Friday words: There are two types of suspense movies. One is based on known science and seeks logic in reality. Movies focus on the opposition between the two lines of creating suspense and solving suspense. The previous work "The Invisible Guest" by the director of "Mirage" is a representative work of this type of film; the other is to create suspense with the help of some supernatural phenomena or some sci-fi elements that have not yet been achieved by scientific and technological means. Dream Space" and "Source Code" are typical examples of such films. The "Mirage" we are going to talk about today is the latter. Obviously, the process of "solving" this kind of film is much inferior. It relies on a tried-and-true trick of commercial films: dreaming. It allows the audience to complete things that cannot be satisfied in reality, such as time travel and resurrection... In this way, if "Invisible Guest" has created a new narrative method for "solving suspense" films, The "Mirage" that is currently being released is just a follow-up of suspense skills and commercial film routines! Fortunately, this does not prevent the audience from being amazed by the brain-burning of this movie, but you must know that it is not the credit of "detection".
(Note: This article contains spoilers, if you haven't seen the movie, please read it as appropriate)
Text: Taixu Palace Editor: Tudou
Image: Network
1. The structure of "The Mirage" ▼ "The Storyline Structure of the Movie"
The story line structure of "Mirage" couldn't be more clear (it is the same as "Family Man", "Groundhog Day", "The Time Machine" and the like): from the time the heroine falls asleep to the time when she wakes up Large paragraphs, plus a beginning and an end are the real world other than dreams.
Note: Usually this paragraph after falling asleep to before waking up occupies more than half of the movie (more than an hour), so that many viewers forget that the director is following a "dream" routine, so that many viewers end The one who panned from the single shot of the heroine's bed to the double shot cried out in surprise.
If there is any difference between the "dream" structure of "Mirage" and other similar films, it is that the director added another beginning before beginning to explain the role of the heroine's family life: the 1989 little boy peeping Murder was hit and killed. This incident also had the effect of making the "dream" more hidden.
▼"Film character structure"
The character structure of this movie looks a bit complicated. It is a neighbor, a neighbor of a neighbor, a husband and a lover... Seven aunts and eight aunts, I know this makes many friends who are blind face troubled.
But don't be afraid, in fact, as long as we grasp the axis of the heroine (that is, the dreamer), it is not difficult to see that the character structure of the movie is very simple. That) relationship, one is the relationship between the heroine and her family. All conflicts are caused by the relationship between these two groups of characters.
In a word: if the heroine wants a little boy, she has to lose her family; if she wants a family, she has to lose the little boy. Note that the "lost" here does not refer to the death of the little boy, but to the loss of her romantic relationship with the little boy who grew up.
As for some other personal relationships, including the murder in the neighbor's house, including the cheating of the heroine's husband, including those colleagues at the heroine's work, these personal structures serve the above two main personal structures, and they are second to none. To be in an auxiliary position.
Having said this, it is estimated that some friends have to complain: the structure is so straightforward, it will not make people a little fun to watch the movie, and it will not make people a little surprised!
You can rest assured that the film does not rely on this routine to win the audience's surprise. In other words, its "singularity" is not like "The Invisible Guest", which is hidden in the film structure.
So what is this "Mirage" that surprised everyone, and then look down——
2. The bizarre point of "Mirage"
As I said just now, the difference between "Mirage" and other "dream" movies is that the director added a "beginning of the beginning", that is, before laying the groundwork for the heroine's dream world (family background), he added The beginning of a "Boy Witnessed a Murder Killed".
The beginning of this beginning is not to pave the way for the subsequent drama, nor is it a clue to the case. What does it do? I think it has two functions:
One is to attract the attention of the audience at the opening, and the other is to create a "singularity" in the back.
The first point is easy to say, the story itself is very tragic, and it is also very scary. Let's focus on the second point:
Watch out, that boy is "dead"! This is the most important point. It's also the director's most "cunning" move! Why use the word "cunning":
Anyone who has watched "The Invisible Guest" knows that this is a crime detection film, and everyone may think that this film will enter a kind of "detection" line. However, in this case, the boy who was hit by a car was "resurrected", two people from different time and space were connected, and the movie entered a concept of "surreal fantasy".
Therefore, I think the first bizarre point of this "Mirage" from the director of "Invisible Guest" is the "movie type conversion", that is, the transition from detecting suspense to "science fiction suspense".
