been extended from ancient times to modern times, from Europe to America, along with the footprints and life of vampire Louis. The endowment of this symbolic meaning can be said to be a big breakthrough for vampire movies, giving vampires a deeper and broader connotation.
In the film "Never Come Near", the connotation of vampire movies has been further expanded. The special identity of a vampire is highlighted. The girl Ellie is a vampire. Out of instinct, she lives by killing and sucking blood, so she has to consciously isolate herself from the crowd and live a solitary life; she is often bullied at school. Oscar is also not gregarious. By chance, two people who are separated from each other meet. They play the Rubik's cube together and become friends, but the truth will be revealed sooner or later. The result of the exposure is not that Oscar abandons Elle and leaves , but two people desperate to preserve the beauty of friendship and keep each other company. This kind of warm movie is not uncommon in American movies. It is not difficult to remind us of the classic movie "This Killer Is Not Too Cold", the vampire Ai Rei plays the role of the "killer", while Oscar plays the role of Mathilde, a homeless little girl. Their mutual snuggling makes the world and life full of meaning. The excavation of this kind of meaning actually has a clue in the vampire classic "Four Hundred Years": when Mina asked Dracula who he really was, he replied with inferiority: "I am nothing, no Life, no soul, all people hate me, fear me, I'm dead in this world... Listen to me, I'm a monster everyone sees and kills, I'm Dracula." This kind of eternity The loneliness makes us feel pity, and the arrival of love makes both sides feel unbearable. However, under the shroud of emotion and the background of warmth, the loneliness and inferiority of the crowd due to being different have all vanished, and the mutual warmth of the marginalized people also makes the warmth especially precious and touching.
It can be said that vampire movies have been endowed with different meanings in different eras and different cultural contexts. "Four Hundred Years" was filmed in 1992 (the original book was written in 1897); "Interview with the Vampire" was filmed in 1994; Different sides excavate the image of the vampire. From the relationship between love and sense of justice, to the contradiction between desire and morality, to paying attention to marginal groups and praising the warmth of the world.
In addition, in addition to the cultural accumulation of original images and the vast imagination space, there is another reason that makes vampire movies very popular, which is its film style with great aestheticism and horror characteristics. The combination of blood red and death black has become a classic combination of red and black. The beauty of eroticism and the fear of death approaching bring a gothic psychedelic color to the vampire movie, with classical lace and aristocratic style. The dark, mysterious, morbid psychological performance, and the symbolic language lines make the life of the vampire movie like a vampire, and it will last forever.
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