The great thing about "Synonyms", the winner of the Golden Bear Award, is that the film has a lot of room for interpretation. Only through the various encounters of the Israeli youth Yoav in France, he ruthlessly aimed at the European refugee problem and sharpened the unresolved contradictions. Deconstruction unfolds on the screen. However, the technique of the film is the reason why many reporters criticize it. So does such a film deserve the Golden Bear?
The refugee tide has been a topic of great concern in European films over the years, from the 2015 Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Dippin the Wandering", to the 2016 Berlin Golden Bear winner documentary "Fire at Sea", to the 2017 Berlin Silver Bear winner "The Fire at Sea" The Other Side of Hope" and the 2018 Golden Bear nominated film "Transit", European films have never stopped paying attention to refugees. At the beginning of the new year in 2019, the Israeli, German and French co-production of "Synonyms" landed at the Berlin Film Festival, bringing the topic of refugees to the forefront again, and because the film is based in part on director Nadav Rapide The personal experience of the film shows a strong practical significance.
Nadav Rapide studied philosophy at Tel Aviv University in his early years, then French literature in Paris and film in Jerusalem. In 2011, his film "Police" won the Special Jury Prize at the 64th Locarno International Film Festival. In 2014 his French-Israeli co-production The Teacher premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. As a director who is proficient in French and Hebrew and has been active in European film festivals, Rapide's "Synonyms" seems to want to use language barriers and intercommunication to tell the collision and fusion of nations and cultures, as well as his attempts to integrate into Europe. Cultural dilemmas and identity crises. (Spoilers below)
The large-scale nude scene at the opening of "Synonyms" is surprising. The male protagonist Yoav broke into a French residential apartment building, but was stolen when he was naked. He could only knock on the door of the residents frantically. The setting of this scene is very clever, because the male protagonist is of Israeli nationality, and in reality most of the refugees accepted in Europe are of Arab origin, so the reference to the male protagonist’s identity is broader, not only limited to the refugees themselves. The key in Yoav's hand seems to be his refugee status or passport, a stepping stone to open the road to escape to Europe. And after everything is lost, he has nothing, which coincides with the penniless state of most refugees fleeing the war and abandoning their homeland. All that can identify Yoav is his circumcised penis (circumcised by Judaism and Muslims), and the naked gaze of European countries symbolizes his refugee status.
Yoav is rescued by Emile and Caroline, the well-off upper class people. Emile writes, Caroline plays, her fingers are not touched by the sun, but she is compassionate and compassionate like a Virgin Mary. Emile lacks writing materials and inspiration, so he can only borrow Yoav's story to create. Europe has been far away from war and peace in recent decades, but movies about refugees have sprung up in recent years. Emile borrowed Yoav's story, like these exhausted creators, who set their sights on refugees and use their Story creation to regenerate art. The combination of Caroline and Yoav gave Yoav legal status, and Caroline also had sex with Yoav many times, which more or less alludes to the consumption of labor by immigrants in European countries. When Caroline left Yoav, she said that Yoav was just a plaything for her pleasure, and that immigration became a pastime for the Virgin to satisfy her own vanity. The irony is that Germany first hoped to introduce refugees and immigrants in the hope of increasing employment for German labor types, but never thought that since 2013, the unemployment rate of non-German people in Germany has been as high as 14%, which is 7% of Germans. The unemployment rate for immigrants from some countries of Arab origin is as high as 40%. Behind the failed policy lies the state's indifference to the lives of immigrant populations.
Rapid made a beautiful scene of Yoav eating and dancing in a nightclub. The music blared, the crowd roared, and Yoav groveled through the crowd just to get a loaf of bread. The reality of Yoav's starvation as an immigrant is embarrassing under the one-shot shot. The French beauty who danced with Yoav sang and danced, but Yoav ate the cheapest pasta every day and pretended to dance for a piece of bread. This lens has a great sound and sound, and it has become the author's favorite lens of the year.
Yoav walks through the streets of Paris, reciting synonyms. "Restriction", "restriction", "control", these words are similar in semantics but not the same, just like the alien identity that he is extremely close to but cannot assimilate. He refused to use his native Hebrew, ignoring that even Yiddish and Hebrew were intertwined within Israel for thousands of years. His memories of the army and folk songs in Israel are all he gets from his home country. Yet no matter how hard he tries to sever his ties from his home country, he still encounters the photographer's female Lebanese assistant, cut off by a long-standing hatred of Jews and Arabs. The alien label on him is an indelible mark, no matter how closely synonymous Israel and France are.
In the process of integration, the French forced Yoav into European moral concepts and customs, and put him in a cage with simple and crude judgments of "right" and "wrong". After Yoav's racial extremist friend Hector dies, Yoav realizes that anything that does not conform to European ideology will be wiped out. In a concert at the end of "Synonyms," the orchestral music and the Yoav slogan are confronted like a confrontation between Western civilization and free will. The so-called civilization is nothing but an inherent system within Western ideology, and it does not hold other voices. As soon as other voices appear, they play and talk to themselves, the two parties are not speaking the same language at all, and communication becomes ineffective. Yoav's reckless, explosive, direct indictment ripped off the skin of Western civilization, and his value as a refugee collapsed.
Even with so many metaphors, why hasn't "Synonym" won the hearts of all journalists? The author thinks that there are good sentences but no good chapters in "Synonyms", and the good sentences are reflected in the wonderful paragraphs: for example, the author likes a scene where Yoav hits the door at the end of the film. It connects the beginning and the end of the movie into a circle, symbolizing the Given the tragedy of refugee self-identity awakening, this artistic treatment is quite clever. In addition, there is a wonderful scene in which Yoav acts as a nude model for the photographer, which is a metaphor for the integration of foreigners. The so-called "civilization" is just a sugar-coated cannonball, and the aid is also for hypocritical purposes. The handling of this scene is also very dramatic and tense.
But aside from these great moments, the overall finish of the film is rough. Especially in the narrative, the text and content of the film are exceptionally fragmented and coherent, creating a serious sense of absurdity so that the audience cannot understand the motives of the actors. I have seen a few scenes and felt that it was optional, such as the wrestling of two Israeli men, which was not only abrupt but also had no practical function. And more dramas are obscure, making the audience unable to understand the metaphor normally. It can be said that the execution of "Synonyms" was a relative failure, and the low degree of completion of the film compromised the original excellent concept. In photography, too many hand-held mirrors make the rhythm of the film slightly dizzy. A scene where the Seine looks up is so simple and rude that it just shakes the camera up and down, which also reveals the director's lack of camera language.
"Synonyms" successfully captured the bear, to a certain extent, it exposed the current situation of Europe's continued attention to the refugee issue but was unable to recover, and it also satirized the ambiguous attitude and utilitarian purpose of Western civilization towards receiving refugees. After winning many films about refugees, the Berlin Film Festival still awarded the highest award to "Synonyms", which may be the combination of the jury's opinions and the overall quality of the entries. The practical significance and artistic value are still debated. In such a context, we cannot but be puzzled by the choice of the Golden Bear. But one thing is for sure, the Berlin Film Festival is getting bigger and bigger when it comes to choosing the Golden Bear. After last year's "Don't Touch Me" explored intimacy, "Synonyms" used male nudity as a symbol, threading the needle throughout the film. Such an avant-garde and bold exploration of the boundaries of the film, the Berlin Film Festival shows wood Yulin, and leads the trend of thought with the Golden Bear Award year after year.
First published in "Watching Movies and Seeing Death"
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