And in the American trilogy, Lass becomes more refined, and the revealing of the paradox of survival is more powerful. When watching Dogtown, I strongly thought of Kundera's novel style. Although Dogtown is relatively simple in comparison, it is definitely not lacking in strength. So I think conscience to America is a normal development.
But just after watching the European trilogy, I feel that a lot of questions popped up all at once. The first thing I looked at was the latest Euro Express. First of all, it confirms his emphasis on the core of a story full of tension. The film tells the story of the twins of Kafka's "America": a German-American young man's experience in Germany just after World War II, while Kafka is a German young man who came to a strange United States. And both of them went to their uncles first and got temporary support. The film has the same depressing vibe as Kafka. But there are obvious differences. Karl in "America" was forced to go to the United States, while the protagonist of "European Express" came to Germany out of a good desire to do something for Germany. The narration becomes an important role that cannot be ignored, and the hypnotic lines create the suspenseful thrill of West End Kirk. And the role of the protagonist is taken away - this is a second-person film. The transition between black and white and color images suggests the flow of inner emotions. When "you" gradually penetrated into the interior of Europe along the continuous extension of the railway tracks in the dark, "you" also entered the darkest and most unknown depths of human civilization.
If the European Express is still relatively easy to understand. The previous two "Crime Elements" and "Plague" are more like video experiments. Russ and his screenwriter Neil perform in the plague. The film is divided into two dimensions and travels at the same time, the process of two young people writing the script and the story in the script - a young doctor tries to save people from the plague, but finally finds out that it is himself who is spreading the plague. The film's images are in extremely high-contrast black and white, and the music alternates between a standard horror film score and Wagner's Tannhauser. There are a lot of meaningless passages in the narration.
At the end of the film, the plague invades reality, and the hypnotized girl suddenly goes mad and grows a tumor of the plague. The three layers of the text blend together (including Russ as an empirical and exemplary author). The film can almost be the best textbook for Eco's theoretical analysis of texts. I don't have the ability to do further research for the time being, but one thing is, Russ clearly shows in the film his irony and reflection on the author's use of other people's pain to use his own pain and the use of the protagonist's pain. This makes me doubt his attitude towards filming the conscience trilogy. Many people think that movies like Breaking the Waves are still too hypocritical, but if the plague is linked, such accusations have to be considered again and again. It would be easier to understand if the plague came after the conscience, but the truth is before that. What kind of mentality did Russ, who had filmed the plague, film his conscience? This should be a problem.
The criminal element is also a pioneer that can be seen at a glance in the image. A story about a policeman experiencing a criminal's mentality but finally completing a crime that the criminal failed to achieve is really easy to think of the novels of Borges and other Latin American writers. Here it seems to be seen that the European trilogy, in addition to being all about Europe and all about hypnotism, has another similarity, that is, it is all about the theme of how pure good can eventually lead to evil. But if you look directly at the criminal element, I am afraid there will be no such idea. This film, like the strongest expressionist work, almost deprives the audience of any motivation to think.
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