following opinions are all personal opinions. Welcome to Paizhuan hard, I am very hard, not afraid of Paizhuan.
Paizhuan can, please say 1234, I said 8.
Warning: There are spoilers below. Those who haven't seen it, beware.
[Similar points]: They are all popular movies this year, and they have a good reputation. All of them are the top 250 high-scoring films on IMDB this year, and they will meet at the Oscars next year (competing for different goals).
I let them fight now.
Couple and brother.
2 vs 2 is fair.
See who beat whom?
The first round [box office]:
Give the Americans a face, and start with what Americans are good at.
It's not without suspense, and Americans may not always win in the fields they are best at.
In terms of the absolute value of the box office, it is definitely "Warrior" that wins. "Warrior" is in the early 100 million mark, and "Nader and Simin" is in the early 10 million mark. 10 times the difference.
In terms of ROI, Nader and Westminster wins. The investment of the Iranian film is only 300,000 US dollars, while the "Warrior" is 30 million, a difference of 100 times.
Iranian couples earn 10 times more efficiently than American brothers.
Result: The Americans won. But the Iranians are not ashamed.
The second round [Story]:
Iran: The script of genius, magnified to the whole picture of all social classes through a family dispute, all the way conflict, all the way suspense, until the last moment. Full of dramatic details without losing overall coherence and big picture.
America: Brothers Showdown is the story's golden selling point. The film is divided into two parts, the first half is a foreshadowing, father and son conflict, family conflict, workplace conflict, brewing emotions for the fight in the second half. But after watching it for 20 minutes, I knew that it must be a duel between brothers in the end, and I also knew that my brother must win. Suspense ejaculated prematurely. As soon as the suspense is vented, the fight in the second half is time-consuming until the ending subtitles leave. The details of the story are unreasonably stacked, and they are detailed in the characters.
Result: The Iranians won.
Round 3 [Characters]:
Iran: It is almost a group-like movie. Every character in the movie is vivid, from children to the elderly, from grassroots to middle class, from nanny to teacher, from family to court. Social wide angle, people panorama. There isn't a single good guy in the film, and there isn't a single villain, just flesh and blood, a mix of angels and demons. It doesn't look like a character from a made-up movie story. great.
United States: The image of the older brother is the most vivid, supported by the tragedy of the family. The younger brother's play, involving wars and widows, is far-fetched to win money (so I guess he must lose). The image of the father is a bit fake, too weak, and does not match the image of the former tough guy who beat his wife and beat his son. The scene in the casino was scolded by his son, and he didn't even put a P. The headmaster's image is a clown. The wife's change is too fast, and she will change after a phone call. There are also a bunch of SB students dancing. These are all things that come out of the assembly line of the Hollywood screenwriting machine. Only the character of the older brother is more complete and credible.
Result: The Iranians won.
Round 4 [Performance]:
Iran: All of them are wonderful, and they are all at the level of extras (the highest level in my opinion), completely without trace. Both leading actors and actresses won the Silver Bear for their performance at the Berlin Film Festival. But according to my impressions, the two of them are not the best performers. The nanny's husband. Acting a grassroots, unemployed, being bullied, still pretending to be dignified in the family, and also talking about patriarchy to women. Anger and helplessness at the court. The thirst for money is also loaded. Both little girls are top notch. The nanny's daughter is cute, and several close-ups are the finishing touch. At the end of the parting, the big sad eyes reminded me of the signature girl of "Hope School" in our country, and there was too much content in her eyes. The daughter of the couple is actually one of the protagonists, who grasps the sensitivity and moral suffering of adolescent girls very accurately. He loves and hates his father, and even pretends to hate his mother. Also to lie and act in court, and to be naive. marvelous. The couple, the wife's play is even more brilliant. The last long shot, standing uneasy, restless, looking at my husband from a distance, I still don't want to be seen. The inner drama that I want to leave and stay depends entirely on the physical movements of the vision, which is too impressive. In addition, the judge of the court and the elderly father were impressed. The babysitter is poor, and the inner things don't come out. Difficult role to play.
United States: The acting is one of the few bright spots in Warriors, as the rest of it isn't great. All three lead actors perform well. Brother's play is the best, restrained and explosive, with a strong aura, and the complexity of his heart can be seen from his stern face. Dad's play performance is too heavy, a common problem of old Hollywood actors. Drunk and drunkenness was the highlight. Being a clown again in the fight ring feels totally wrong. It's all his own flesh and blood, flesh and blood, and there is a possibility of deadly fighting. Should he be that kind of Hollywood expression? The younger brother's plays are too few, and there are not many opportunities to shine. Finally, the one-armed fist had a pose, I remembered it, it was very shocking. It stands to reason that all three of them are expected to be nominated next year, but I predict that none of them will win the award.
