This is a frightening, humorous and even funny film. Fear brings tension, and funny brings relaxation. The seemingly opposite elements are organically integrated, and I have to admire the director's skill.
Of course, the premise of everything is that you are "sensitive" enough to recognize that we are more or less incomplete in our hearts. When we present ourselves as fully normal people, it is likely that this is a boring movie that couldn't be more boring - who wants to listen to a crazy story?
Now, we start to appreciate the film.
The beginning of the story has clearly told us that the protagonist Jack suffers from persecutory paranoia and the reason for his illness - he is thinking of a book about killers and death, "The Age of Death". Death is one of our most basic fears. Natural death is God's will, we are powerless to prevent it, and we can accept it calmly; but murder is a threat from others, which is unacceptable.
Therefore, what Jack fears is not death itself, but the relationship with others. In other words, the death in the film is just a symbol, representing various bad relationships such as "doubt", "misunderstanding", "discrimination" and "hatred". These relationships make us feel anxious all the time, and even become a little neurotic, thinking that everyone around us is "killer".
This paranoia of persecution apparently throws Jack's life into chaos. He describes himself as a "sensitive" person - as many would describe themselves. In a chat with his agent Claire, he learned that he had written the fairy tale "Harold the Hedgehog", but it ruined his marriage. Fairy tales symbolize innocence and childishness, and being good at writing fairy tales may imply that he cannot face and take responsibility like an adult. Think about the self-introduction in the opening sequence, he did say "I'm a person who loves to escape".
Jack obviously hated this, so the success of his fairy tale was an accident and refused to write it again, even saying that he killed all the fairy tale protagonists like a serial killer! This is clearly another manifestation of infantile disease. That's why he tried to write about the deep subject of "death".
The situation was already very embarrassing, and he dared not face himself. Fortunately, a well-known publisher appeared and asked him to meet through Claire. Despite our reluctance, Jack was forced to face this date due to his livelihood.
Meeting is a very simple thing, but Jack screwed it up. And the reason for screwing up is stupid - no clothes to wear.
Here's the thing: Jack, in addition to being paranoid, has laundry room phobia (this is reflected in the initial dream), and he can only choose to wash and dry his own clothes without clean clothes to wear. As a result, his mental state was unstable due to fear. Not only did he stick a carving knife to his hand and couldn't take it down, but he also forgot the clothes in the oven, and all the clothes were burned.
Desperate, Jack turns to psychiatrist Fred King. In this part, we learn that Jack is an orphan abandoned by his mother in the laundry room, which is the root cause of his fear of the laundry room. The terrifying eyeball that had been haunting him in his dreams was actually just the drum of the washing machine. In the eyes of severely insecure children who have lost their mothers, everything turns into a monster that could hurt them.
How serious is the situation, in the words of Dr. Friedkin, "You survived, but you feel death."
What is the nature of fear? Many boys laugh at girls for being afraid of insects, but they have their own fears, such as bulldogs. But in terms of psychological feelings, there is no essential difference between being afraid of a bug and being afraid of a bulldog. The doctor told a case: a girl with banana phobia, after treatment, can finally get along with an unpeeled banana in the same room.
Jack laughed when he heard this at first, and found it incomprehensible. But in the end he also realized that the laundry room was just a "banana" in front of him.
So he put on his hooded jacket and strolled to the laundry room with R&B in the background. Of course, the knife in his right hand was still stuck.
Jack, who never goes to the laundry room, made a lot of jokes in the laundry room and met the goddess by chance. Heartbroken, he was very embarrassed. If he was said to be stupid before, then his performance at this time can be said to be stupid. However, inadvertently, he suddenly pulled out the knife in his hand, which immediately caused a commotion among the aunts in the laundry room. He was knocked to the ground and locked in his room, waiting for the police to arrive.
During his arrest, he saw his childhood and Harold the hedgehog with a pipe. After his arrest, the police helped him remove the knife from his hand. Here's a detail, when Jack cried out in pain, the policewoman said to him, "Be brave."
