Whether "In the Valley of Elah" is literally translated as "Battle of Elah", or interpreted as "Dilemma" or "Shock Effect", it is a bit strange. In terms of the shock to his father, Hank Tilfield (played by Tommy Lee Jones), to discover the truth about the cause of his son Mike's death and the personality changes formed by the war in Iraq, the translation of "Shock Effect" is not bad. spectrum. The English name of the film comes from the 17th chapter of the "Bible 1 Samuel". More than 3,000 years ago, the Israelites and the Philistines fought in the valley of Elah. With courage, wit and composure, the Israeli shepherd boy David defeated with five stones. Goliath the Giant, when Hank tells the story as a bedtime read to David, the son of Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), the child asks back, "Why would the king Putting a kid in a duel?" Hank couldn't answer the question, just as he couldn't answer the connection between his son Mike's transformation and the war. In this sense, the title of the film is still a bit interesting.
This film is the second work directed by Paul Haggis after "Crash". He is also the screenwriter of the film. Since the screenwriter and author of "Letter from Iwo Jima" and "The Flag of Our Fathers" last year, Haggis once again will My own cognition and thinking about the war, combined with real events, are presented with light and shadow techniques. I always feel that Haggis is a somewhat "thief" talented filmmaker, good at grasping serious themes, and skillfully responding to a big proposition through individual encounters, fate and emotions, so as to inspire people to think broadly, and can be very good. The rational and emotional aspects of the film are weighed, so that the preaching atmosphere is not obvious, and the emotions are not overwhelmed, and the settings of every detail are also meaningful.
In this "Battle of the Valley of Elah", Haggis's creative attitude is still serious, and he also uses the right actors to play the right roles, using layer-by-layer narrative techniques to present the story with impact and accuracy. He conveys his thoughts and rhetorical questions to the audience soothingly, without being pretentious or forceful, but very convincing. The plot selection and setting of the film is also quite skillful: although it does not directly dig into the insider of the military, it allows the audience to understand that it has many problems; there is no direct anti-war remarks, almost all the narratives about the real situation on the battlefield and the anti-war remarks. The lines of dissatisfaction with the war all came from the mouths of the soldiers, which seemed objective and credible; there was no frontal representation of the war scenes, and all the blurred pictures of the Iraq War were presented through the video in Mike’s mobile phone; the film did not even directly clarify the war and the Changing the relationship between human nature seems to only touch the surrounding, but its intention is self-evident, but it makes the critical atmosphere created by it even stronger.
Haggis selected an article titled "Death and Shame" that had been published in Playboy magazine as the prototype of the film. "Death and Shame" tells the story of an Iraqi soldier who was brutally killed just after returning home. The real incident, his father immediately launched an investigation, and finally found out that the murderer was actually three of his son's comrades-in-arms. He did not deliberately create a mystery. When reproducing this real incident in a movie, Haggis played the role of investigating "different suspects". This multi-angle and multi-level analysis method, step by step, reflects the existence of the U.S. military. There are many acute and realistic problems in the world - the mentally overloaded soldiers behave very abnormally, whether it is drug dependence or military discipline corruption, whether they torture prisoners in Iraq, or wantonly after returning to the country. He also used his power to lie and cover up.
When a young man's heart turned from pure to fear and then to tyranny, the cruel truth caused is shocking. The film uses comparison many times to reproduce this incredible personality transformation. The son who returned from the battlefield turned into a fragmented "barbecue" near the US domestic garrison base. The process of Hank's search for the cause of his son's death, the actual The above is the heartache process of knowing what kind of person his son has become. The war has carried out a terrible "transformation" on the big boy at home. During the investigation, his ugliness gradually emerged. Through the repaired mobile phone video, Hank saw His son's bullying of wounded Iraqis, through other people's words, he learned that his son has become very impulsive, swears, and always goes out of pornography.