With this conceptual understanding of "detection to science fiction", let's go back and think about the surprising points in the movie, such as: the transformation of the social identity of the hostess, the hidden identity of the little boy in adulthood, the heroine and her husband Lovers' intricate relationships and more, all of these "singularities" are based on a sci-fi, unreal premise. From this point of view, these "strange points" should be called "fantasy points", he is like "Source Code", not "Murder on the Orient Express", "No One Survives" and the like.
However, in terms of fantasy, this "Mirage" is of course not as extreme as "Source Code", the reason is very simple, the latter has always stood on a sci-fi standpoint to let the living and the dead talk, using future scientific instruments. But "Mirage" is just a natural and mysterious factor supported by thunder and rain + weather forecast + videotape, so the director had to go back to his old business: use detection to make up for the shortcomings of science fiction.
3. The detection line of "Mirage"
The "detection line" in "Mirage" refers to the "wife murder case" witnessed by the little boy. We won't go into details about the "wife murder case" itself, but only talk about its status in the whole play and its role in the rhythm of the movie:
Obviously, from the point of view of the movie story, it is a plot wrapped in the plot; it is the case that the heroine is dealing with the matter of "finding a family" and then dealing with the matter of "finding the boy".
Of course, you can also say that it is the reason why the heroine loses her family and the boy loses her mind, but that is from the perspective of storytelling, and in the structure of the film it appears as a sub-line, its status Far less than crossing, finding, recalling these lines. In addition, from the perspective of rhythm and tension, this detection line assisted the climax of the line of "heroine looking for her family and memories", making the climax more compact and unexpected.
It can be said that the director has done a very good job in balancing the status of the "detection play" in the whole play, as well as the placement of it and the control of the heat. Therefore, we do not see any "reasonable detection" and The paradox of "fantastic irrationality". But this is from a commercial point of view, from an artistic and social point of view, then not necessarily!
4. "The Mirage" VS. "The Invisible Guest"
When I saw the middle position of "Mirage" (that is, when the heroine was found to have no problem with her brain), I always had an expectation: I was looking forward to the director using a scientific and logical way of reality detection to make all these incredible Bizarre events explained. In other words, I'm not sure yet whether this is a "supernatural" or "fantasy" film, I expect it to be a pure detective suspense film. Just like The Invisible Guest.
Just imagine, any great detective suspense film or detective suspense novel will force itself and the audience into a dead end, and then solve it in a scientific and logical way that the audience can't imagine, just like "The Invisible Guest". "As in: The victim did die in the house, but the doors and windows were indeed locked in the house again, and the murderer could not leave the scene...
Of course, this expectation is based on a preconceived premise: that I have seen his previous "Invisible Guest". In addition, my own thoughts and expectations are also well-founded:
Just think, if you watch Hitchcock's movies, do you hope to see "supernatural events" appear in his movies, or do you expect a shocking criminal conspiracy behind the supernatural events in his movies!
However, "Mirage" has finally returned to the "dream" routine. Fortunately, as a commercial film, the director logically handled it properly. Fortunately, the director also used the "Inception"-style trick to confuse the true and false (the props and plots that cross the space in the film: Husband Hotel). open house matchboxes, memories of grown-up boys, etc.). It's just that these logics are not the logic of reality detection.
Therefore, after we have seen the two films "Mirage" and "The Invisible Guest", although both films may surprise us, surprise us, and burn our brains, we must know that the way to produce surprises and surprises is very different. of!
Five, talk about things off the field
After talking for a long time, I will end the article by talking about the problems that I am puzzling outside the picture:
In the cinema, every time I watch a movie, I have to fight something off the screen! For example, watching "Mirage" this time, a man in the first two rows swiped the screen of his mobile phone for the whole scene, and there were several calls interspersed in the middle.
Why did he choose a venue like a movie theater to play with his mobile phone?
The two women on my right were even more ruthless. While swiping the phone, they chatted the whole scene, covering everything from the plot of the movie to family affairs, state affairs, and world affairs... Of course, there are definitely more than these two couples watching the chat on the phone. , they are just the best.
Why don't they become film critics when they can talk so much?
The last scene of the movie was over and everyone left. I thought to myself that I could finally watch the subtitles and listen to the music in peace, but the "off-screen play" was far from over:
After the clean-up person walked into the house, while collecting the garbage, he shouted to me once every ten seconds: The movie is over! The movie is really over! The movie really doesn't act, I won't lie to you!
This kind of persuasion has come in three waves, and each time it is more bitter.
The question is, why didn't he persuade the projectionist to turn off the projector? !
There are always more fantasy spots in our reality than movies like Mirage! isn't it?
▼▼▼ Previous related articles, you may like:
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