Beijing Film Festival saw the movie "The Lobster", and became interested, not only because of the mad love of crayfish, but also because of its distinctive temperament as mentioned in the introduction. Utopia movies. This type of movie is quite rare in the total number of movies, so it's still quite curious.
"The Lobster" reflects a very special society. Adults in the city are only allowed to have spouses. If a person loses a spouse, is in love or the other party dies, they are not qualified to stay in this happy place. In Brave New World, he/she must be forced to go to a resort hotel on the outskirts of the city. There are 45 days here. You can try to find someone to match you. There is no gender limit, but the principle of matching is certain. It is necessary to find common ground, for example, they are all cruel, or they are all lame, or they both love nosebleeds for no reason. If they can't find a spouse within this time, they will become some kind of animal designated by you when you enter the hotel. The male protagonist in the movie just chose the lobster, an aquatic animal, thinking that it has a lifespan of 100 years and has strong mating ability. That's how this seemingly dark and absurd movie got its name. Of course you want to escape, that's impossible, there are surveillance and guards everywhere. Besides, where do you want to escape? There is no single person in the city, in the wilderness? Probably. If you are paired with someone pretending to have something in common, and being found to have a harsher punishment, you'll immediately turn into an animal, ravaged or killed by other animals.
This city and this hotel refuse to be single, so in fact, there are so many single people in this world who don’t want to live or become animals, what should I do? Naturally, he couldn't go in the city, he could only escape to wander in the vast forest. But the forest is also dangerous. First of all, the paired people in the hotel organize every day to go out hunting with shotguns. Every time you kill a single person in the forest, you can get one more day to breathe without turning into an animal. Of course, the more, the less sense of crisis. In addition to this, the forest also has its strict laws. Single people cannot fall in love, cannot be ambiguous, and can only maintain the relationship of independent individuals. If they are found, they will be punished by cruel death. So the forest is another scary world.
The story begins with a middle-aged male protagonist who has lost his spouse. There are all kinds of people in the hotel, some old people who are dying, and some people of the age of flowers. Some people are desperately looking for someone to match, and some people are unwilling to die. Every day is accompanied by flowers, wine and music that look like a resort, but everyone's heart is suppressed to the point of eruption. The male protagonist escapes from the hotel after an accident and runs to the forest of singles, where he meets a heroine (starring Rachel Weisz), has a relationship, and then waits for their fate?
When I watched this movie, although the expression was dark and humorous, and there were many absurd details in it, it made people chill after watching it. This type of society is no stranger to reading the famous dystopian novels Brave New World and 1984.
"Brave New World" is that British writer Aldous Huxley built a perfect world around 2050 relying on modern genetic technology and technology, starting from the multi-child fetuses produced by factory mass production. Types of technical manipulation, grading people into various categories serving society, divided into five levels from high to low: α Alpha β Beta γ Gamma δ Delta ε Ipsilon, the top is the ruler, the most The following are low-level industry service providers. Society provides various resources, love and sex are also free, but reproduction is not free, because it can be industrialized and mass-produced and can control specifications and personality at the same time. The most important thing in this beautiful world is to provide an important thing "Summona" on time and in quantity every day. As long as you eat or forcibly inject this kind of thing, any negative emotions such as troubles, irritability, pain, sadness, depression, etc. will disappear, just like going to Elysium vacations, so people live in a happy and peaceful environment. Although people are of different levels, there is no injustice, because you don't need to think about anything, you take it for granted, so you can't think of anything, because you have been trained hundreds of thousands of times in the process of being a fetus and an infant. A standardized "person" coming off the factory line. Of course, there are occasionally some accidents. For example, a fetus on a certain line may inject a large amount due to the operator's personal reasons, such as alcohol, which will cause individual fetuses to develop slightly different, and their personality is a little bit irritable. Here comes the story of conflict.