When the female police detective Emily suspected Mike's comrades in arms, Hank, who had been a military police officer, strongly refuted. In his opinion, it was impossible for comrades who had experienced life and death to kill each other. However, it turned out that He was so pure, and when the culprit finally pleaded guilty, Penny, the soldier who had helped Hank fix the car and smoked and talked with him about Mike, seemed very calm, he said he didn't hate Mike, but that's how things got out of hand It happened, he was the first to stab Mike, and if it didn't happen, maybe Mike would kill him one day, because they were often "laughing one second and angry the next." That night, these soldiers stabbed comrade Mike 42 times in a fight caused by a quarrel, and dismembered and scorched him in the wild. Mike's credit card went to buy Xiao Ye's food, as if nothing had happened. In the latter part of the film, when Hank returned home and opened the parcel sent by his son from Iraq earlier, he saw the photo sent to him by his son. In the photo, Mike was sitting in the military vehicle with his comrades who later killed him, smiling brightly. At the same time, the style of this posed show photo is completely different from the photo Hank saw on his son's mobile phone. Just as those soldiers said, "I don't want my parents to see us like this", the changed son still hopes that his father's mind He is still beautiful.
Hank in the film is a person who believes in courage, because he believes that he tells the story of the young hero David to the children. He is also a veteran who is proud of serving the country in the military, and proud of his son's succession to his father's position. After his eldest son in the military, David, was killed in a military plane crash 10 years ago, he didn't "at least leave Mike with me" as his wife Joann (Susan Sarandon) demanded, continuing to support him without hesitation. Younger son joins the army. However, the truth overturned his previous values, and he had to bitterly accept the fact that his son had been changed, and had to re-evaluate his beliefs and values. The film has a more ingenious contrast. Soon at the beginning, Hank is set up to correct someone's disrespectful practice of dragging the flag to the ground when raising the Stars and Stripes, and tell him that the flag must not be hung upside down, because hanging the flag upside down means that it is in crisis and needs international attention. Rescue, at the end of the film, Hank hangs a worn-out flag upside down, and its intention is obvious.
The overall tone of this film with anti-war sentiments is very low-key and simple, which leaves a lot of space for the actors to perform, and the actors in the film are also very good, whether it is the best actors or actresses who have no acting experience. Soldiers. "Time" once commented that "the dedicated actors and outstanding script make this film far surpass "Crash"." In particular, Tommy Lee Jones's waterless acting skills are very good, he will this film An old man with a strong appearance who suffered from the loss of his child was shaped into every detail, and he managed the gradually progressive emotions with ease. Some media commented: "Tommy Lee Jones is enough to win the best actor." Only this time the most The competition for the best actor seems to be fierce. Tommy's strongest competitor should be Daniel Day-Lewis of "Blood Down".
Susan Sarandon, who advocates anti-war actresses, seems to be the most appropriate to play the soldier's mother. She has few scenes, but she is very eye-catching, whether it is heartbreaking when she first hears it, or when she recognizes the body. Excessive grief - When looking at her son's dead body, the mother stretched out her hand, touched the isolation glass, and asked, "Is that all that's left?" Charlize Theron's performance is naturally restrained, giving In order to belong to the role of the female police detective, when she told Hank that after Hank told her son David's story, the child wanted a slingshot, "If it goes on like this, do I have to give it back? Did he buy a toy pistol?" This seemingly casual dialogue contains hidden educational concerns.
Hank has always been educating his sons with the belief of bravery, justice and patriotism. However, in Iraq, Mike suffered a nightmare. Because of the fear of terrorist attacks, the American soldier's manual stipulates that when he is patrolling, he encounters someone blocking the front, even if it is a child. Go quickly. And just like that, Mike watched a child get hit and killed and his faith collapsed. He called Hank and cried and said, "Dad, something terrible happened." However, the other end of the phone Hank, who was awakened in his sleep, could not hear his son's precarious and out of control emotions. Mike, who could not find an outlet for his emotions, quickly hung up the phone. Then, after the collapse of his beliefs, this simple and vulnerable American soldier began to behave like other people. Like addicted to drugs and perverted behavior, all this rich information contained in the film is inevitably reminiscent of the child's question: "Why would the king let a child duel?"
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