(Text / Yang Shiyang)
It is no exaggeration to say that "White Lotus Resort" is the most advanced American drama so far this year. Yes, the most "advanced" is not the most "good-looking" or the most "commercial", it really has to be described as "advanced". "Abandoned Soldier", after turning off the gender-flattering halo of "the star goes to earth" or "the big heroine is crazy", I have to admit that those stories are still full of ingenuity, and they are still exhausting tricks to give people what they want. The content I read is just cleverly written, but "White Lotus Resort" is not. This story has no "sense of service" from the form to the content. It is full of authorship, and almost every moment can see that the creator is expressing himself. , rather than pleasing the audience, as seen in the tropical jungle symbolism that looms over the eerie wallpaper at the opening, to the eccentric music that runs throughout the film, and the myriad of metaphors lurking here and there. In this sense, the show is brave and arrogant. It's so weird, how to define its type? Black comedy? Maybe close, but not enough to generalize. It is closer to literature than genre literature, it refuses to be framed, and it always exudes an air of indeterminate freedom. What exactly does it tell? The answer actually requires the viewer and the creator to complete it together, sometimes fighting each other, sometimes complementing each other. In short, it is not a feeding relationship. So, this story confuses a lot of people, especially for the Chinese audience, it's full of cultural gaps, about racial prejudice, about class differences in the United States, about the searing pain that colonial history can still bring to the present, if there is any understanding of these understand, then reading this story will be a lot of fun.
The White Lotus Resort is located on a small island. It is isolated from the world and full of modern high-end services. More importantly, it was originally the site of the aborigines, but now it has become a resort for wealthy white people. The hotel staff lined up with professional, warm smirks and greeted guests transported by the cruise ship in the local language. The story unfolds from this, roughly focusing on three families, a strong woman mother and a husband who is anxious about her testicular cancer with their rebellious daughter, daughter's best friend and otaku son; rich second-generation mother Bao Nan and his new wife; A neurotic rich widow in PTSD after the loss of her mother, and a hotel manager who is abstaining from drinking, with a capable appearance but a broken heart.
Unlike most dramas, "White Lotus Resort" does not actually have a "story". It lacks an obvious main line with beginnings and endings, paving the way for a climax and ending. After 6 episodes, it is basically a display of fragments of various people's psychological states. The husband felt that he was about to die from testicular cancer. The daughter and best friend indulged in looking down on everyone and judging. The mother played the role of an independent female role model while trying to maintain the harmony of the family between the rebellious children and the anxious husband. Bao Nan is looking for trouble endlessly because of the mistake of booking the wrong room in the hotel. The newlywed girl is enjoying a luxurious life while worrying that she will be reduced to a vase. , the hotel manager is always fighting with the monster in his heart... If the promotion of most commercial dramas depends on the progress and suspense of events, then this drama relies on showing everyone's mental state on the cliff, In other words, this is a group of people who look well-dressed but are actually on the verge of collapse, but they themselves are unaware of their own spiritual crisis and the hopeless prospect of impending collapse. wait to see when and how they fall.
Of course the characters in this story have names, but after looking at them, you will find that it doesn’t matter whether you remember the names or not, each of them represents a group of people behind them, a certain race, a certain type, from From this point of view, what "White Lotus Resort" wants to show and directly attack is actually the general mental state of human beings under the premise of a high degree of development, which is lax, dissociated, and overwhelmed. This story excavates the "inside", the torture of people's spirit, consciousness, self-recognition, who I am, where I am, and where I am going. Of course, these tortures appear in the story in the form of social issues For example, after the island that once belonged to aborigines was "occupied" by white people, the descendants of those aborigines could only make a living by dancing for white tourists here. In the story, a theft was arranged, and there was no answer at all. The torture and correspondence of the aboriginal waiters who steal the jewelry of white guests is a crime, so can the plunder and theft of the white people still be held accountable? How to judge this stealing hook and "stealing country"? Is the theft a childish revenge, or an identity awakening? Is it morally justified? For example, the rich second-generation Ma Baonan did not force his beautiful wife to become a vase, but in fact the woman accepted the established fact that she became the embellishment when she accepted the marriage, when she realized that it was an exchange , what did her hesitation between advancing and retreating indicate? A hypocritical performance of independent female consciousness, a subservience to the low-hanging fruit? Was her hesitation genuine or ridiculous? For another example, a rich widow has been sponsoring a black masseuse in a SPA hall to start a business, but in the end the hope of the other party was rekindled and then died. She said that she wanted to get rid of the bad habit of using money to control the other party, but the other party dreamed of being swayed by that. An investment control, is that white woman sincere or some kind of casual toying with the bottom blacks? You see, these questions seem to be sociological, political, about races, about the division between rich and poor, but in fact, later, the gradually revealed background evolved into other meanings, Everything points to a spiritual crisis and anxieties of identity. During this trip, the best friend with aboriginal and black blood began to hesitate about her belonging. Is her spirit bleached? But she also knew for sure that she could not really belong to the territory of the aborigines. The father, who finally learned that he did not suffer from testicular cancer, always wanted the respect of his wife and son, but was always regarded as nothing, and was finally saved by an unexpected fight. And this fight happened again between a middle-aged wealthy white man and aboriginal underclass youth. this coincidence
"White Lotus Resort" is a bit like the western version of "Burning" or "Parasite". It seems to be full of rich and poor, class narratives, but in fact there are also questions pointing to the spiritual void. The island itself is a kind of metaphor. It is suspended in the air and has been cut off from its origin and destination. If you understand it carefully, you will find that the "history" of all the characters in this story is explained in rough lines and conceptually. On this island, they are only responsible for carrying the identity of the present moment, and bear a "result" caused by the past. They start from this established identity and want to change the direction of a certain future. This is like a skyfall. The trial, a rare opportunity, a dice thrown by God, from a certain angle, "White Lotus Resort" is like another version of "No One Survives", a group of strangers go to a small island , Some people die physically, some people die spiritually. The few days on this island were nothing more than a game of secret rooms. Some people thought they had been sublimated, but they actually fell deeper, and some people finally found their true liberation in death.
In the end, this story is still pessimistic. Those who want to change their fate have not changed. Those who seem to be superior are still tightly bound to each other and reinforce each other. Those who wander and want to find themselves eventually succumb to reality. Only a 16-year-old boy was left, who seemed to choose to escape, like some kind of faint hope.
The two arrogant rich girls have been reading from start to finish, sitting in the airport, after a series of farce, one is watching Kant, the other is reading on colonialism. These are some small ironies implanted by the screenwriter, which grow densely in the gaps of the story like other ironies - such as the misunderstanding of the desperate widow about "black life is expensive", such as the anxiety father's slip of the tongue about "waterboarding", which Everything is casual but wonderful mockery, like thorns planted in a cluster of flowers.
For the audience of White Lotus Resort, Marxists may see the end of capitalism, supporters of psychoanalysis see the disorderly projection of various desires and anxieties, and egalitarians see feminism , the repression, awakening and frustration of minority groups, in fact, all these are mixed together, and what is written is nothing more than the disintegration, reconstruction and ultimately futility of a spiritual order.
(This article was first published in the Beijing Youth Daily column)
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