... (on the New German Cinema & Fassbender)
Some say Maria is a traditionally good wife of chastity, some say Maria is a cold and greedy slut, and in my opinion, this is not the real Maria, she is just a woman, she can't stand praise, and she can't stand scolding. An ordinary woman who works hard to maintain a marriage, everything she does is to live, to live with her husband. As she said during her first visit to her husband in prison, "I didn't learn anything, I had to learn to work first so I could get a job, and when we met again, we could start life again. ." In the film, Maria's relationship with Herman basically took place during the visit, no matter how much pressure there was, Maria always appeared relaxed and happy in front of Herman, giving him positive strength and giving him hope. "I want to build a house for us." - This is her wish, a home with Herman. "Am I your 'manservant'? No, I'm not running errands for you, I'm just your wife." - This is the work she is willing to do for a lifetime, to be Herman's wife. In this "outside world" with "very cruel" and "bad atmosphere", there is so much helplessness and cruelty in life, she must bear it alone, no one knows that she bears huge pain and suffering under her seemingly cold-blooded and ruthless appearance .
In the whole film, Maria only shed a tear once, whether it was Bill or Oswald, the two men who loved her so much that they even gave her life, until she died without even a single tear from her. get. The only time this happened was when Maria was worried about her husband's health after visiting Herman, and she finally couldn't hold back her tears when she saw her close friend Betty. The close-up is now on Maria's face, the black veil covering her tears, just as her indifferent appearance hides the pain in her heart. This man who has never given her anything but easily controls Maria's emotions and sorrows, and Maria's few laughs in the film are almost all because of Herman. I like the scene of Maria and Betty sitting in the ruins the most, two women forced by life back to innocent girlhood, snuggling and singing. The camera slowly zooms out. In the gray-white dilapidated ruins, two women dressed in gorgeous makeup and exquisite makeup present a touching harmony in the conflict. At that moment, they were happy, just pure happiness, nothing to do with men or marriage.
To condense the ten years of a woman like Maria into 120 minutes, the rhythm is tight and the plot twists and turns can be imagined. Before the audience can accept the news of Maria's pregnancy, they see Hull Man's sudden appearance, and the sudden joy and sorrow felt by the audience are exactly the emotional ups and downs that Maria felt. The end of the film is a representative with strong ups and downs, which is the essence of the whole film, which embodies Fassbender's understanding of the so-called drama, and also integrates a very rich film language.
After hearing the news of Oswald's death, Maria was drunk at home, lethargic, and her makeup was ruined. Suddenly the doorbell rang, and Herman stood outside the door. She was in good spirits. She ran up and down to prepare food and bath water for her husband. When Mann was about to kiss Maria, the doorbell rang again. It was to execute Oswald's will. After learning the truth, Maria fell into a low point again, this time in real despair, and finally ended in a fire. Fassbender overlays the radio broadcast with the characters' dialogue to create the sound effect of dense multi-voice dialogue, and uses a slow panning shot to show the Brauns' last minute, allowing the characters to In the original state, reveal their hearts without emphasizing them. The panoramic shot of this camera becomes the main shot that participates in the narrative, and the restrained, calm, and onlooker attitude presented by this shot design is almost violently interrupted by a loud bang. Without waiting for the audience to react to the incident, the end credits jumped onto the screen. The continuous high-decibel football broadcast sound dominated, and the commentator shouted "Germany won". irony. This is not Fassbender's technique, but more like Fassbender's will, his attitude towards people and the world.
Fassbender said, "Despair means 'everyone has a time in his life when he realizes that everything is over, whether in mind or body, and that there will be no new emotions or new things for him to live on. experience.'" At this time Maria was in such a desperate situation, so destruction and death were her only options, even when they "had never kissed".
From holding a wedding ceremony in the sound of gunfire to being destroyed in the sound of explosions, ten years, a decade full of blood and filth, is a decade of vicissitudes and changes in post-war Germany. In ten years, Maria has changed from a pure girl to a "widow" to become the mistress of an American military officer and an entrepreneur one after another. Her tragic fate is actually a crime caused by the Nazis. A by-product of the "economic miracle" created by post-German social liberal policies. Fassbender is accustomed to "taking female images as a screen carrier, reflecting on German history from them, reflecting on Germany's paranoia and xenophobia, reflecting on the loss of German personality, the disappearance of honor, and the gloom of their existence in modern society. In his shots, the fragility of women contrasts with the heaviness of history, placing the personal life full of historical plots within the traditional narrative framework, integrating personal destiny into historical politics, and using personal encounters, hardships and confusion to bring out the The absurdity of the times.