This knife is a prop from the beginning of the story to this point. At first it was a weapon of self-preservation, then it became a burden to life, and finally it became the cause of being misunderstood. The knife symbolizes an excess of self-preservation. Removing this protection is a sign of maturity, but it takes "courage."
After processing, the police are ready to take him back to the police station. Unfortunately, because of an emergency, they didn't close the door in the panic. While the car was moving, Jack fell out.
The goddess witnessed everything, congratulated him and said: "You are free."
"I am free, this is fate!" Jack said to himself. Yes, he was finally able to face his fears.
It seems that the problem is solved, but the story is not over.
Feeling relieved, Jack returned to the laundry, only to find the basement of the laundry. The moment he opened the basement lid, he was knocked unconscious.
When he woke up again, he found himself and the goddess bound in the basement.
That's right, they were kidnapped! They encountered a perverted killer, and this killer turned out to be the police assistant Tony who had been appearing from the very beginning until now.
Tony was also an orphan who lived with his grandmother after his mother died in a car accident. But there is no doubt that grandma treated him badly and kept him in the cellar. He grew up in a cellar and couldn't go out. He could only sleep in bed every day, accompanied by music. So he even considered the song "The Final Countdown" as heavy metal rock.
The same child who lost his mother, Jack in the orphanage was able to play with his friends, and Tony was in a worse situation: locked in the basement, learning to self-isolate and not communicate with others. Finally, there is a criminal impulse to kill.
Tony finally picked up the knife, and in a critical moment, the goddess asked Jack to tell a story. As a dying request, Tony complied. So Jack told the story of the hedgehog. This time, there are two hedgehogs in the story: Brian and Harold.
Brian is a hedgehog who lives alone, and the dark forest makes him decide to be afraid. In order to protect himself, he decided to turn into a monster and make himself powerful and vicious.
He lost his mind and broke everywhere. Even if his friend Harold showed up, he wanted to hurt him. During the chase, Brian got lost in the fog. As he walked, he found another corpse of a hedgehog. At this moment, a car suddenly approached and was about to hit Brian. Harold suddenly appeared and pushed him away.
They found the baby left by the dead mother hedgehog on the side of the road. Holding the baby, Brian thought of himself. Harold tells Brian, "You're not a monster, you're just a hedgehog, just like me."
Clearly, the hedgehog symbolizes who we really are. Hedgehogs are born with thorns, just as each of us has an instinct for self-preservation. But many people who have been hurt will actively hurt others because they are too scared to turn protection into attack.
This is a question worthy of our consideration. In addition to criminal incidents, we do a lot of unthinkable things at work and in relationships because of fear. For example, at work, because they are afraid of being replaced, they may attack competitors for no reason. In a relationship, because they are worried about betrayal, they will check and restrain the other party too much, making the other party feel depressed. The initial purpose of these behaviors is just to make themselves feel safe. But there is no doubt that this will make you a terrible beast in the eyes of others, and you will become more and more lonely, and you will not be able to get a real sense of security.
What we have to learn is to live like a hedgehog.
The story moved Tony, who admitted that he just wanted to be scary when he didn't actually kill anyone. At this time, the laundry aunt who came to look for the mobile phone lifted the cover of the basement! It turned out that Jack accidentally picked up her phone before. I have to admire the director's arrangement and use of props, which is simply wonderful.
Of course, they were rescued, but the story wasn't over.
The director clearly has bigger ambitions. Jack returned to his normal life and published Harold the Hedgehog and it was a huge hit. At the banquet, Harvey, a big publisher who was interested in Age of the Dead, whom he had not seen, appeared. Facing Harvey, Jack was dizzy (fear?).
It seems that everything is going into a loop. Jack's mental journey was originally: deny innocence → explore death → find innocence. Now, someone wants him to embark on the road of exploring death again, how should he choose?
In the end, he chose to leave with the goddess.
At the end of the film, the narration is a poetic Harold's story, and the picture is a fairy-tale old London street scene. And the beauty in my heart is like the ripples disturbed by the stone, slowly rippling.
It was only then that I understood that this was a story of love, beauty, and growth, not fun or fear.
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