I started
to complain and I still can't figure out why "War Horse" got such a high rating at the Oscars (although it didn't win an award in the end).
War Horse's failure (at least in my opinion) can be blamed on the director's lack of clarity about the film's theme.
If this is an anti-war genre film, then the brutality of the war, the highlighting of human nature, and the thinking about killing are not expressed in the language of the camera. If you argue that this is a sensational film, then where is he touching? There are only two episodes that touched me in the whole movie: (spoiler) 1. Albert and Joey reclaiming gravel in the heavy rain 2. Albert and injured Joe in the British camp
I feel compelled to give a brief introduction to Joey's entire wandering journey (spoiler again) before proceeding to the following rant . Yingde develops, and the officer buys the warhorse Joey from Albert's father. After the officer was killed in battle, Joey was captured by the Germans (also captured by Joey's friend, a black warhorse of the same excellence). Two teenage twin brothers in the German army take care of Joey and the black warhorse. The twins later escaped from the front and were caught on a farm and shot. Emily, a little girl on the farm, found them and took care of the two horses with her grandpa. But the good times didn't last long, and the Germans found them and requisitioned them to fire artillery for the army. Exhausted from overwork, the black horse died on the road. Joey miraculously survived the artillery fire between the British and German double positions. Later, Joey was wounded and sent to the British position. A scene of the drama comes out, and Joey's original owner, Albert, is also drafted into the army. See you again, go home.
The reason why I say this movie is a failure is that it has no main line of expression at all. The movie tells the story from the perspective and process of War Horse Joey and recreates the war. However, the question remains, what exactly do you want to express? It can be seen that Spielberg has made an effort to enrich the film (as can be seen from the 146-minute length). Spielberg followed the routine to add elements to the film.
Anti-war: In the Anglo-German artillery fire, the soldiers on both sides temporarily put down their guns in order to rescue Joey, who was entangled in barbed wire. Warmth
: Albert trains the foal Joey, wait, this one is more basic
: The part with the black warhorse Special Cultivation of Sand and Stone Land Love: Albert and the girl sitting in the car of the hometown A little episode when Albert was training a horse. However, at the end of the movie, Albert asked his fellow villager the name of the girl in the trenches, but he did not explain the follow-up, which was completely unclear. What the hell did the director say about her!) The movie gives the impression of being impetuous as a whole, each story is a revolving slideshow and an inferior platter of movie elements, with no primary, secondary and focal points. A character has not waited for us to experience it, and when we go deeper, they are either dead or kicked out of the plot by the director. It doesn't take into account our feelings at all. This nuanced narrative method greatly weakens the film's expressiveness (for example, at the end of the film, Albert appears on the battlefield without warning at all), and back to what we said at the beginning, it oscillates between anti-war and warm lines , trying to show it together, but the result is that it is difficult to distinguish the priority of emotions, which is very confusing. A work that should have established a monument for war movies, but in the end it was lost. Spielberg should take full responsibility for it.
To be honest, the ending of the film is not that moving at all. From the perspective of developing games, your pet baby separated from you when he was a child and began to roam the rivers and lakes. But for most of the whole movie you were not on camera, that is, you were cut by the director! It's not until the end of the movie that you are introduced to reunite with your grown-up pet. Who can accept it? In his career abroad for several years, Joey has experienced too much, and he has also been loved and cherished by many people. This undoubtedly dilutes the audience's memory of the initial relationship between Albert and Joey. (It is worth mentioning that the director of God damn did not give Albert even a minute of playing time in the middle!) Albert's sudden appearance later did not give the audience any buffer or omen. Having Albert take Joey away in the end makes sense, but it doesn't make much sense. To make an inappropriate analogy, Albert was originally Joey's biological father, but Joey went around the outside world and ate thousands of meals. When he actually returned home, Albert was like an outsider, a foster father. So why are you so excited about the reunion of your adoptive father and adopted son?
If, only if, Spielberg's storytelling can use a double-line approach to parallel the history of Albert and Joey's war, then the final reunion will not be so abrupt. (Maybe it's 3-4 hours long, but isn't "Once Upon a Time in America" that long?)
As for that girl, Spielberg, I don't think we'll mention her, okay?
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