Play is like life, life is like play. Not only the protagonists in Fassbender's films such as Maria, but he also projected his own life into the film. For example, his grandfather, a disabled man who lost his legs, always sits aside while his wife is cooking, so Fassbender's films often include such a character without a narrative function, such as the one in "Marriage". Grandpa Berger, almost no lines. For another example, the lack of emotion in childhood is reflected in the fact that most of the characters in his films do not have the desired love and affection, just like Maria's selfish mother, bargaining with her daughter on brooches and cigarettes. In the face of survival, what is emotion? what is love?
The scene in which Herman returns from the battlefield is very ingenious. Instead of turning over the fights between men as the audience thought, nor giving women the freedom of choice as the romantics used to laugh at the grudges, but unexpectedly, Herman went straight to the cigarette on the table, instead. It was Bill who grabbed him and controlled him easily, and what was even more surprising was that Maria picked up the bottle and smashed Bill to death. Germany, which had just ended World War II, was extremely scarce in materials. "In the conflict between things and people, things defeated people, things won, but people were destroyed." A single cigarette defeated the love between husband and wife and even the love between mother and daughter. When the cigarette is lit, love also turns into light smoke.
The aforementioned scene of Maria and Betty returning to their alma mater is also symbolic. The time at her alma mater was the purest era of Maria's heart, with no wars, no financial interests, and no erotic entanglements. Just like her love for Herman, it was pure and nothing else. But just as her alma mater has been reduced to ruins, the last piece of pure land can only be left in memory, and her previous relationship with Herman has long since deteriorated. For German society, although it has become rich after experiencing the "economic miracle", people's spirit and morality have turned into ruins.
Fassbender is good at using various imaging techniques, but his films are by no means a collection of techniques. The story is the absolute protagonist. He refuses to design an overly optimistic outlet for his characters. He believes that "movie creation cannot blindly cater to and please the audience. Instead, it is necessary to provide conditions for the audience to analyze their own reality and evoke historical memory through the creator's active control of image elements." Fassbender always insists on using different shooting techniques and plot contents to reveal the same theme, that is, "We Exploitation and emotional exploitation within the system that survives, the system that our next generation or the next generation is bound to live in.”
As Shakespeare said, "Tragedy is to smash good things to be seen." When the illusory scenes filled the screen, the public who had just experienced a brutal war was accustomed to looking for comfort in movies, but Fassbender was He uses a more cruel reality to make people unable to bear to face it.” He surrounded the audience with an invisible heavy atmosphere until they suffocated. He would always expose the darkness of people to the scorching sun, remove their disguise, peel off their skin, tick By exposing the ugly side of human nature, he tried to force people to face reality, examine themselves, and examine this country that lacks human nature, and in the tragedy embodies the rationality of the new generation of Germans towards history. criticism and reflection.
Hollywood director Douglas Silk once said, "Love is the best, most vicious and most effective weapon of social oppression." Fassbender's film creation was influenced by it to a certain extent, and therefore proposed that "love is sometimes more Death is Cruel", which is also the title of his debut film "Love Is Cruel Than Death". In fact, the "Marriage" piece interpreted in this article reveals this theme more clearly. All the ruthless things that Mary did were out of love for her husband, and out of the persistence and maintenance of marriage, but in the end she died with Herman, whether it was initiative or accident, in the face of love and death , this is the only option and the best option. After World War II, is there anything more cruel and inhumane than the German Nazis? Yes, the public's lack of love. Love is the eternal theme of human beings, and it is the eternal force that supports us to overcome many difficulties, including the time of war, millions of people like Mary, the only driving force for life is love, and when we lose the feeling of love and giving love When the society is collectively without love, it is more ruthless and desperate than extreme racism and imperialism.
... (a short paragraph on reflection on contemporary Chinese films)
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