PS: Lots of spoilers.
At the beginning of the film, a pair of seriously sagging breasts appeared in front of my eyes, and then the camera stretched to the body of the obese naked woman scratching her head. I couldn't help gasping (forgive me for being a conservative person). I have an uncontrollable disgust and discomfort for the fat that overlaps and goes out of shape like swimming rings, and the honeycomb-shaped fat lines at the junction of the legs and hips. The amazing thing is that, with the advancement of time, from the initial panic, I gradually became able to calm down and appreciate it, and finally felt that the beginning had an indescribable beauty.
The heroine, Susan, is a successful artist. The reason why her success can be seen is because she lives in a big house that people will be amazed at, with servants and housekeepers, but her house is beautiful, but there is no trace of people, and even the movies are matched with cool colors. .
The beginning of the film is actually part of her art exhibition, intended to satirize today's Junk Culture. I'm not quite sure about the connection of the shots, but I remember there were a few shots at the beginning. They shot the viaducts that were gradually built up, twisting and winding, intertwined, and prosperous cities brightly lit at night, and compared with the theme of Susan's art exhibition, Junk Culture, the blank space here may have a very clever meaning behind it.
Susan received an email from her ex-husband Edward. As soon as her husband appeared, I heard the foreign girl next to me take a deep breath subconsciously. I looked at the face on the screen and couldn't help but admit that he was indeed a handsome guy. With a big house, housekeepers and servants, high society, a successful art exhibition, a successful artist, and a beauty, Susan's life seems to be perfect and happy.
When the husband learned that Edward sent Susan his novel, he said: "I didn't know he could write." The tone clearly revealed the irony of the elites on Loser. It's just that such an elite is facing a situation that is about to go bankrupt. As well as Suan's accusation of her husband's indifference, and her husband's unconcerned infidelity, all imply that Susan's life is not really happy and perfect.
I have to say that the switching of several shots in the movie is very beautiful and symmetrical, the visual effects are rich and colorful, and the use of music is just right.
The most memorable scene is when the male protagonist Tony and the police officer in the novel found the bodies of his wife and daughter. The two white bodies were placed symmetrically on the red sofa. The bright red set off the fairer skin. They faced each other. Her hair hides her face, like a 19th-century oil painting. In the next second, the scene switched, Susan's daughter and her boyfriend were lying together, in the same posture and naked, and I was amazed.
At the beginning of the film, a two-line plot was adopted, with Susan at the current stage on one side and the content of the novel on the other. As the plot progresses, the memories of Susan and Edward are gradually added, and it becomes three parallel lines.
Since I didn't know anything at first, I didn't know that the film was directed by Tom Ford, nor that it was written by him, nor that it was adapted from Austin White's "Tony and Susan", with a completely one-of-a-kind film. I don't know, just attracted by the wonderful trailer, I've been waiting to reveal Susan's true face during the movie, like she has the ability to regenerate, like she's a vampire, like she's some kind of possessive Heterogeneous with peculiar abilities, until the last 30 minutes of the movie, I was still looking forward to the reversal, after all, there were several gimmicks in the movie.
1. Susan's conversation with a friend at a party, her friend said, "Are you okay? You scared me the last time we talked." Susan looked blank, like she didn't remember having this at all thing.
2. She has no memory of the art painting in the gallery that says 'Revenge', but her colleague said: "This is when the gallery opened, you bought it yourself, did you forget?" And Susan's expression at this moment Also like the first.
3. Susan was watching the footage of her colleague's mobile phone monitoring the baby at home, but suddenly a scary grimace appeared (a lot of people screamed in the whole movie hall at that time), she was in a trance at the meeting, and a psychiatrist appeared screen.
All this made me think that Susan is special (like Park Chan-wook's "Stoke"), but the reversal I expected never came. Then when the lights in the theater turned on, I watched the name of Tom Ford play on the big screen. I was stunned, and I heard the girl next to me say to my partner, "So that's it?!"
