This film mainly tells a loving couple of the middle class in the United States. Since the arrival of his son Kevin, the family has become less harmonious. This film is adapted from a fictitious school shooting case, but it does not describe the case too much. Instead, it reflects on the education of the son from the perspective of a mother. Speaking of school shootings, the movie "Elephant" has to say a few words. "Elephant" focuses more on the objective and multi-angle description of the truth of the incident. The story reaches its climax in the last 20 minutes, and it has a sense of "another village in the shadow of a willow". The focus of "We Need to Talk about Kevin" is not the campus tragedy. Its tragedy originates from the extreme performance of a short-circuit between a mother and a child. The director did not take the study of the root causes of school violence as the theme of the film. Instead, he revealed the psychological and emotional changes before and after the tragedy of the mother and son through the confrontational relationship between Kevin and his mother.
As the absolute protagonist of the film, Kevin mainly tells the story of his three ages as examples. Although there are only three stages, it is enough for us to see how this "little devil" is made. The first stage is the infancy. Because the mother is inexperienced, in order to avoid his crying, the mother would rather go to the noisy construction site and let the noisy beating sound cover Kevin's crying. He can judge whether it is a father or a mother directly from the feeling of his parents hugging him, and the seeds of the little devil are planted in his heart. The second stage is childhood. During childhood, he refused to speak, and he had to wear diapers at the age of changing teeth. It is not because he has intellectual disability or other causes, but he confronts his mother in his own way, and retaliates against his mother with his over-aged maturity and high IQ. After the "arm-throwing" incident, this hatred for his mother became stronger. The third period is the teenage years, when Kevin's rebellious psychology has reached its extreme, and it is also the most maddening stage. The conflict between him and his mother gradually escalated, especially after the eye injury of his younger sister, his parents were disappointed in him, and they were about to send him to the army. The seeds of his inner devil broke out completely. Eventually the tragedy struck, Kevin went to jail, and his mother lived a life that was worse than death.
It is not difficult to imagine that this is the work of a female director. Its emotional expression is delicate, allowing you to feel the mental journey of the characters in the film most directly. The first is Kevin's mother, a mother who has no experience and is not ready for Kevin to come to this world. For Kevin, she gave up her career and became a full-time wife at home. She didn't know how to take care of the children, even though she gave up her job and worked as a full-time wife at home, she still didn't stop Kevin's increasingly demonic heart. In the end, the tragedy came, and his son shot and killed his husband and daughter. This kind of gap is incomprehensible to ordinary people. The only thing that can be done is salvation, which is forgiveness. At the same time, she is also tragic. Her tragedy is reflected in the fact that she does not know where her education management problems are. I don't know why his son Kevin became like this? People spit on her and blamed Kevin for the crime she committed. Others beat her and scolded her, but she could only say: It's okay, it's my fault. Others pour ketchup on her door and car, but she can only clean the dirt over and over again, and bear everything silently. She lost her previous job, her previous life, and everything before. Maybe for a mother, she has done enough, and the endurance has almost exceeded her limit; but as Kevin’s mother, she has done so little and failed to grasp the child’s inner thoughts and feelings in time. This is fatal. There is an old saying in China that "no enmity cannot be a father and son". The same principle applies between mother and son.
Speaking of Kevin, you might accuse him indignantly, saying that he is a demon, possessed by Satan, and a badass... But I think he is a jealous person who is in desperate need of proving himself, and that he is in urgent need of his mother’s love. People with serious rebellious psychology can also be said to be an alternative Oedipus complex. He adopted a way similar to the mental abuse of his mother to satisfy his psychological pleasure. Therefore, even if his body is kept in prison, people will remind Eva "You have a devilish son" all the time. He is smart by nature and hates his mother's tireless arithmetic for him to do simple arithmetic, or naive game of rolling the ball back and forth. His mother threw him aside and broke his arm, but instead of telling his father, he seemed to have rescued his mother. In fact, he thoroughly saw through his mother and deepened his anger. Buried in my heart. In front of his parents, he behaved like a normal child of the same age, because he knew that only normal people would not care about his abnormality. The birth of his sister is undoubtedly a naked provocation to his existence. Even his father, who likes him the most, divided his love into half for his sister. His demonic heart kept growing. That night, for the first time, he took the initiative to get into the arms of his mother Eva to listen to the story, just to anger his father, but in fact he no longer trusts and loves his father. In the end, he shot his classmates, father and sister with the swordsmanship his father taught him. When his mother asked him why he did this, he himself was at a loss: "I used to think I knew, but now I am not so sure...".
Although the film does not focus much on Kevin's father, it is also a character that cannot be ignored. Due to work, Kevin's father has always neglected him and never realized that the contradiction between Kevin and his mother is increasing. Like all normal children, he acted like a baby in front of his father, played games, archery and so on with his father. However, the birth of the younger sister changed everything, and suddenly made Kevin feel that there was no place to stand. So, he got into the arms of his mother and listened to her mother's story. In fact, he provokes his father and draws a clear line of Han to his father. The contradiction between mother and child became more and more intense. Facing the frequent occurrence of contradictions, Kevin's father said the most words: "He is just a child". After the sister's eye incident, his father became disappointed in him and was discussing sending him to the army. In this regard, the relationship between Kevin and his father officially broke. In Kevin's eyes, his father turned his love to his sister. This is the key to Kevin's shooting of his father and sister.
