Canadian director David Cronenberg won the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement at this year's Venice Film Festival. At the invitation of the film festival, he chose an old film to screen at the film festival. The work he chose was actually "Mr Butterfly" in 1993! The reason why the word "actually" is used is that "Mr. Butterfly" really doesn't look like a typical Cronenberg work. The film is adapted from the Broadway play of the same name, and Cronenberg himself did not participate in the screenwriting. And this mellow, elegant, oriental period film is a far cry from Cronenberg's usual cult-violent style. But Cronenberg himself said it was one of his most personal works. Indeed, although the image of "Mr Butterfly" does not have a naked sensory impact, the series of themes it expresses - the mutation of the body, the reversal of power, the hidden mechanism of desire, and the subversive transformation of self-identity are all In line with Cronenberg's other works. Through a bizarre tale that spans race and sexuality, Cronenberg explores the complexities of human nature that he explores more than even the original play itself. The text of the film "Mr Butterfly" has three layers: the first layer is the real relationship between Peking opera actor Shi Peipu, who disguised himself as a woman, and Boursicot, a staff member of the French embassy in China with a homosexual complex, in Beijing in the 1960s; the second layer It is a play adapted by Chinese-American writer Huang Zhe Lun based on this matter. The third layer is Cronenberg's transformation of the first two layers of text, and his handling of the text is much more subtle and subtle. Instead of emphasizing the sexuality of Boursicot (named Rene Gallimard in the film), he generalizes Boursicot's desires to the perfect illusion of love that everyone can dream of, As for the political tension between the East and the West that Huang Zhelan strongly emphasized, it is also greatly weakened in the film, because Cronenberg believes that this bizarre incident itself is enough to illustrate the curious imagination of Westerners on Eastern culture. Under Cronenberg's delicate handling, the story of "Mr. Butterfly" still contains various complex themes: culture, identity, power, politics, desire. But the ultimate core of the film is just the emotional relationship between the two humans. Even though it's bizarre, bizarre, terrifying and twisted, it's still captivating. There are many iconic Chinese elements in the pull-tab title, but they are designed to be extremely flat. Does this treatment already imply Cronenberg's criticism of Western-style curiosity? The prototype character of Galima is a fat and bald middle-aged man in the closet, but Cronenberg's actor for this role is Jeremy Irons. His naive and shy temperament completely changes the story. the taste of. Casting Zunlong as Peking Opera actress Song Liling was also a risky move: after all, viewers who have seen "The Last Emperor" can recognize his gender. Cronenberg's move is to deliberately obscure Galima's desire mechanism. Although there is no explicit statement in the film, people who know Peking Opera may be able to understand Song Liling's complex psychology: he gradually became gay due to his gender reversal. He was both humiliated and loved the identity at the same time. Song Liling hides his true gender to seduce the innocent Lima. And John Lone followed a similar approach on set: he never appeared in menswear in front of Irons. When Song and Galima kiss for the first time, "her"'s shyness and obedience make the latter's heart move. But it wasn't until later that Song revealed the secret with one sentence: "Only men know best how a woman should behave." Song's housekeeper peeped out the window of the two's affair. It was she who reported the relationship between Song and Galima to the organization, and threatened Song that he would be sent to a labor camp if he did not engage in conspiracy work during the relationship. The nature of Gallima's job (accounting) made him destined to offend his colleagues. The siege of his French colleagues made him even more determined to escape from his own culture and past and embrace another culture completely. Galima and Song Liling have almost created a new form of sex. When sex was separated from reproduction in the 20th century, it became almost an abstract force, and a distinct art form. This is Cronenberg's first time out of Canada to film in a foreign country. But he did not emphasize the magnificent sight of the Great Wall, in his view, it was only subordinate to the background of the emotional relationship between the two. Song Liling finally became a "player" because of her status. Sent to a labor camp. Galima went to Song's house to look for him, only to find that his house was covered with sports signs and that there were Red Guards living inside. Galima, who was engulfed by the tide of Red Guards, was full of confusion on her face. What he didn't realize was that his deep desire to write about the Red Guards was exactly the same as that of the "Cultural Revolution Post" movement: they both wanted to violently and completely destroy their own past, renounce their own identity, culture and family, and become completely different Things. To understand political movements, we must first understand the desires of individuals. Finally, Song reveals his true gender to Galima. Galima has a look of shock and relief on his face, and he may have long been Anticipating that his vision of perfection cannot exist in the real world. In the prison car, Song bares his body to Galima. He says his skin is still that skin, but Galima is still unable to accept the truth , what he loves is just a phantom. Galima didn't realize until the end that Song was the master of this relationship, and that he had always been the "Mrs. Butterfly" who had been deceived and let down. Under the makeup of Madam Butterfly, he ran towards his own destiny.
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