Friday words: First of all, this 2018 Italian film "The Kennel" (formerly known as Dogman) won the best actor at the Cannes Film Festival, which I think is well-deserved. But this honor is not only due to the actor's acting skills - in addition, the actor in the film as a "axis" of the film plays an important role in the frame and the rhythm of the paragraph. Therefore, I think that if you understand the personality characteristics of the protagonist of this movie, you will understand the structure and level of the movie and the intention of the director;
Secondly, the Chinese translation of "The Kennel Fright" is disgusting, and the disgust has produced a "genre film" misleading to Chinese audiences. Just imagine, those who watch this movie with the mentality of "Home Alone", "Straw Dog" and "Chainsaw" are not disappointed;
Again, in terms of "the gray area between good and bad, beauty and ugliness", this "Dogman" is much more extreme than "The Thief Family".
(Note: This article contains a lot of spoilers, please read as appropriate
Plot review: A divorced single man who runs a pet care shop for a living, because he was friends with a rogue, he did not hesitate to abduct or even be beaten, take the blame, and offend his friends; in order to make his daughter happy, he betrayed his brother and went to jail; After he was released from prison, in order to get his share of the stolen money back, he dared to provoke the rascals that no one in the community dared to provoke. Returning to his friend's trust, he changed the plan of destroying the corpse and dragged the corpse back to the public...
After reading the above retelling, some people will question: what is this "plot"! That's right, the character of the protagonist of this movie is the "plot" of the movie, the social relationship of the protagonist is the "structural framework" of the movie, and the behaviors he makes in the face of problems are the movie. the "paragraph" . Therefore, this is a pure "anti-genre film" that tells the story and expounds the director's ideas with the human axis as the axis.
With this understanding, let's first analyze each paragraph in the film one by one. Through these analysis, you will find out how complicated and ambiguous the right and wrong are in the micro-society . Later, we will look at the relationship between "rhythm" and "progressive" hidden in these paragraphs in the film.
1. The "friendship" of dog men
The dog man's "friend view" is the most interesting part of this movie: you say he is making friends for profit, but every time it involves sharing the spoils, he can hardly get any benefits, and a fool can see that is playing tricks on him and bullying him;
You say he was forced to make friends because he was cowardly, but he smashed the other party's luxury car in a fit of anger after he didn't get the money from his accomplice (you know, the other party is a rogue that no one in the community dares to mess with) ;
You said that he made friends with a pretense, but after the rogue was shot by the enemy, he could carry his "friend" to the rescue without hesitation;
In the end, you said that he has no moral bottom line, but even if the scumbag is already under his control, he still apologizes for his disqualified behavior towards his friends and wipes his wounds...
On the other hand, if one of the "friends" in our lives has no interest in ourselves, or that person is a complete "scumbag" under the mainstream morality, or that person will affect our "word of mouth", we will still Do you consider this person your friend? Not to mention that such a person would threaten his own life.
From this point of view, the "friend concept" in the eyes of the dog man is too pure, so pure that he doesn't care whether your friend is good or bad, and what you do is right or wrong. Will making such a friend affect his reputation... All he can think about is maintaining good relationships, making money, and maintaining the most basic of life (both others and himself).
This is the dog man's "friend view"!
Second, the dog man's "family"
The dog man's family scene in this movie is very simple, that is, his relationship with his daughter. In addition, whether his brother or his ex-wife, the director handled it extremely simply and vaguely. Let's take a look at the scenes between father and daughter: Through the plot, we know that the dog man has no custody of his daughter, and can only meet with his daughter with restrictions. And it seems that the "failed father" and his youngest daughter are doing well - they laugh and play together, participate in pet makeup contests together, go to sea together, dive together...
In fact, if we think about it carefully, it is not difficult to find that the dog man actually does this to everyone around him. In his own words: he hopes that everyone in the community is well. Not only wishing everyone well, he presumably wished the best of every dog in the community! Think about how he could go back to rescue the dog that was frozen in the refrigerator after burglary with others...
Think about how many such "good guys" we have in our lives, they have no money, no power, no beauty, no good words, they don't have strong bodies or irritable courage, their only weapon to survive in this society is " "Good old man" style and mentality - no one should be offended. Note that "not offending people" here is by no means the same as "attaching to the trend".
Naturally, the dog man is equal to everyone. If it has to be said that it is not equal, then only he may pay a little more to his daughter, even if it is jail, even if it is humiliation. For him, an ideal is an ideal. In order to collect money from the Red Sea for his daughter, he doesn't care what means he uses to achieve this ideal.
