The story told by "The Happening", about nature's "retaliation" against humans, is actually some clichés, far inferior to the sharp and bold thinking of "The Village".
However, "The Happening" uses the atmosphere conveyed by the lens, and the impact on the viewer is already close to the realm of Hitchcock.
There are several scenes that impressed me very much.
Including the suicides in the traffic jam shortly after the beginning of the movie. The suicides were the police, the driver who had chatted with the police, and the white-collar workers on the side of the road. This is a long lens, the focal length of the lens is getting larger and larger, and the panorama from the beginning has been slowly focused on the pistol. The last suicide can only see her lower body, but not her face, which obscures her identity and hints at all living beings. Suicides range from professional guards, to the people around the guards, to anyone who has no face. The fear of crisis has gradually spread from specific objects to ordinary people. It took only a few tens of seconds to successfully exert a huge force.
In the process of fleeing, he encountered someone staying behind a house that could not be opened. After two companions were shot and killed. There is a close-up, wide-angle close-up of a little girl. Her hands covering her ears were obviously deformed. This kind of high-impact lens is also very common in Hitchcock's movies.
The scene with an old lady living alone that I met at the end of the movie is very detailed in layout. The first conversation we met seemed to be high-minded, and even a little warm. In the following dinner, the cross hung on the wall in the background already hinted at the old lady's religious beliefs. The next morning, the dense crosses on the wall in the old lady's room contrasted sharply with the Bible pictures and the dilapidated dolls on the bed, which brought out a strong sense of absurd fear.
In fact, the layout of the whole movie is very careful, Shyamalan changed to many different techniques. In addition to the unknowns and uncertainties in the first half when the disasters gradually come, the special scenes when the inexplicable disaster strikes even have a touch of beauty, which are common in Shyamalan's past movies. In the second half of the movie, many different techniques were used. The unimpeded and blank on the road, the absurd irony in the model room, the brutal selfishness in the trapped room, and the weirdness and madness of the old lady living alone in the end. Shyamalan tried many different kinds of horror film techniques. So in fact, this "The Happening" is very careful on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also has a playful element.
"The Happening" was not long after the beginning of the movie. The teacher said in class that as a scientist, one must respect nature.
I was a little unhappy at the time. After reading it, I felt that the teacher's words, coupled with the setting of this disaster, might make many people misunderstand Shyamalan.
Many people in China say that after fearing nature, they are talking about maintaining the original ecology and not acting on nature. It is best to return to primitive society.
After Shyamalan’s teacher said “awe,” he then talked about scientific methods, bold assumptions, well-designed experiments, careful observations and calculations, and then rigorous analysis. It is indeed a very rigorous method. Because of "awe", it is necessary to study more rigorously instead of confessing nature as a god.
From the perspective of the naturalists in China, if you can't return to primitive society, then being killed by natural disasters can be regarded as retribution. However, Shyamalan asked his actor teacher to use his own scientific method to come up with an almost correct explanation in the crisis, and escaped the danger as a result.
Although the disaster in the movie is about the relationship between man and nature, I am a bit suspicious that this is just a cover. Movies pay more attention to people's indifference to life. The collective suicide of the poisoned person is a disregard for their own lives. The fake potted plants and food in the model room also bring out a sense of hypocrisy and indifference. The gunman in the trapped house can also kill and he does not want to have a little contact with outsiders, which is indifferent to the lives of others. And the last old lady, she refused to contact the outside world, she only had herself and God in her heart, and she was indifferent to the whole world.
On the other side of the movie, the hidden main thread is the changes in the family, from the uncertainty of marriage, to the desperate efforts of two people to help themselves, to the raising of a friend's daughter, which is in contrast to the indifference shown in the movie.
Finally, add some tidbits. On the blackboard in the class in the movie, Einstein said that if all the bees all over the world disappear, humans will only have four days of life.
About half a year ago, I haven't watched this "The Happening" yet. I picked Wen home from the library one day. On the way, Wen asked me if I had heard Einstein's words. I said, I have not heard of it. This should be correct, but it is not like Einstein said. Because it's too simple, and there are elements of illusion. Einstein is really too smart, so he generally wouldn't say such things.
Wen said that she had just read an article to verify the source of this sentence, and the conclusion was that this sentence was just a rumor and had nothing to do with Einstein.
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