The film is divided into three levels:
1. From ape domestication to a "civilized man" Puff became a civilized person because of the punishment of electric shock + dessert reward + demand for women. Note that when Puff stated in court, he mentioned that he did not have enough motivation to learn civilization at the beginning. After seeing Nathan having sex with his assistant, he also wanted to "want some of it", so he was motivated to learn civilization; Lila got to know Dr Nathan because of the need for men and forced herself to become a civilized person in order to maintain her relationship; The strict discipline was domesticated into an overly "civilized" person.
2. Return from "civilized man" to ape: Lila chose to return to ape because of emotional breakdown; Puff was punished by electric shock again + the female reward brought by Lila changed back to ape; Nathan missed Lila's wildness and went to the jungle to find Lila and pray for her That "dirty and powerful" love, asking her to teach herself to be an "ape", seems to prove that no matter how "civilized" people are, there is also a desire for wildness, but Nathan's awakening is too slow, Lila could have taken him from excessive restraint The person who was rescued from the state, but he woke up too late, and Nathan regarded marriage as a form of "civilization", once entering the state of marriage, he lost that wild pursuit, or was not used to maintaining it in marriage. Wild, and put his wild pursuit on the cheating Gabrielle.
3. Return to ape but still have "civilization" appeal: Lila hates Puff's animal-like savageness when she has sex with Puff, and shocks Puff. This is a very important detail. It reflects that Lila, who has been nurtured by "civilization", has become too "savage" The action produced a repulsion. This repulsion may be due to the pursuit of civilization in the instinct of animals, or it may be a self-conditioned reflex after being domesticated for a long time by the dogma of "civilized society"; Puff was attracted by Gabrielle after returning to the forest. She returned to civilized society.
What drives the whole movie is actually the mutual needs between men and women. Most of the time, it is driven by simple physiological needs, but it is also occasionally reflected as an emotion (such as the couple relationship that Lila and Nathan want to maintain, remember Lila and Nathan initially They were only together because she was looking for a man, but she fell in love with Nathan and thought he was "cute" and changed a lot for him)
The pursuit of the opposite sex itself is the most primitive driving force of animals, and people are animals, so it is the same.
A few inspirations from this film for me:
1. Words are Evil, this is what the puff said in the movie. There are many words in human society that are sloppy, and it is easy to lose their sense of their own meaning. You should pay attention to understand the emotions and meanings of the words themselves, and don’t let yourself lose the ability to perceive the real world behind the language (a typical example of loss of perception is reading. People who come to beautiful poems can't imagine the beautiful scenes behind the poems, they can only understand the literal meaning)
2. In any environment, pay attention to the rules: in the forest, you can kill if you want to kill, but in a civilized society, murder has to go to court. When Puff killed Nathan, his mentality was in the animal world, but Nathan came from a "civilized" society. People, if you kill Nathan, you may be punished according to the rules of the "civilized" world. (Of course, this premise is that the "animal world" in the play is far less powerful than the "civilized world", and the latter can easily destroy the former. If it is replaced by the setting in "Organic World of the Apes", the power of the civilized world is far less than that of the ape world, then Even if Puff kills a person in a civilized world, he can get away with punishment, so whoever is more powerful has the final say)
3. Desires can conflict, so less desire: Puff was happy when he was finally picked up by Gabrielle because he had a new female partner, but when he saw his ex-girlfriend Lila's old wooden house outside the window, his His eyes dimmed, and when he looked back at Gabrielle, it was no longer the instinctive excitement of seeing women, but a kind of pain, confusion, entanglement, and wandering. His mind is full of two desires: one is to pursue the pleasure of his new love, and the other is to fulfill the responsibility of fulfilling the promise of his old love. He wants to do both, but it is impossible to do both at the same time. The heart begins to enter into pain. In fact, people often encounter such situations in society, and then they lose the completeness of animals themselves. People, when there are no conflicting desires or unrealizable desires, are completely self-consistent and self-integrated, just like a small animal, they should be happy and sad, and they will not linger in certain emotions for too long. , and rarely fall into entanglement and distress, such a state, regardless of its social morality, at least from the perspective of health preservation is very good. So the inspiration from this movie for my life is not to have too many conflicting desires at the same time. For example, Puff is entangled between a new love and an old love. In fact, there is always one side that has to be sorry, so it doesn't matter which one you choose. , the key is to choose one and only want one, so that the state can be healthy and complete. Of course, it is undeniable that the complexity and contradiction of people's desires have created a lot of thinking and literary works, making the spiritual world of civilization rich and diverse (although I personally think that there are many complex emotions, genres, and literary trends of thought). It is not necessarily healthy and beneficial to human beings. For example, the sentimental feelings of the petty bourgeoisie can never be resolved, nor can it promote the balanced distribution of production and improve living standards).
4. Pay attention to the balance between wildness and civility: everything is moderate and too "civilized". Like Nathan, he may be too restrictive, but he will be overwhelmed by the wildness of the rebound from time to time. He can't help cheating, and even ask Lila to learn to do it An ape; if it is too "wild", it may be like Puff who kills Nathan on impulse, forgets the constraints of a "civilized" society, and puts himself in court. Therefore, it is very important to grasp the balance and properly release the wildness of the heart under the premise of legality.
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