- the "Total Recall" film review
when I first saw the film, I was impressed by its hearty plot and rhythm, and immediately gave this sci-fi action blockbuster five stars. Watching this film again after a year, but I read a lot of intriguing life emotions from it.
People's hearts are really fragile. The male protagonist Doug is the epitome of many men in real life. His career is frustrated, his life is not good, and his husband and wife relationship is cold. When he went to Huiyi Company, he had a strong desire to completely change his life, but in such a film with such a strong action rhythm, the audience's attention was completely on the hot scene, and there was no time for further interpretation of the characters' hearts.
The extended version of the film ends with a close-up shot of Doug's arm, explaining to the audience that his identity as an agent is an illusion, which seems to be a reversal of the previous plot, but it has a deep meaning, making the interpretation of the entire story similar to the original. a fundamental difference. In such a fantasy, Doug met Melina, the girl he once dreamed of, escaped the pursuit of his wife's government organization, and even shot his wife and friends in real life, which is exactly what surrealism wants to express. The original version can only be interpreted as a sci-fi spy war film, which is also the fundamental reason why many audiences scored low marks.
In real life, Doug struggled hard day after day in the factory. After returning home, his wife had fallen asleep, and the married life was extremely cold. There is a dialogue in the film that mentions that they have been married for seven years. The phrase "the seven-year itch". Such a boring life is in sharp contrast with what Doug really wants, which leads Doug to have such a dream at the beginning of the film, dreaming that he breaks free from the shackles and runs away with Melina, but the dream will eventually wake up. , the reality is still cruel, so when he woke up from the dream, Doug did not escape successfully, and was eventually captured.
Dreaming obviously can't satisfy Doug's desire to escape from reality. At this time, his colleague Merrick introduced him to Eyre Company, so Doug's visit to Eyre is inevitable. And the conversation between the boss of Huiyi and Doug is actually very important for understanding the film. Doug believes that "an illusion, no matter how convincing, is still just an illusion." because he knows that waking up from an illusion is like waking up from a dream, and can clearly relate to Reality is different. But the boss said: "Objectively, you are absolutely right. But subjectively, I assure you, it will be the complete opposite. (You're right, objectively. But from the inside, subjectively, I assure you, it's quite the opposite entirely.)" It seems that after completing the painting, people can't tell whether it is fantasy or real.
In the subsequent fantasy, Doug shot and killed ten armed police officers. When he returned home, his wife's first reaction was disbelief. This also reflects from the side that in real life, Doug thought his wife did not trust him, even because he was difficult. Having quarreled about a major event - it is reasonable to make such a guess. Afterwards, the wife's face was hideous. Although it was a hug, Doug was suffocated. Even until the end of the film, the wife always played a role that forced her to death step by step, which better reflected that in real life, Doug I can't breathe because of the pressure from my wife's side for a long time. There is a line here that is easy to ignore, the wife said: "To tell the truth, do you really believe that a person as good as me would marry a person like you and live in such a ghost place with you? (Deep down, did you really believe? someone like me would marry someone like you, live in this shithole?)" seems to be a line designed to prove that his wife is an agent in disguise, but it actually means much more than that. Maybe they had quarreled before, and this sentence came up again and again in Doug's mind; or maybe it wasn't really the wife who was being aggressive all the time, but Doug's own inner portrayal - the wife is beautiful, and she is a government department. Staff, Doug blames himself for not being able to provide his wife with a better home environment. I have been married for seven years and have no children. What is the reason? The most important reason is that because of the busy work, I have no time to take care of the children.
In fact, what happened in the fantasy has always been developing as Doug hoped - escaping from his wife's pursuit, someone secretly leading the way, meeting the dream girl Melina, and even Melina has the same scar on her hand- — until his colleague Harry suddenly appeared as a lobbyist. Harry said that this was an accident of Huiyi, he had fallen into a coma, and Huiyi brought himself in, hoping that an acquaintance could help him get out of such an illusion, otherwise he would be trapped in this illusion forever. At this time, Melina has been teaching Doug not to believe. This scene seemed familiar again. When we make choices, we always jump out of two selves, one says to ourselves to do this, and the other says no to ourselves. Harry has a very important sentence, he said: "My words are not like what I said, because you think so. You have to understand that I am just Harry's idea, the rest is your own imagination, in fact, it is yourself (I don't sound like me, Doug, because you don't want me to. You need to realize, I'm merely the idea of Harry. The rest is supplied by your own imagination. It's really you. It's really you.)" is repeated in the last sentence to emphasize that this is all an illusion. But in the end, Doug chose to continue to follow his own desires, fantasizing that there was a loophole in Harry's lobbying - in fact, his wife was not at work - shooting Harry. Some netizens joked that this film tells us a truth: if you want to kill, kill the one who talks the most. Harry seems to be a stumbling block in Doug's search for his true self, but if we read it rationally, we will find that if Doug listened to him, he might be able to wake up, but Doug didn't. Like us, he likes things to develop in the direction he wants, even if the people around him are trying to persuade you to recognize the truth, but it is actually himself who is obsessed with it!
