This film is a member of Universal Pictures' original "dark universe". It is a remake of the 1933 classic of the same name, while the original is adapted from a novel by British writer Herbert George Wells.
As a low-cost production (US$7 million), it is exceptionally dazzling in commercial performance and can withstand pressure on professional media reputation. And the reason for its success is that I want to have a close connection with the creative thinking adopted by Ray Warner, who is also a director and screenwriter.
As the core key high concept, it is in the same line as the original, and it all originated from a high-tech experiment by a scientist, and thus gained stealth technology. But the protagonist of the original work is the scientist himself. At the same time, his identity as the protagonist and victim appears. In the end, it also embodies the sorrow of the protagonist's backlash due to uncontrollable science and technology, as well as the greed and fear of the ordinary people on the opposite side. This story came into being in the era of continuous development of industrial technology and technology. Such sociological discussions will inevitably yield success.
But if it were copied intact, how many people would be interested in such a slightly old-fashioned story in this era?
Among the many trends of thought in the development of modern society, feminism is undoubtedly a very important part, conforming to the world's "Me Too" action and the urgent need for gender equality. This brand new "Invisible Man" was born with a brand new attitude.
The scientific experiment itself is no longer the focus. The focus has shifted to the contradictions between the characters and the contradictions between the groups they represent, and on this basis, more fears in daily life are unearthed.
The heroine is an ordinary woman, and his boyfriend is set as a villain, and what it really symbolizes is domestic violence and long-standing male coercion. And the concept of "invisibility" by itself happens to symbolize the consistent impression of domestic violence: secretive, immoral, scary and somewhat powerless.
In the preparatory stage, the director visited many women's protection organizations, studied their stories, and revised the script with the actress Elizabeth Moss. In the end, he was very genius to construct this core contradiction and the symbolism behind it, and accurately captured the psychology of the female victim, allowing this classic science fiction story to keep up with the pace of the times and once again radiate light.
The story starts from a planned escape, but also from the actions of the protagonist at the beginning, which marks the main position of the female characters in this movie-all actions are carried out by women's active actions. In this scene, we still don't know the real reason for the escape, but below the director's level, this segment can be displayed in a thrilling manner.
After successfully fleeing, the reason for this action was expressed through the protagonist's mouth: the harm she suffered, her helplessness, and the theme of the film were fully revealed. After a period of daily life, the protagonist learned the source of the violence together with us—the news that her boyfriend had committed suicide. This somewhat unexpected news also brought her property and laid the groundwork for the subsequent plot: she There can be no criminal acts.
Then the story came to the second act, this whole paragraph is the purest part of the movie as a horror genre. Director Werner's most praised scheduling ability in his previous work is here freely and appropriately.
For example, a scene that could have been shot directly at the heroine was first moved by the director slowly and mechanically from another room in the dark and narrow residential corridor, and then he had to make a nearly 360° swing from the opposite direction. The camera was processed, and then we aimed at our heroine.
This kind of scheduling method, which is somewhat unclear and even wasteful, is called "Goldberg Machinery" scheduling, and the characteristic of Goldberg Machinery is cumbersome. Scheduling like this will appear to be thankless in most movies of themes, and it is easy to make the audience feel baffled. But in such a film with stealth as the core concept, it is just a fish in the water and even the finishing touch.
The director easily created such an extremely unnatural and weird viewpoint for us, and at the same time made the viewer think: What is going on? Whose perspective is this?
As the protagonist’s original peaceful life reappears, there are waves and strange phenomena: the kitchen stove will inexplicably become bigger, almost causing a fire; there will always be someone in the room; the computer “automatically” sends an e-mail to the sister; Will be ripped off inexplicably, and even see a pair of invisible feet stepping on it.
Both began to develop in the direction of horror, but still did not fall into the slaughter tendency of old-fashioned horror films. The protagonist once again showed her subject position. She began to actively explore the source of all these weird phenomena. At the same time, she was also quite intelligent, and she was the first to understand the root of everything, that is, her boyfriend is not dead yet.
Male power and desire are mentioned again in the form of gaze, and become the existence of fear. From the perspective of the villain, this has become a way of satisfying desires, and I think many people have also thought about what they would do if they could be invisible. So what the director wanted to express was once again reflected.
The hostess found the invisibility coat in the laboratory, and at the same time her resistance plan slowly unfolded.
Until the final ending comes, I don't know how many people will clap their hands and applaud. Not only because there is no meaningless reversal or fighting, but also because the director naturally externalizes the invisible psychological trauma into fear. It is also because we have successfully empathized with the heroine before and understood all of her. behavior.
Elizabeth Moss' superb acting skills have contributed too much to this brave and intelligent character. If it weren't for her performance, this character might not have been so well portrayed. The director may also understand this, and at many moments, he has left enough time for her to react in order to give her a broader performance space.
The final result also proved. The actor did not disappoint.
If you take all the above reasons together and watch this movie again, you will probably sigh that it is indeed a movie that should be successful.
Although this movie still has some flaws: the perspective is too single, other characters are facialized, the villain’s motivation is missing, and so on.
But we desperately need such an expression to tell the unreasonable and unfairness in the real society, using the method of film.
This article was first published on the public account [Watching a movie and seeing death]
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