Originally titled "Capernaum", which won the 2018 Cannes Jury Prize, about the issue of Lebanese refugee children. "Capernaum" in Arabic means "chaos" and comes from a place name in the Bible, referring to the world before Jesus came to save suffering. In order to be more down-to-earth in the domestic release, the title of the film was changed to "Why Home", and the slogan on the Chinese version of the poster - I want to sue my parents for giving birth to me, is more direct to the theme.
At the end of the story, the director gave the audience a little hope. The protagonist, 12-year-old Zane (also the real name of the little actor, he is a real refugee in reality) was rescued by accident, and with a passport, became an identity people. In this regard, "Nobody Knows", which was Hirokazu Koeda more than ten years ago, is more restrained in its handling of reality. Although the director in "Nobody Knows" injects sunlight into the life of the orphans in the film, the sunlight is icy cold. In fact, it still conveys the cruelty and helplessness of reality: at the end of the film, the children walk in the sun and speak mature words, but their faces are immature and cold, and their existence will never be known, which is heartbreaking. It was Hirokazu Koreeda's "The Thief Family" last year, which raised the issue even further to question the traditional Japanese ethics and law - the legitimacy of parent-child relationship by blood. That is: whether the family can leave the blood relationship.
And "Capernaum" obviously doesn't have such big ambitions. The director pays attention to reality and hopes to make a strong voice. The sensationalism is obvious. Six months of shooting time, 500 hours of material, took a year to cut into 2 hours. It is said that the director mortgaged the house in order to shoot this film, so hard, the film almost died because of the intervention of the Lebanese state. Therefore, it is a blessing to be able to release it on a global scale.
After all, movies can affect reality. The young actor Zain finally got the help of a refugee agency. The family moved to Norway to live and was arranged by the local government to receive formal education.
But no matter how influential the film is, millions of Lebanese refugees and children in the Middle East remain unsaved. This is a painfully incomprehensible reality.
We can't worry about the Middle East, we can only take care of the things around us, not only to reflect on how to treat children, but more importantly, to reflect on what responsibility is.
And this kind of responsibility is really difficult to fulfill in extreme situations like the Middle East. For example, Zane's mother cried to the opposing lawyer in court: You have not experienced my life, you do not know what it is like to feed a child and drink sugar water to grow up, you I have no right to speak of me, I can only find my own way, I am my own judge.
Although judging from the slogan of the Chinese version of the poster, "Why Home" seems to be a parent who assigns responsibility to irresponsible parents-since they have no ability to give their children a normal life, they should not be reborn. But in fact, the director did not deal with the moral level for too long. At the end of the film, there is a paragraph in which a black mother and son are embracing each other and crying (the black mother once took the money and left the child away), which is also a recognition of the mother's love from the side. It's just that this love cannot be so pure. When faced with a dilemma, it is difficult to decide how to choose, whether to give up and starve to death together, or to give up a better future for the child.
For example, in a detail in the film, when Zane tried his best to keep himself and his younger brother alive, he abandoned his 1-year-old younger brother in tears, sold him to a trafficker, and got paid When Zane was getting a haircut, he looked at himself in the mirror and choked with tears. He hated himself for being so unsatisfactory and for abandoning his children like his parents did.
Some people didn't pay attention to these paragraphs, so they have the evaluation of "These adults are too irresponsible, they are not as good as a 12-year-old child". In fact, such a simple accusation is meaningless, and it is not the theme of the film.
No one wants to abandon their loved ones, but when forced into a desperate situation, our choices are probably the same. Human nature cannot stand torture after all, and it is difficult for us to define the boundaries of responsibility.
The problem ultimately points to the harsh national environment, and we can only pray that the "torture of human nature" will not become a normality in life. Ultimately, people are no longer people.
Looking back at our own country, China has too many more complex subjects that should be photographed, but it is always difficult.
The sad thing is that ordinary people like you and me, in the face of a world riddled with holes, can't do anything but write such a useless article to appeal.
THE END
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