"1984" is a society in 1984 imagined by British author George Orwell in 1948. This society is divided according to political power, such as inner party members, outer party members, proletarians, etc. The first type of people is The autocratic and centralized ruler, the second type of people do various cooperation services for the party, and the third type is the main group of people being ruled. The main task of this regime is to constantly revise history to conform to today’s status quo and destroy all mistakes; at the same time, everyone observes double thinking: on the one hand, they keep telling all kinds of lies, while at the same time believing their own lies; then the government also invents a simplified new language system to eliminate existing culture. Under the pervasive supervision system, mainly the telescreen technology surveillance system and the ubiquitous "thought police", they mingle with ordinary people, you don't know who they are, and they may even be children who are being raised and don't understand shit. , Everyone's words and deeds are all controlled by the centralized government headed by "Big Brother", there are electric eyes and spies everywhere, everyone is cautious, because one day they suddenly disappear, and your information is blocked. All emptied like you never existed in the world. And the most terrifying thing here is that the regime has all kinds of horrible ways to make you disappear any thoughts and beliefs. What is written in it is very scary, and it is creepy after reading it. Of course, there are also special minded and willed rebels who are never willing to submit to this system, that is, the protagonist in this book, however. . .
Then again, "The Lobster" is such a dystopian film that concentrates on the above two. It only tells the story with the choice of whether to have a spouse as an entry point. The city looks very happy and peaceful. Adult men and women must show proof that they really have a spouse and that you have a happy life to be worthy of staying in this city, otherwise they will be forcibly sent away by the police. In the matching hotel in the extension area of the city, there is also a peaceful atmosphere of singing and dancing, although beneath the surface is the fear that is to be suppressed and exploded - without a spouse, you are not qualified to be a human being. If you escape into the forest, you have the freedom to be single, but you only have the freedom to be single, and there is no freedom to love each other at all. Otherwise, you will be mutilated or killed by the system in the same way. an animal. So no matter which district you are in, you are not qualified to be who you want to be, you can only be the category that is required under this system. Although the female protagonist Rachel Weisz has a charming smile, it is impossible to be truly beautiful under this system. The supporting actress, the forest boss, is the blue-haired actress in "The Life of Adele", and her eyes It still looks a little mysterious and weird, which is quite in line with the tone of this movie. .
So this is a scary-looking movie. Horror is not a visual horror caused by the blood of the scene. There is basically no horror in it. Horror is a psychologically depressing horror, just like the two dystopian novels brought to everyone. I feel like there is something that controls this society like a ghost, so that you can’t escape, you can’t choose to be the person you want to be, have your own free personality, free mind, free action, free choice, You can't even choose to be a person, you just look like a person, and you lose all the characteristics of being a free person. If you have thoughts that go beyond the system, don't obey the restrictions of the system, or even change accidentally. became an inhuman animal, even a corpse.
In this film, and in the two famous novels associated with it, the hero and heroine can't stand what the system imposes on themselves, whether it's a beautiful world that looks rich but you can't have emotions and thoughts, or looks calm and peaceful but You have no other way to go in a world of authoritarianism, and they fight against this world of authoritarianism that behaves differently, and they all hit the pebble with the pebble. Or really understand that there is no freedom or death. The most frightening thing about being imprisoned is not the body, but the mind. In a society like the one above, man becomes nothing but a machine that operates according to time and rules. True freedom is not what you want, but what you don't want and what you don't want.
Of course, this is an allegorical movie and a cautionary tale. Maybe we can be thankful that such a society does not exist around us, but to a certain extent, this situation is not uncommon. For example, I gave You and I think the best things, why don't you buy them, don't feel happy, don't feel grateful? I set such a rule to make you less detours and less mistakes to train you to become better people? In fact, it is not necessarily just the ruler of the society. Whether ordinary people are just parents, leaders of enterprises, or compilers of some kind of system, in fact, this can be a thoughtful reference. If a group, a family, and a society only reflect the will of very few people, the thought and will of killing others with similarities and differences, this is scary enough to think about.
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