Pretty ugly
"The Hunt for Bin Laden" is a journalistic film, a film about the bin Laden hunt, and it's brutal and has a hard ending.
It's the most challenging Hollywood movie since The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow became the first female director in Oscar history to win the Best Director award after beating ex-husband James Cameron with "The Hurt Locker."
"The Hunt for Bin Laden" is about 2 hours and 30 minutes long. The English title "Zero Dark Thirty" is actually a military term that refers to 30 minutes after midnight, and is also intended to evoke the grief that has enveloped the past 10 years. At the beginning of the film, it was a long period of darkness, only to hear one after another cries for help echoing in the collapsed World Trade Center. Experienced a complex episode of detainee humiliation, waterboarding and other torture until bin Laden was shot and killed by SEALs at his Pakistani home in the early hours of May 2, 2011. Locations for the film include India and Jordan.
Combining harsh historical reality with a passionate cinematic narrative is what director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Pohl are determined to achieve in The Hunt for Bin Laden. Different from general military action films, the director and screenwriter chose to tell the whole story through the perspective of a female intelligence officer who secretly participated in the pursuit operation, Maya. She joined the pursuit of bin Laden as a CIA airborne agent and saw many The inside story of counterterrorism, including the horrific torture and extortion of al-Qaeda prisoners, even aroused the dissatisfaction of the acting director of the CIA, Morell, who accused him of exaggerating the importance of intelligence obtained through torture. But Bigelow believes: "As a human, I want to cover my eyes; however, as a director, in order to tell the story faithfully, I feel a responsibility to record and witness these moments, and to overcome my own unease."
At the beginning of the film , the subtitles will prompt you that this is "first-hand information based on real events".
Despite the fact that Bigelow and Pohl focus on facts, they also say that "The Hunt for Bin Laden" is still a thriller, not the kind of documentary that can stand up to serious examination by historians. For example, the film focuses on the experiences of a young American intelligence agent named Maya, played by Jessica Chastain. The setting of this main line is mainly considered from the needs of the film, rather than from the perspective of historical inevitability.
Incomparably advanced
Compared with other Hollywood movies of the same theme, "Hunting Bin Laden" is more like a thriller. But it's not that factor that makes the film perfect, it's the director's totally human narrative perspective. She brought down the altar of war movies with strong political criticism and a sense of mission in the past, thus focusing the lens on the individual experience of ordinary staff in the pursuit. The director herself isn't supportive of the fight, but in this film, she'll be applauding the exploits of these ordinary characters.
The heroine of this film, Jessica Chastain, propped up a tight-paced and rigorous story by herself, not only with tragic but also with dark humor. Such a story can easily see traces of film and television works such as "The Hurt Locker" and "Homeland Security". "I believe that I am alive to complete this mission." This is what the heroine of the film said to her comrades in arms, and then she left the bulletproof car and started working with full attention. On more than one occasion in the film, her on-screen tension spills over from the screen as she tackles assignments.
Catherine Bigelow, 57, has a peculiar ability to easily create a world that was meant to be a man: a world of machinery, alcohol violence, and camaraderie between men. Perhaps it was because she was a woman that she was able to perceive the weakness and unease that the man's strong and calm surface concealed.
The director tries a narrative that has the best of both worlds in the film. Part of the time, she shoots with a hand-held camera, which successfully creates a scene that is close to reality, allowing the audience to experience the intense tension of the scene. For example, the infrared camera rushing into the Pakistani mansion is completely like taking the audience directly to the scene to hunt down. At the same time, she gives the audience ample opportunity to understand the characters in the film, so that the audience can feel the same regardless of the fear of the characters or the solemnity of facing new tasks.
Technology isn't the only factor that takes movies out of the juggling aspect and into the realm of art. It's more about the art of how to tell a story. No matter how dazzling technology, it can't be called a "good movie" without a good story as its ontology. From this perspective, Katherine Bigelow has completely taken off the hat of "James Cameron's ex-wife".
Although this film has caused many disputes, for a film with bin Laden as the protagonist, it just needs more angle of audience interpretation, in order to map our current mainstream cultural direction, in order to let everyone think about counter-terrorism and even personal career issues.
There's nothing entertaining about this movie, but it's a huge shock to you. The power of film will eventually affect you, and you will be captivated by the power of images and art.
as a great female director. She once wrote her name, Katherine Bigelow, in vermilion big letters in the annals of the best director at the Oscars. For the first time, a woman was included in the annals of world-class directors. Now, no one can ignore her strength and energy, not even God.
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