The wide-angle lens and the fixed camera photography technique allow the picture to contain more elements. The camera position is fixed, which means that after the picture is composed, the camera will no longer move, and then some elements in the picture will be moved. It's like a still photo comes alive. The interesting part is choosing which elements to move.
The film begins with a backside shot of a car driving in the dark of night. A narrow path in the woods, the only light source comes from the headlights, the lights illuminate the plants on the roadside, showing green, and then it is completely black.
The element of movement is the car, naturally ingenious. At first, the bright part took up one-third of the picture. As the car drove farther and farther, the light became smaller and smaller, shrinking into a small group, and finally even the light of the headlights could not be seen, only the rear of the car was left. The red light flashed twice and went out, and the screen was completely black.
The scene where the boss finds the driver to take the blame. The two were sitting on a bench by the sea talking, it was still night, and the moonlight was bright and sprinkled on the sea. All objects are silhouettes, the benches, the people on the benches, the surrounding trees, the lighthouse on the sea, the moon and the sea, none of these move.
The elements of movement are ships at sea. The ships are very close to the shore and are huge, and they are facing each other in the middle of the picture. When they walk in the center of the picture, the silhouette of the person on the bench cannot be seen, and only the sound of conversation can be heard. The two ships staggered and separated, revealing the central figure. The tiny shadows of seagulls fly in the gaps in the picture.
The driver's wife goes to peek into the boss's life. In the parking lot, the boss, his wife, the baby in his arms.
The elements of the movement are the characters. The two walked in tandem, pressed the key to unlock the lock, opened the trunk, dropped the small toy, and went back to pick it up again. All activities are in this fixed picture. Suddenly, the boss turned his head to look at the camera, and he was dressed in white, which was just embedded in the gap between the dense branches and leaves of the tree canopy. The owner's natural gaze after discovering the driver's wife made the movement still into a photo.
The quarrel between the driver's wife and the boss takes place in a dramatic scene of intense oppression, with oppressive heavy clouds in the sky and a tilted and restless horizon.
The elements of movement are also characters. What's special is that the characters are so far away and so small that they can't see their faces. From a distance I saw them walking, approaching, parting, and chasing after them. There is no character expression at all, and even the body movements are not very distinctive, but with the lines, it does not affect the understanding of the plot at all.
At the end of the shot, the main body of the picture is the dilapidated building where the driver's family lives. The clouds above, the sea water, and the distant mountains beyond the sea are all black and white. The driver stood on the roof, revealing most of his back. The background sound of the non-stop downpour.
This time the element of movement is off-screen, as a train rumbles in from the left. Although it was so loud that it seemed like it was about to crash into the building, it actually just drove past the building along a fixed track.
The most literary scene in the whole film is this one.
The plot of the film is also quite solid, fully worthy of the level of photography, but it will make people unpleasant.
Everyone in the film is dissatisfied with their lives, but unable to change. The mother told her son, who couldn't get into college and had no job, to stop hanging out with gangsters. The son said, "What can I do?"
It's not that there is no struggle, everyone uses his own way--a very bad way-- to try to get out of the established orbit of life. The father took the blame for the boss in exchange for money to change his life, the mother cheated, and the son murdered!
The wife mournfully said to her lover, "You are my destiny!" Where can there be love? It's just a call to take me out of all this!
When the husband found out that his wife was going to commit suicide by jumping off the building, he was overjoyed in an instant. If he can't solve this mess himself, then his wife's suicide may be able to pry a hole in this hopelessly dull life.
The son confessed to his mother: "I killed him." Everyone inside and outside the film thought that things were finally out of control, and this unhappy family could no longer sustain.
But when the husband saw his wife want to jump off the building for the second time, he looked at it for a while and said, "Don't be stupid, go back." He already knew that nothing would change. After asking his son about the murder, he said, "Go to bed." Then he went out and bought a scapegoat with money.
This family, the lives of these three people, had been violently impacted by things like cheating and murder, but they still returned to the original track.
What is the original track? Contrary to the poetic imagery of the film, there is absolutely no poetry in their lives. Mediocre and trivial real life, casual dress at home, little conversation, lying on the couch watching TV.
The old and shabby home has a beautiful window with a few pots of flowers on the windowsill, and the sea can be seen outside the window. When we had breakfast, it was still not very bright, and the lights were not turned on, and the sky was shining by the window. At this time, there were no cars on the road downstairs, it was very quiet, and the sound of seagulls and the wind could be heard.
Not so good life, not so bad. Life always goes on according to its inertia. The boss drove the driver's wife home. She sat on the sofa and thought about it. She gradually became happy, and swayed her feet and threw off her shoes. At this time, she thought she could change her way of life, but she was wrong. It is very, very difficult to change your life circle.
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