Result: The Iranians won.
Round 5 [Photography]:
Iran: Hold the camera, but don't get dizzy. This is rare. The camera position is very particular, and there are many pictures with golden composition. Almost all natural light, the picture is not black. Also rare.
United States: The first half was not very impressive. The second half of the battle felt unsatisfactory. According to some people, it was much worse. What is "fight to the flesh"? Check out "Rocky" and "Raging Bull" for bloody punches. It doesn't even feel better than last year's The Fighter. Maybe there is a barbed wire fence, the camera position is not easy to place, and the field inside the circle is small.
Result: The Iranians won.
This is the punch to the flesh. "Raging Bull".
Round 6 [Music]:
No need to compare, the Americans won. Because Iranian films have no music. According to my understanding, the director did not add music in order to create the documentary style of the pseudo-documentary. Besides, the story is compact, the rhythm is fast, and there is no gap to insert music. Had to get the end credits.
Is the music of "Warrior" good? I did not think. The part of Bei Jiuzuo's entrance song is impressive, and the effect is good.
Round 7 [Director]:
Iran: The biggest feature is the unbiased perspective of God, which tells a complex story of family, society, morality, law and religion from an absolutely neutral perspective. The characters in the film are not black and white. They all have shortcomings, but they are all worthy of sympathy. This is realism and never uses the old hero mold. The director does not criticize morally or say who is right and who is wrong. All judgments of right and wrong are made through the mouths of the characters in the film, each with his own reasoning. The director watched from the sidelines and recorded silently. For a two-hour movie, the director made it in one go, turning every few minutes, and it felt fast-paced like an action movie. The suspense of the story has been updated and developed, leaving the most exciting to the end. She didn't even explain her daughter's choice in the end, it was an open ending. Leave the space for imagination and thinking to the audience.
The complex story is just the surface, the director expressed his concerns and worries about the Iranian society through too many metaphors, which is told in the theme section.
United States: As mentioned earlier, the second half of "Warrior" was a failure, and the suspense ejaculated prematurely. Not only did the audience know that the brothers would definitely meet each other for a decisive battle, but the fighting style of the brothers was also the same. three times. Nima, are you still watching this movie? I prefer the first half of the film, the literary part. The director used an hour to create a cruel suspense. The two brothers cannibalize each other, the winner takes all, the loser eats shit, and the father is in a hurry. The bloody nature of some Hong Kong gangster films in the 1980s. But it was ruined in the second half.
The director tried to add thinking about family, responsibilities, and even thinking about war in a sports film. There are many points, but he did not find a blasting point in the second half, and these ideas were wasted in vain. The connection area of the front and rear half made a quick split screen editing, which is concise and powerful. I like it.
Result: Iran won.
Round 8 [Subject]:
Iran: In fact, Iran has the same scary film censorship system as ours in China, but it is not loose, because Muslim countries have an additional layer of religious considerations. Abbas cattle? Banned. Abbas has been euphemistic enough. The director can only play metaphors like "A Serbian Movie" or our "Bullets Fly" and let the audience guess.
The following is my personal understanding: (This part of the metaphor interpretation can be skipped without affecting the conclusion of this round)
The image of his wife Simin is the incarnation of the intellectual elite in Iran, weak, but self-respecting, dissatisfied with reality, and fleeing. Like Abbas.
The image of her husband Nader is the incarnation of the reformist elites in Iran (such as Ahmadinejad), who emphasizes the sense of responsibility, toughness, in the name of truth, but is not a perfect moral person. , intentionally or unintentionally hurt a lot of people.
The image of the father is the embodiment of the Iranian motherland. There is an ancient civilization with a history of N thousand years, but it is old and confused. Full of sores.
Wife Simin said in court: "Your father is too old to recognize you."
Husband Nader said, "But I still recognize my father."
Describe the completely different attitudes of the two factions or classes towards the motherland very vivid.
The image of the nanny is the embodiment of the Iranian grassroots. Hard work, no hunger, and bullying. There is the desire to pursue money, but also to be clever, and there is moral torment, as well as religious torment and too much torment. It is boiled out, and the bulls are angry.
The image of the nanny husband is the embodiment of the Iranian opposition. NOTHING TO LOSE, I am dissatisfied, I want to make rice, but I can't do it, because they have legal weapons, and they have to compromise in the end.
