First, attach a passage from the director that touched me:
"We are now completely opposite to the Victorian era (the film’s background era). They don’t talk about sex. We talk about sex too much, instead of talking about love. Talking about true love seems to show that you are an easy fool. Just like the previous few. The Gothic "Twilight" series of the Great Fire in 2015, the man who will give you true love is a vegetarian vampire."
After the movie was released in China, it was madly complained, because everyone went to horror movies (of course, some went to my ass, such as me). However, this is not a horror film but a gothic film. The director's positioning of it is Gthic Romance. The influence of Ergoct culture in China is not deep, so it is inevitable that everyone will not buy it. So, first of all, I want to share what exactly is Gothic culture.
In the Victorian era, a form of creation emerged in Britain. Generally, a pure and lively hostess is attracted to a tall and gloomy male host. The male host often has an old house inherited from the family, and the story will happen in the house. Moreover, it must be explained that Gothic does not mean this brainless romance novel, usually the center of the novel is around the heroine's self-discovery and growth. Works such as "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" by the Bronte sisters, as well as "Butterfly Dream" and "Secret Garden" are the most famous Gothic novels.
One of the most epoch-making aspects of Gothic creation is that it attaches great importance to the shaping of female characters. Women are no longer dependent on men's objects, but have their own pursuits, which are extremely smart and strong. The second point is the description of sex and love. Before that, no work would mention sex. After all, talking about sex was regarded as sordid at the time, especially women should not show sex after marriage. eager.
After understanding this, we can know that the focus of this film is not horror, but rather talks about the growth of women and the connection between love and sex in a more gloomy way.
And what I admire most is that the director did not turn Goth into a romantic drama. The role of the male lead is important, but the main thing in this drama is the war between two women, which is the collision between two completely different women.
Lusiel is a British, traditional and elegant, used to stand behind men and be dominated by men. Family and men are his world, she can't abandon the family house, trying to maintain the home with Tomes. Her decisions and actions are to keep her man in their family. So when she felt that Tomes' feelings for Edith were deepening, she became more and more disturbed, especially after the night of the hostess, she knew that her lover had fallen in love with others, and he was leaving her. So she kept telling herself that the heroine was just a tool, she would die, and she would die in her own hands just like her mother. Anyone who affected her and Tomes' small world would be wiped out, and she would not hesitate to give birth to her own baby. So in the end, when Edith said that he came back, she would expose her back to the enemy and look back, because he is her world, the world destroyed by her personally.
Edith is an American, lively and bold, and represents the future. She feels that she challenges the traditional patriarchal dominance and has her own career pursuit. She has the purest love for Tomes, not as financial support for her future life. She was so innocent that she couldn't feel Lusiel's malice towards her. She explored this old house with curiosity about the future, tried to adapt to the bad conditions, and tried to integrate into the completely different lifestyles of her brother and sister. Even the ghost didn't make her back down, she would never stop until she found the truth, and she would never change her trust in her siblings before she figured out the story. And she was very strong. In the end, her body was very weak and her love was broken. She learned that the death of her father was caused by the brother and sister she trusted the most. It can be said that her world has collapsed, but she still did not abandon herself or rely on herself. Behind the man who came to save himself, he picked up the knife himself and saved himself.
The director's main force is to create these two female characters. They don't need others to control or save them. So he even deliberately weakened the power of male characters. The second man did not insist on an autopsy, and then the detective upper body, to pierce the scam, organize the tragedy of the heroine. In the end, the second male only gave the heroine a helping hand, and did not even contribute to the fight, but only sat aside and waited for the heroine to save himself.
Another thing I appreciate very much is that the heroine is proactive about sex, and her first night with the heroine is what she expects, actively participates and enjoys. Rather than being tricked into going to bed by a man, being taken advantage of by a man. Women can enjoy sex as frankly as men, and will not be regarded as debauchery because of her desire and initiative.
In this scene of the boat scene, I have to mention that sex is a very important theme in Gothic creation. So there will be meat in this film. Tom said: "I discussed with the director that the person in charge of the exposure in the film must be women. This is wrong, so we decided to let the male characters bear the burden of exposing the scene this time." The director also Wosen's protection of feminism is really heartwarming.
The director's dedication to props also touched me. The three-story house is built by hand, the elevator can really move, the water in the kitchen is flowing, and the stove can really cook. And in Tomes's handcrafted room, Lusiel's bedroom is full of small details. The moths on the attic wall and the patterns on the butterfly wings are in the shape of a fear. The shoulders of the heroine's clothes grew bigger and bigger as she became firmer and firmer, just like a butterfly being uncocooned. The lace on Lusiel's clothes has the style of a house, and the spiked pendant is a reduced version of the spikes in the hallway. She is the house. Even the digging machines are real-size and built from real parts.
I was also shocked by the director’s seriousness in character creation. He wrote a 15-page character description for each role, including horoscopes, hobbies, favorite foods, and stories of experiences. He made each role its own. You can’t tell each other’s secrets. He has given enough humanity to each role, and each of their choices is determined by their character, and their character is shaped by the life manager.
There is also a mention of the importance of education in the film. The sister's crime stems from the violence of her parents, and the heroine's tragedy stems from her father's concealment. In fact, it is also a kind of dictatorship. The director said: "All sins stem from improper education. If we give a child the most appropriate education before the age of 12, then we will have no sin."
Lusiel's actor, the Goddess of Labor, said: "I am very happy to have a lot of lines in such a woman, and most of them appear in the film between the two heroines."
I really hope that in this way, there can be more films about female characters and their mental journeys. There have been several such films recently, such as "Hidden Figures" and "Women's Participants". In such a film, a woman is not just a white lotus hiding behind a man, but a strong and smart one. She can disturb the situation, work hard for her own career and love, and make a decisive choice and counterattack.
She doesn't need heroes to save, because she has the ability to save herself.
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