On the way to find the true self after Doug, the revolutionary leader Matthias said to him: "Everyone wants to know their true side, but they don't know that the answer is in the present, not the past. (It is each man's quest to find out who he truly is, but the answer to that lies in the present, not in the past.)" Matthias also has a lengthy sermon, which can be seen as Doug's self-examination. The past is in the past, we don't have to worry about what it looks like, what our heart needs to feel is the present - live in the present.
In the end, Doug heroically smashed Cole Hagen's conspiracy, and everything was so satisfying. But when everything should come to an end, his wife suddenly appeared. This is actually a signal to tell Doug that at any time, even if he is immersed in the joy of victory, he must not forget his wife and his relatives. Doug struggled, broke free, and finally shot and killed his wife. His wife fell to the ground, unable to rest her eyes, the sky was raining, and the surroundings were still cloudy. After that, the sun rose, but the rain still didn't stop. For heroic action movies, the scene of night and dawn is everywhere, and its symbolism is well known. But Doug vaguely felt that something was wrong. He took off the gauze on his arm and looked at it. He found that there was no imprint of the memory, and realized that it was all an illusion. Since this is all an illusion, in fact, according to Doug's desire, he can imagine that there is such a mark on his arm like the scar on Melina's hand, but he doesn't. He hugged Melina with a slight smile, which can generally be interpreted as being particularly pleased with such a fantasy journey. However, on the other hand, Doug's consciousness is gradually awakening, and he wants to get out of this illusion. God has always been stingy to give the world the opportunity to regain what is lost, especially death is the most cruel, and does not give anyone any chance to make up for it. In fact, the death of his wife was a huge shock to Doug. After all, he loved his wife. The pain of losing his wife was activated subconsciously. It was his motive to find out if it was a phantom or a real motive. Otherwise, Doug might have been in a coma. ——As some netizens commented, they thought that Doug was comatose in the end, but they ignored Doug's motive to see the arm marks, which showed that Doug wanted to wake up himself. Therefore, this smile also contains the excitement of his wife still. I wouldn't be surprised if there was another scene at the end where Doug woke up from his coma and hugged his wife who was waiting by his side, the fantasy was over and life had to go on. We usually feel impatient with some concerns around us, but in fact we understand that these are all out of love, and the protagonist Doug is just like us, and this fantasy gave him the courage to face reality.
The psychology of the characters revealed in the whole film with the development of the plot is probably like this, but there are still several questions worth thinking about:
1. Doug has a total of two chances to wake up from a coma. What is the difference between the two?
The previous time was when his colleague Harry broke into his fantasy. All this was going on according to his ideas, but it was interfered by external things, so he finally chose to continue, refusing to believe that it was an illusion. The last time Doug shot his wife made him wonder if it was real. This is very similar to what we usually sleep and dream about. When we dream, we generally don't want to prove whether it is a dream or not, no matter how absurd the world around us is, we are not surprised. When others want to wake us up, the dream is being sweet and naturally unwilling to wake up. But when we think it's almost time to wake up, we wake up naturally.
2. Is this a painting accident?
This is indeed a painting accident. Mainly because such fantasies are so closely integrated into Doug's life. He directly made his wife a villain. If it wasn't for an accident, according to the boss's wishes, Doug should not be able to tell the difference between the real and the fake when he wakes up. In the process of drawing memories, the part where the boss said to stop but the drug had entered the blood was true or false, which was the most intriguing. I think 80% of the stuff is true. The boss found that Doug was not suitable for such a painting, so he decided to stop. But the drug had entered the bloodstream, so Doug was still in a hallucination. As for the boss saying that he was originally an agent or something, it is estimated that the effect of the drug has made Doug begin to fantasize. Later, they asked Harry to intervene, but the intervention failed. Doug was addicted to the temptation of the illusion and couldn't extricate himself, and finally woke up until his wife died.
3. What exactly did Huiyi do?
I think the service provided by Hueyi is not just to write a good story and implant the story into the human brain, but to give consumers a background and let consumers play freely in such a background, so that the formed memories will be more reality. Therefore, the illusion created in this way is the same as the dream, and we can completely analyze it and the dream in the same way, and it is on this basis that I analyze it. Otherwise it's a failure, just a commercial with hot action scenes as its selling point, but I'd rather believe it's a good one. If the director conveyed this idea to us in a didactic form, I am afraid the audience will be less than half. The director skillfully showed it in the form of a sci-fi action film, allowing us to enjoy the visual shock in the theater, and feel the spiritual shock after watching it.
Of course, as my title said, what you don't want to believe may be the most real, maybe this is really just a non-connotative action special effect film, but I imposed such a thought wishful thinking, and I also like Like Doug, unable to wake up in such a fantasy, sink deeper and deeper...
10.28 Feelings
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