"The Wicked": A Minimalist Poem of Violence

As a director, Takeshi Kitano has gained a reputation for his unique aesthetics of sudden violence, the taciturnity of the characters, the composure of the camera, and a touch of "Kitano Blue" that permeates the whole film with a touch of sadness. It's the label affixed to him. But it is not difficult to see from his creative trajectory that Takeshi Kitano is a director who seeks innovation and change, and has been constantly exploring new styles. In "Summer of Kijiro", he abandoned the usual violent style and turned to a fresh and tender drama to contrast the frustration and sadness of a middle-aged man who lost his childhood; he also made a vulgar comedy joke in "Sex Rhapsody" , which is hilarious; he also plays short literary shorts such as "Beautiful Holidays". Obviously, Kitano Takeshi is not satisfied with creating within the framework of violence, just as he is not satisfied with directing an art. However, art has its own essence. We always have a tolerant attitude towards the "playful" attitude of artists. Their inadvertent innovations and breakthroughs will always bring joy, but each creator has his best at it. In terms of formal appeal, Yasujiro Ozu is always inseparable from a lonely father, and Shohei Imamura has been working with anthropology all the time... The persistence and breakthrough of a creator's style in his field of expertise will bring more profound joy.
This is the kind of joy that Kitano's violent return has brought me. The violence in "Extremely Wicked" has become even colder. If this kind of coldness is called a doctrine, let's call it minimalist violence. Why it is called minimalist violence, we can explore a little from the following points.

Anti-drama
is different from the priority of characters, background and history that are emphasized in conventional scripts. The relationship between characters in "Extremely Wicked and Outrageous" is only limited within the organization, without the slightest arrogance, and without depicting one or several protagonists with heavy colors. It is to make face of all the characters: the law of the jungle after the moral collapse and the extreme evil it has derived. This is obviously very different from the heroization of characters and the complexity of psychological activities in traditional gangster films.
The plot does not have a climax, only a subclimax. In the film, after the Dayuan team dealt with Murase and Chi Yuan successively, they finally suffered a disaster. From a conventional aesthetic point of view, when the audience saw Dayuan's team members being hunted down one by one, they contacted the audience. Before, Dayuan asked Qingshui to hide this scene, and the director's details about Qingshui's role in the lover's residence were slightly more delicate, and he couldn't help but have expectations in his heart, expecting Qingshui and his boss to destroy the Shanwanghui and destroy the enemy in one fell swoop. . But the result was that Shimizu was successfully resolved without any resistance. As a result, the audience had to pin their last hope on Dayuan. Just when everyone thought that a heroic figure was about to explode, Dayuan, who was all looking forward to it, obediently took refuge in the safe haven of prison, and finally died with prison. And just like that, all expectations of an orgasm came to nothing. Takeshi Kitano has always only had a story outline and no specific script for filming, but this time he wrote the script against the previous style. Obviously, such an arrangement is obviously the director's intention, and it is not bad to regard it as the director's rebuke of the film language. .

There is violence and no blood
. The violence in "Extremely Wicked and Immortal", although there are still some novel sadistic and death methods, such as Shimizu's decapitation, Murase's mouth explosion and Chi Yuan's tongue explosion, but more are all. One shot or several kills. Interestingly, all the violence in the film went smoothly without being resisted. This allows us to return to the source of violence, not to judge brutality by how much blood is shed. If you want to die, you will die silently, without the slightest bit of long-windedness, what a calm poem, without any superfluous lyricism, clean and neat Kill, die happily. And this kind of violence is more like a kind of political violence.

The simplification of photography and soundtrack
Yanagijima Katsumi's still shots and neat movements, a large number of close-ups, played the role of an icehouse, which greatly cooled the blood of warm colors. Coupled with that trace of "North Wild Blue", the already simplified violence seemed a bit colder.
The soundtrack has also been reduced as much as possible. There is almost no background music from the beginning to the end of the whole film. The only impressive music appears in the scene where the Otto group encounters a serial chase. Even the music at this time is just simple. rhythm, extremely restrained.

The return of "Extremely Wicked and Immortal" is not just a simple return of violence, but a metaphysical minimalist violence poem made by Takeshi Kitano to the fullest of his views on violence and human nature. Its concise and smooth narrative embodies a mockery of the organization, which makes people applaud. But in the final analysis, this film only stays at the level of expressionism, and does not propose a solution or give direction, which is a pity. However, to put it another way, it is amazing to be able to express it accurately and without losing freedom. After all, we can't even see the signs of such performance when we look inside.

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