The last is Kevin's sister, an innocent little girl. She is undoubtedly the most innocent character in this tragedy. She was bullied by her brother Kevin when she was a baby and splashed her face with water in the fish tank. Later, Kevin used a vacuum cleaner to suck his hair and scolded words such as fools countless times. The sister in the film didn't mean to resist at all. Not only that, she also said: "Kevin said I was stupid, I think it was right", indirectly she admitted the "stupid" point of view. To a certain extent, Kevin is stubborn and stubborn like her mother Eva; her younger sister, like her father, chooses to compromise most of the time and has a milder personality. In fact, Kevin may not dislike this younger sister, but her mother wrapped her sister up and kept Kevin from touching or playing with her. This relationship will spoil itself and become shattered.
This is a serious movie with a gloomy tone, but it is full of bright red symbolic images. Red should be a warm and sexy color, but here it symbolizes a kind of violence or cold violence. There is a saying in China called "Great joy is great compassion." Any kind of red looks particularly eye-catching in this film. For example, the scene of the 3-minute opening ketchup battle (Western carnival), when people are carnival for this grand festival, Kevin’s mother is waiting for salvation, or perhaps reflecting on Kevin’s The education problem may still be immersed in the grief of losing a husband and daughter. She was carried to a big cross like Jesus, and her still dignified facial expression seemed to tell us that all happiness seemed to have nothing to do with her. It was originally a tragedy, but with the "Carnival" as the opening, the director's intention is obvious. After the carnival, everything returned to normal. And the door of the heroine Eva's house and car is still dazzling red. People blamed Kevin for the crimes committed by Eva and retaliated against Eva in various ways. The contrast between white and red is dazzling and eye-catching. In addition, the clothes of little Kevin in the film, the ketchup for eating, the paint, and even the pen for writing are all red. Red is undoubtedly the main color of the film, and it also laid the groundwork for the tragedy.
The film adopts a variety of narrative techniques such as narration, flashback, interstitial, contrast, repetition, etc., to express the obscure psychology of the characters and create a depressed, dark and heavy atmosphere. Shunxu is the main line, mainly from the heroine Eva's loss of husband and daughter, she started another way of life in an incomplete family. The flashback shots are interspersed at the beginning of the film when the father and the little daughter are playing happily. The tragedy was shown to the audience in advance, and it appeared in the film many times as the heroine Eva recalled. Narration is a major feature of the film. Through the narration, two time and space are displayed, and a mother is vividly portrayed from before the tragedy to after the tragedy. And through direct association of people or things encountered in reality to the past time and space, so as to tell how the tragedy happened. For example, Eva was walking outside the company door and was punched by an unfamiliar woman. At this time, the scene interrupted the scene when the tragedy happened, and the woman who beat her was shot by Kevin. In order to atone for Kevin, she had to choose to endure silently. The contrast in the film's performance is obvious. Whether it's the color, the plain color contrasts with bright red, or the change before and after Eva's tragedy. Her transformation is not only reflected in the facial expressions of the characters, but also in the dress. Before the tragedy, the family was happy, so Eva's face was smiling at this time, and the emphasis was mostly on refreshing bright warm colors. After the tragedy, the characters' hearts and expressions are as different as two people, replaced by sad faces. At this time, the clothes are mostly dark and plain. Repeatedly, the most recurring episode in the film was the climax part, and Kevin shot and killed his classmate at the scene. When the heroine Eva sees the victim, she always brings back a tragic memory. Such scenes appear repeatedly in the film. Here I have to say that the heroine's performance is superb. The most direct way to judge the past time and space and the current situation is to observe the heroine's facial expressions. What happened to Kevin? Why did he become like this? Is it family education, is it a college factor? Although the film doesn't describe much about the environment of Kevin's school, we can still feel the general situation of Kevin in the school, which is why he shoots his classmates. When the police came to catch him, what we saw was the strange danger on his face. Is it victory? Or a fool's smile? Or did he retaliate against his mother in another way? We don't know.
The music in the film is tailor-made for the film by the famous composer Radiohead. The Chinese pipa song "Ambush on Ten Sides", which is hard to ignore and stunning. Through the sultry pipa music, the emotions of the people in the film are exploded, the conflicts between mother and child are tightened, and they are constantly escalated. Maybe you would say that it is a bit obtrusive, but the combination of Chinese and Western seems nondescript. But this is exactly what the director intends. Whether in the East or the West, family education has always been a decisive factor for the growth of children. In addition to the pipa song, a variety of old English songs are also used in the film, which not only enhances the atmosphere, but also highlights the mood of the characters. The one that impressed me most was the ending song, "One day I passed by the orphanage and stayed outside the garden wall to see how happy the children were. But there was a boy who ignored him. I asked him why he didn’t play, and he turned around. , Cry out loudly. No one wants me, no one wants me, I am wild, like a wild flower, without dad’s caress, without mother’s kiss, I’m an orphan, no one wants me..." Kevin That orphan, although he has a father and a mother, he didn't get much love. He is sensitive and always paying attention to the changes of his parents. He is smart, but he has not found the right way to communicate with his parents. There is nothing to say. The depression and depression that no one can say makes Kevin a lonely child.
After watching this heavy film, I felt depressed for several days. A good movie will not only bring you the enjoyment of audio-visual art, but also bring you many life and human thinking. Although the film is adapted from a fictional novel, in real life it is not ruled out that there are parents-killing and children with extreme personalities. For example, "Son, what did you do" is based on real events, telling a man in San Diego that he brutally killed his mother with a knife through a weird idea. Movies about juvenile crime are not uncommon. Similar genres such as "Elephant" and the recently watched "Confessions" and "Children in the Cornfield". I personally like this kind of movies that explore extreme humanity, such as "Battle Royale" is included in my top ten personal movies.
"The pain of life, the sorrow of death" these movies leave us too much thinking. About life and death, about education, about family... These eternal topics are intertwined with those shocking tragedies. Let us do it and cherish it. Get inspiration and insights from movies and life to avoid tragedies.
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