The image of the two children is the personification of Iran's future. Whoever is right or wrong is the victim and hurts the most. How to go in the future is a difficult multiple-choice question. The cross street dilemma.
The director outlines the complex real and social contradictions in Iran through the complex contradictions between the metaphorical characters. No matter who is right or wrong, the one who suffers the most is the future.
If this metaphorical story is changed to the Chinese version, all Chinese people can understand it, everything is happening around us. It's just that our story is more complicated, the ending may be more unexpected, and we have no morals and no religion.
But who among our domestic directors has such a high humanistic level to express their complex feelings for the motherland through a film? Have it? Still can't do it? dare not do it?
This is a film that makes mainland filmmakers disgraced and embarrassed.
Even if this film does not do a metaphorical interpretation, from the perspective of ordinary audiences, the contradictions in the film are already rich enough to be dazzling. A long list.
The film is called "A Separation", but the divorce shown in the film is only one aspect of separation, and there are too many separations.
Separation of the country: The wife wants to emigrate abroad because she is dissatisfied with the reality. to separate from the state. (Isn't the elite in our country the same?)
The separation of classes: the couple represent the middle class, and the nanny couple represent the grassroots. The daughter recited a paragraph of the text outside the court and said the formal lines of the class contradiction. There are serious class antagonisms in Iranian society. Several details in the film show Nader's indifference and numbness to the nanny couple. "Their misfortunes are not caused by me." (Isn't it the same in our country?)
Separation of rich and poor: rich families have two cars and can hire tutors and babysitters, while poor families are collectively unemployed and have to raise and have children . (Aren't we the same?)
Separation of the law: Both the middle class and the grassroots are dissatisfied with the law. There are many explicit lines in the film. (Aren't we the same?)
Separation of religions: The female nanny needs to get approval from the Religious Authority for the babysitter to change his pants and wipe his body. Secular and religious contradictions. (This one doesn't. Our subjects don't have religion.)
Moral separation: Nader lies for his own benefit, but is morally tormented and unable to face his daughter's questions. It was a discovery of conscience that he voluntarily gave up when he gave his father a physical examination at the hospital. The nanny refuses to take money for fear that moral punishment will befall the child. The power of morality determines the direction of the story. (This one doesn't. We have little morals.)
The separation of the family: the separation of the couple, and the separation of the children. I always feel that the focus of the story is actually on the daughter. She has to match her parents to save the family from breaking up. She also has to bear moral considerations, make value judgments about who is right and who is wrong, and finally decides the fate of her life with her father or mother. Judging, the director's last long shot was brutal. Children are the future. The fate of the future is actually in the hands of our generation. What space should we leave for the future? (Aren't we faced with the same choice?)
A two-hour movie is enough to hold the critical capacity of the next "A Dream of Red Mansions", and its social wide-angle scanning range is not inferior to that of "The Godfather". And the director also pretended not to be critical, pretending to be cool as neutral.
United States: It seems that this film is to promote American-style universal values. It seems that it can't be posted on it, and there is no American-style public resistance and wording, and there is no equality and love. Only see responsibility, the responsibility of the ego. In the bones are Darwinian values, and if you want to survive, you have to kill others. It's also very American. For the sake of profit, the happiness of the small self, can give up the family or everything of the big self, the winner is the king? Then the winners label themselves inspirational, let the admirers throw themselves to the ground, and let the losers eat shit. And they also label the losers as "I love you" false Taoists. Very American.
I think it's better not to take this film as an inspirational film. It's just an entertainment film, it's a laugh at it. I am not against the entertainment of movies, entertainment is more worth having than sadness, because of scarcity. But all entertainment is short-lived, and perhaps sadness is the deepest.
Result: The Iranians won.
[Summary]: After
eight rounds, the muscular American brothers didn't take advantage and lost to the weak Iranian couple. Don't be dissatisfied, this is the result of one battle after another.
Those who are dissatisfied with this result will say that the two films are not of the same genre at all, one is a commercial film, the other is an art film.
Then I have to change the angle and talk about the status of these two films in film history.
"Nader and Simin" has set a peak in the family ethics film genre. This is a height that pioneers such as "Mrs. Kramers" and "Golden Pond" could not reach. It is not easy to be broken in a short time in the future.
"Warrior" can only be regarded as a mediocre work in the genre of combat sports films, and it is still a long way from pioneers such as "Rocky" and "Raging Bull".
In the future, movies that can surpass "Warrior" may appear next year. According to the logic of Hollywood playing cards, last year was "Fighter", this year is "Warrior", and next year will be "X Warrior"?
View more about A Separation reviews