My mood was the same: " Are you fu**ing kidding me?"
And when I walked to Starbucks, sat down and started to sort out the plot, I gradually realized the essence of the movie: Edward, who held a grudge against his ex-wife Susan for cheating, described his ex-wife, her ex-husband in the novel. The daughter he gave birth to with the current one died, and told her This book is delicated to Susan.
Thinking about it this way, I suddenly felt that this movie is very interesting, especially in combination with Edward's novel.
Edward, like the hero Tony in the novel, is a cowardly but kind person.
Susan once thought that it was impossible for him to become an artist, but Edward always encouraged her, thinking that it was not that she could not become an artist, but that she did not have the courage to challenge, which shows that he is a kind person. It's just that Edward, as Susan's mother said, 'He is a weak man.' He has been pursuing to become a novelist, but no one cares about what he writes, and he has never even gotten a serious job after getting married for many years. Will bury his head in writing books at home, and rely on his wife to support the family. As for the content of Edward's novel, Susan once said 'Maybe you should focus less on yourself.' Personally, I think this is a foreshadowing. For the foreshadowing of the content of the novel, she thinks that the content of her husband's novel is too egocentric. I don't know if I still think this way after "Nocturnal Animals" (the title of the novel).
Speaking of Tony, the male protagonist of the novel, he flinched at the provocation of the young hooligans, and did not dare to resist; when his wife and daughter were forcibly taken away, he was thrown into the wilderness, and the young hooligans made a lot of remarks. , he chose cowardly to hide; knowing that his wife and daughter were raped and then killed, he left tears of remorse countless times. But that didn't change him. Under the seemingly calm face that the police officer brought the suspects and hooligans, he was still the fearful and incompetent coward. When he finally fired that shot, the audience sighed "Yes!" and "Finally!" one after another in the auditorium. One can imagine how depressed the audience was for Tony's cowardice.
Assume that the characters in the novel are contrasted in real life.
Edward=Tony
Susan=wife
Susan and current daughter=Daughter
Tony's wife and daughter were killed in the novel, in reality this represents Edward's hatred for Susan, he found out about her cheating, maybe also found out that she was cheating He lost his own children, so he hated Susan and his current husband's children as well. He wrote her and her daughter to death.
So what about the rogues in the novel? And what about the police officers who are willing to kill with their own hands in order to achieve justice? My open-minded speculation may be rogue = incumbent? Police officer = someone Edward wants to be but can't be?
Tony in the novel finally dies.
Likewise, Edward's love is dead.
Tony had his revenge.
Similarly, Susan felt sorry for what she had done to hurt her ex-husband. Maybe she felt nostalgic about her past. Maybe she wanted to take revenge on her current husband who cheated on her. Love restaurant, but his ex-husband let go of the pigeon.
In fact, it can't be said that the pigeons were released, and the ending was open-ended, but Susan waited from the restaurant full of people until it was empty. Personally, I am inclined that Edward will not come.
After all, when Susan emailed him, the tone was cautious, but Edward's reply was only: "Dear Susan, when and where?" The reply was too succinct, and there was no formal signature. To write a novel like that, I don't think Edward forgave Susan, he still hates her.
The contrast between Weak and Strong about the sexes in the movie is superficial, the class collision between idealists and realists, the interweaving of the cold real world and the illusory western desert of the novel, I personally feel that the theme is not deep enough, but it can actually be done again. Further discussion, Tom Ford's use of the lens to tell a story is surprising enough to be strengthened.
As for why the movie is called Nocturnal Animals, the explanation given in the movie is that Susan has insomnia. Edward once jokingly called her Nocturnal Animals, and the name of the novel is also called Nocturnal Animals. I think the explanation is a bit far-fetched, and I hope you can answer it on your behalf.
PS: Tom Ford is very keen to use the character's expression changes to infer psychological feelings. Whether it is Amy Adams or Jake Gyllenhaal, they show meticulous emotional acting skills with those blue eyes.
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