drove me to watch it not because it was the best foreign language film at this year's Oscars.
But because of the context of the story - Denmark, and the director's footnotes about this "harmonious society" in some film critics.
"Jensen and I have been discussing what's going on in Denmark and what the image of the country is, because a lot of people imagine it's some kind of overly ideal place with a peaceful social environment - but the truth is What is it? I want to say that for real life, there is never perfect, you can expect 'better' and still there is a huge gap from 'best'.… Is the 'advanced' cultural environment of the 'better world' the paradigm to follow? Beneath the veneer of civilization, are we really as immune as everyone thinks? Maybe just in a completely out of control Faltering on the edge and struggling?" - Suzanne Bier
In fact, my impression of Denmark is a Hævnen-like world: slow rhythms, polite citizens, beautiful girls and boys, Shaanxi's simple and honest accent, and endless train lines of forests, fields and oceans. Unemployed workers here receive subsidies similar to the wages of young architects, pregnant women here cannot be fired, and the state provides additional bonuses.
Yet reading Susannah's passage brought back some imperfections in Denmark.
Last spring in Copenhagen, I saw with my own eyes the descendants of Middle Eastern immigrants fighting in the alleys. Another time, dozens of cars were full of cars sitting on the side windows of the cars, wielding iron bars, and the Middle Eastern gangsters went for a ride, leaving the streets full of dumbfounded people. Danish.
Sister BR once explained to me that this is a cross-generational immigrant hatred. The first generation of immigrants came to this sparsely populated country, worked hard, and received good economic treatment, but they could not culturally integrate into this "advanced" country. society. The second generation of immigrants, with their Danish identity and the social security of Denmark, began to vent their dissatisfaction more boldly to the society.
These are two attitudes, choosing to pursue justice through violence or seeking public welfare through tolerance, and they have been fighting each other. The Danes' tolerant behavior cannot hide their inner superiority, and in the end they can only watch the contradictions increase day by day.
In "Better World", the sense of superiority is carefully concealed by the director, and the contradiction in value is emphasized. The Danish doctor went to the African refugee camp to open a clinic with his own humanitarian ideal, but he was regarded by outsiders as a coward who was powerless against the brutal military officer. In some film critics, this passage is considered to be the consistent discrimination of Westerners against Africa and backward regions, and it is given as a handle for human rights. But I believe that there are really idealists in Denmark. I once met a Kenyan woman in Aalborg who had just married a Dane who went to Africa to practice medicine. He fell in love with her on the way to practice medicine, and married her. brought back. There is also a middle-aged woman who was severely ill with asthma and was hobbling, but was often able to overcome hardships to missionary missions in Ethiopia for several months. These things around you, connected to the scenes in which Africa and Denmark switch back and forth in the film, have a depressing sense of reality.
This seemingly weak and unwilling spirit is sung in an almost "theme" way in the film.
To me, this is a very fresh theme: recalling the themes I have come across, almost all of them are in favor of the pursuit of justice through violence, whether it is classical works or political and ideological education: whether it is the classical "Water Margin", "Three Kingdoms" ", or the heroic deeds of the modern war of liberation, always depicting the opposite contradictions, the bad guys and the good guys, the only hope for justice lies in the people's hatred of evil, and they rise up, wishing to kill the entire enemy's family.
I didn't think it was wrong before, but now I suddenly think: Does this logic work? Violence is used to maintain stability, violence is used to promote democracy, and violence is used to regulate morality. Have we all lost sight of the initial appeal for "justice"?
The Danish doctor in "A Better World" never fights back when he is beaten. Even his son feels useless. All he can do is to take the child to find the person who beat him, and after the other side beats him again and again , said, I'm not afraid of you at all, I just don't want to hit you. . .
Faced with an officer who came to seek medical treatment in an African refugee camp, this character who was portrayed as a thoroughly idealistic person could not give up his responsibility for medical treatment at all. Although the officer was cured, he let the refugees kill him with sacrificial joy.
Would rather be beaten to death than kill the other's spirit is so absurd to us contemporary Orientals. It is indeed the act of Jesus that Westerners admire: "It's just that I tell you, don't fight against the wicked. If someone hits you on the right cheek, even the left cheek is turned around and hit by him;"
This is probably why Westerners are so superstitious about "non-violence" "For the sake of exercise?
This is also a line in the film, "You have no right to decide other people's lives".
It is also their assumption that our lives are controlled by God and that humility is blessed.
When I was young, adults said that we Chinese are the most humble.
But now I feel that there is an aura of struggle beneath the surface of harmony and modesty. When vengeful justice has been praised for a long time, the haze of violence has already devoured the light of justice, and the benefits and struggles have far surpassed that of righteousness. Respect for basic life values.
Perhaps it is because I have never been humbled, and I believe that I have the truth and value in my hands.
Off topic.
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