Text / Running Public Account: Abandon the Books
The Iranian-American director Ramin Bahrani, once lauded by the famous American film critic Roger Ebert, let the camera temporarily in his new film "The White Tiger" (The White Tiger) The bottom people who left the United States turned to India and told a story that many people called "the Indian version of parasites".
In this country with serious class divisions and deep-rooted ancient religious traditions, yet desperate for modernization, Bahani's images no longer have so much sympathy for the characters, but more of a profound imitation and analysis of class relations from a grim perspective. .
At the beginning of the film, Balam, a servant and driver, sits in the back seat in an Indian prince costume, while the owner Ashok and his pink lady (pinky) are driving. The three seem to get along well after changing their identities, but it feels weird. Always present against the backdrop of neon lights.
Just after the scene of the poor man on the side of the road passed by, the balance in the car was quickly broken, and the pink lady drove into the passing girl. This is the beginning of the story and the beginning of another cycle.
In Indian Buddhism, after a person dies, the soul will leave the human body and enter a new life body, until it reaches Nirvana, then it can get rid of samsara. That is to say, for most people, reincarnation is nothing but "the ups and downs of life and death", and the same cruelty and despair are staged again and again, without exception.
There are three protagonists of this reincarnation in India in the 21st century: Balam, a servant who grew up in a slum in India, Ashok, the master who went to study in the United States, and Lady Pink, who grew up in the United States.
Ashok is the heir to the family estate, and he is eager to inherit the family wealth and to be recognized by his girlfriend. Lady Pink is the representative of the American dream. The second generation of immigrants finally got admitted to a prestigious school through hard work and achieved a class jump. Ballang has been tortured by poverty since he was a child, and he is determined to earn wealth, break the myth of reincarnation, and become a superior man.
As a servant, Balam always greeted people with a smile and obeyed his masters, which helped him break through the barriers of class and participate in the relationship of his masters. Although the three seem to get along on the surface, each time they return home, they realize that they are just outsiders, powerless to change anything.
Lady Pink, who grew up in the United States, never thought of living in India, and she was never valued in her husband's home, because she was the only woman and she didn't know the rules and regulations of doing things in India. After Balam returned home, he did not receive the respect he expected, but instead had to bear heavier responsibilities. The whole village was eager to suck his blood, and he had to flee again quickly.
In India, the largest country, the film also seems to imply that the Ashok family, who are chaebols, can only play the role of an outsider who cannot understand or change the structure of social operation, allowing them to shake the slogan of "poverty alleviation". Politicians cheat people's votes.
From top to bottom, the characters in the film are in an oppressed state, where the dream of class jumping is slowly swallowed by a black hole.
Although Baram was at the bottom of the oppressed, no matter how insulted and abused he was, he always kept a standard smile on his face. We could not read his heart through his expressions, but only through his monologues (and at the same time, in the capital Flattery) to understand the true thoughts in his heart, and there is only one voice in his heart, and that is the law of the jungle of "making money first".
Even as he tried to open his heart to us, he couldn't hear his real voice, all he could hear was a man named Balam reading a manuscript that had been written since his childhood. As he said in his monologue, there are thousands of people who look like him in India, and Balam has become a symbol, and he can be anyone in that land.
Being humiliated for a long time couldn't change the smile on Balam's face, and he couldn't even tell whether he was too accustomed to servility, or whether he was really so obsessed with changing his destiny. In any case, his fate as a servant at the bottom would eventually fall on him.
When the master kills the girl, Balam is forced to take the blame for the master. His smile was finally replaced by blankness when he signed the name admitting his crime, and even then he showed no displeasure. Only later did he learn of his innocence that tears finally came to his eyes, and for the first time we learned his feelings through his face, that is, from that moment, in words (Baram The story of the monologue) has come to an end, and images have finally become the primary tool for expressing emotions.
The trust between master and servant disappeared, and the dream of dissolving class from within came to naught, and Balam finally had to return to his original self. In the last twenty minutes, the film changed the previous narrative angle and visualized Baram's perception, roaming with his thoughts for a while, reaching the depths of his consciousness, talking with his dead father on the daily street, and temporarily perceiving what he felt, Shaky footage follows him staggering along the noisy road.
Balam became a wild beast in the forest again, sensitive, ready to hunt, and could feel a fire burning in his heart.
Becoming a beast again marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. After Baram achieved the class jump, more workers were hired, more Baram was emerging, wealth replaced their beliefs, and the rise and fall of class replaced the cycle of life and death, people's imagination of Nirvana is limited to the growth of wealth, There is no possibility of getting rid of reincarnation. This is the straightforward answer provided by the director.
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