That's right, the "ideal" of the dog man is also pure!
Speaking of which, let’s talk about the performance of the male protagonist Dog Man : In fact, there are only two expression packs for him—the one who barks his teeth and the one who doesn’t bark his teeth.
His paralyzed performance reminds me of "Lee (Casey Affleck)" in "Manchester by the Sea", but the latter also has a crying scene, and the dog actor (Marcello) ) Almost didn't even shed a tear and still won the grand prize! Compared with those crying and screaming actors in our court drama, what's the difference? This is a question worth thinking about.
Don't go too far, then look down--
3. The "temperament" of a dog man
At this point, we probably have a basic understanding of the dog man's temperament (character character). I really can't think of any other words to describe him accurately except a "good old man".
You say he is timid, I don't agree. You know, he only faces a rogue friend in his life, but when he went to prison, he was a group of rogues (the police once threatened him with this), and he stayed for a year. Can you imagine how much guts it takes;
You say he is not literate, but I do not agree with him. He is very good at educating his daughter. He is very good at grasping the size of the heat, including the cover up of drug abuse and drug trafficking, including the cover up of the bruises on his face, including the language and expression;
You say he's numb and sluggish and untenable, look at his intimacy with those dogs and his daughter, what a romantic person he is.
Some people we meet in our life, he (she) is really difficult to describe with words such as kindness, ugly, timid, dull, etc., because they are in the gray area between good and bad, they have their own The rules of doing things have their own temperament and their own way of expression, but these elements cannot be labeled with those vocabulary that the mainstream society regulates.
4. The "dignity" of a dog man
After the dog man asked his rogue friend for money to no avail, and was beaten, he used a trick to trick the rogue friend into his own dog cage. Pay attention to this "little trick", which once again proves that the dog man is not the kind of stupid person with no brains, let alone some upright stunned young man! In order to regain his dignity, he can keep his head and keep his mind clear, and he can even use his own and others' weaknesses to deceive opponents to achieve his goals.
Of course, in the end, the dog man's plan succeeded, and he finally controlled the rogue in his own hands. However, it is unimaginable that such a bullied and humiliated little person was forced to do all these plans ultimately not for "revenge", but only for an "apology" in exchange for his dignity.
However, what happens to a person if he does not even have his last dignity back?
5. The "moral bottom line" of dog men
Under the desire to survive, finally, the rogue was strangled to death by the dog man with a dog chain! Afterwards, he wrapped the body, dragged it into the car, pulled it down the hillside, doused it with gasoline, set it on fire, and destroyed the body.
At this point, I think doing this thing is in line with the dog man's character - calm, calm, not impatient or impatient. You know, in this community, no one does not want that rogue to live, and no one doubts that the rogue will not be killed in the end. In other words, if the rogue dies or disappears, no one will be held accountable, not even the police. (Destroying the corpse will greatly reduce the risk of the dog man going to prison)
However, for a person who has lost family, friendship, money, dignity, and even the bottom line of morality, what's the point of not being criminally punished!
It's not so much a hallucination for the dog guy to see those old friends playing football on the court, but it's the only remaining spiritual need for him.
In the end, the dog man put out the fire on the corpse and carried the corpse to the outside of the stadium... Yes, he wanted to prove to those people that he killed the "spiky rascal" in exchange for everyone's forgiveness.
However, the stadium is empty, and in the morning, where should he go...
6. Summary (the story line of the movie)
According to the above decomposition statement of the movie characters, it is not difficult for us to draw a line:
Dog Guy Makes Friends - Dog Guy Gets Played By Friends - Dog Guy Goes To Prison For Relatives And Friends - Dog Guy Betrays Relatives And Separation - Dog Guy Asks For Money dog man lonely and helpless
This line is also what the movie plays. He does not have a complete and unified event, but isolated events and roles revolve around the character "Dog Man". And the logical progressive relationship between these isolated events is: if one thing cannot be obtained, one should retreat to seek another thing, until finally nothing is obtained. This is the status quo of our hero, and the status of the social group he represents.
At the end of the movie, I remembered the dogs that the dog man took care of - cruel, irritable, docile, indifferent... Suddenly: Isn't his attitude towards those dogs the same as his attitude towards his friends, even if that " "Dog" is a mad dog.
In this way, the dog man is not very great!
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