The following brief comment is more emotional and very subjective.
Similar movies are not uncommon. The illusion of freedom, pastoral and nature has been destined to be full of fantasy since Disney, but this movie does not take fantasy and alien as gimmicks. The embarrassing plot of "harmed by social humans" did not appear in the audience. Instead, it was the group of beautiful, strong and peculiar children cultivated by the protagonist Ben and his wife, in just a few small details. It proves that knowledge and sincerity are enough to be capital to move people. One is that a family of children went to stay at a relative's house and met two boys from the relative's house. Video games, tired of studying, pale skin, lifeless eyes, typical American adolescent bear children are the so-called "cool boys" at their age raised by the "normal society" and the community system, but there is no relationship between these two groups of children. In any violent conflict, even though the two boys became more prominent when Ben and the others left, just like Ben's children would scold fucking unscrupulously, they exchanged each other's world on an equal basis.
There is also the eldest son Bodevan who met a beautiful girl and knelt down to propose marriage after a magnificent philosophy. However, the girl and her mother were only amused by his funny, and they did not attack or discriminate against him in any language. This is my favorite point of this movie. No one is so bad and offensive. There are many people in this world who can accept knowledge peacefully. Even if they don't understand, they will consciously yearn for poetry, philosophy and sincere beauty.
Rather than saying that the unreal part of the film lies in the combination of the idyllic dream of the ending and the compromise to the society, it is better to say that the film has fundamentally shaped an overly soft and idealized society. There was no irreversible misunderstanding between Ben and the seemingly rigid father-in-law. Everyone was too calm, especially the second son (Rellian?) who was unacceptable to the news of his mother’s death at first, and took the knife towards his father. And when he doubted the cause of his mother's death, he spoke harshly to Ben until he hugged his father and said sorry. This is not a clichéd family drama. Everyone in this bizarre family consisting of an almighty father and six children is too sincere, almost looking at the whole world openly.
There is also the insight and emphasis on knowledge. Maybe a tiny little kid talks about capitalism and Nazis. Reading "joy of sex" is a weird and ridiculous thing, but this movie will probably allow a lot of me to study abroad like this, and soak in the North American college system. Those who have experienced the domestic education system and desperate for most education models in this world three times a day have regained the concept of "understanding everything and respecting everything". Indeed, there is nothing more interesting than learning and exploring human history.
The success of this film is also inseparable from the superb acting skills of the actors and the victory of the casting... What a good actor Viggo Mortensen is no need to repeat, what I want to talk about is the choice of children's actors in this film. The eldest son Bodevan is strong and flexible. As a young man of about eighteen or nineteen years old, he is extremely healthy, energetic, full of natural dullness and some unspeakable wild beauty. Then there are two twin daughters. Unlike those city girls, they are plump. It's slim and beautiful. It's the kind of uniformly fat body that a girl who develops and exercises normally has. The freckles and blush on the cheeks are very beautiful. There are also a few younger children, who are as thin as a monkey but possess endless strength. This kind of casting is probably also a criticism of the prevailing false aesthetics and the phenomenon of obesity among young people.
Regarding Mise-en-scène and lighting, the rules are just right. While keeping the tones warm, it can be seen that the director wants to restore the true colors as much as possible. The style of the protagonist’s family is really hippies, and the most likable Of that kind. Even when they dressed up and secretly took away their mother's ashes, this style did not change. The gorgeous clothing colors, the skirts and boots of the two twins all properly maintained the style of the movie throughout the audience.
The use of light is also very uniform. One of the most common shots is the sunlight passing through the windows of the bus, and the actors are mostly in backlight. The use of low contrast allows people to see the smallest expressions and smiles on their faces. The whole movie is mostly in this kind of well-lit scene, and there is no use of low light to express the shadow of the characters. It seems to show that this is a film that can be exposed to the sun, without any haze at all.
Finally, there is a detail that must have impressed many people. When Viggo shaved off that large beard and sat alone on the grass, the children crawled out from the bottom of the car one by one, and then Bo also used that shave. The knife shaved off his long hair. In the conventional movie imagery, shaving your hair and beard means a compromise, returning from abnormality and excessive freedom to a world of order. But the behavior of the father and son here should be more understood as a kind of mutual support. The father supports his son to go to college, and the elder son also supports his father to try and try to make a little compromise with the world.
Captain Fantastic is really a good film. Many people think that the mediocrity of the ending ruined it, but it is actually a reality. People always have delusions about the ultimate freedom, but in fact it is impossible. Just like the injured Vespyr must be cured by modern medicine, human sociality must have its meaning, because the social order is in order to allow it. A family like Ben is a little outside of society in order to support those patients with anarchism and sadness
. This dreamy ending is not dreamy at all. It is a tragic compromise of Ben's choice of freedom and the future, from a wild deer to a flock that his daughter is reluctant to shoot. But the film filters out tragedies that may happen and conflicts that are about to break out. I think this kind of kindness to the audience is actually very unique. It's like when Ben decided to leave by himself, his father-in-law said that you are doing the right thing (or you are doing in right way?), this paragraph is beyond all other parts that make me feel extremely sad. How right and wrong are determined, and if no life is complete, then what is missing and what is the difference. In order to operate stably, this society has already given up a small part of its human nature. People live in vacancies, but they are unaware of their crowdedness. A life in vain, how to judge right or wrong.
View more about Captain Fantastic reviews
