Growing up, I wonder if you have ever had such an experience—on the way home from school, you were attracted by the ants carrying insect corpses on the side of the road or in the corner of the wall, and watched in a daze as the flesh and blood gradually dissipated, leaving only the body. Or ashes?
The example given is strikingly similar to the thought expressed in Park Chan-wook's film, that is: the more dangerous the sharp and innocent mind is, but recognizing the cruelty and bloodthirsty of reality is the most efficient way to sublimate the virgin mind. Law. And "Stoke" is also using a blood plasma and conspiracy runaway to tell you a fantasy journey about finding freedom in growing up.
The script of the film, written by Wentworth Miller, the protagonist of Prison Break, tells the story of a young girl, India, who lost her father when she was 18 years old. As she and her mother have mixed feelings, a handsome uncle suddenly appears in their lives and takes on the role of a father. First, flirting with her mother in a hurry, and then not forgetting the bloodthirsty teaching India that "good hunters know how to wait quietly". Every hunting is a battle. If you are not a hunter, you will be regarded as a prey. Only by pulling the trigger every second can you capture the prey in one fell swoop. This is also what Miller keeps telling you in the script with a gloomy and depressing style - What is Stoker?
Miller's scripts, whether human or non-human, are always full of human struggles; in contrast, Park Chan-wook is good at telling stories in a dark and roundabout way. But unfortunately, Park Zanyu likes to pinch the audience's neck and make you unable to breathe, and the pungent smell rushes wildly in your brain, which is neither different from the restrained and terrifying "The Vampire of Munao", nor the gorgeous and decadent "Kobo". pull". In the end, Park Chan-wook is mixing Hitchcock's rigor with Kubrick's grotesque to create what Asia sees as Gothic.
At the beginning of the film, the film suddenly stopped for a few seconds while it was sliding smoothly. When the theater audience burst into laughter, thinking that "there will be a reading failure in the movie theater", the movie began to run normally again. Then it didn't take long for the "short pause" of the movie to come again once or twice. Playing with the audience's emotions in this way, no, it should be regarded as "dispatching" the audience's mind, plus a large number of detailed photography shots appearing in the beginning, it is nothing more than Park Chan-wook's hint to you: a good show is about to be staged! At the same time, Director Park also unceremoniously concealed the ending hint at the end of the film, especially when India broke the topic without end and said: "The meaning of adulthood is to become free." There is no way to know where her so-called "freedom" belongs to.
The adult bird will be able to leave the nest when the wings are growing; if the wings are growing at the same time, it will surely die after leaving the nest. The most important issue of independence is how to survive alone. The reason why human nature has become tough, in addition to repeatedly learning how to accept setbacks, the innate animal nature in the bones is an indispensable factor. If one obeys instinct, the boundary between man and beast ceases to exist. Park Chan-wook took this as an opportunity in this film to throw in many metaphors of animal symbols, mostly to understand the character and life of the character India. Whether it is the microscopic observation in the fossil, or the meditative feeling when rolling an ice hockey, it is a must. In order to allude to the relationship between India and his uncle, Park Zanyu put a set of very interesting "snow angel" movements to express, which is the figure created by a child lying on the snow and waving his hands and feet. This weird overlapping relationship is hard to figure out by itself, but following the director's footsteps through the fog step by step can bring quite a strong recoil.
"Stoke" is a coming-of-age ceremony exclusive to India. The first half of the film is still about a girl's growth story, and the second half begins to rely on internal and external changes to push the film to a climax. In the external changes, India will definitely receive a new shoe gift every year on her birthday, which is lined up in a uniform and conservative style (symbolizing innocence). When she put on new shoes and walked in a closed room, the heels and the floor made a clicking sound, which became a symbol of India's age and physical maturity. In the external changes, India and Uncle Charlie teamed up with four hands. The male smell on her uncle touched her sensitive sense of smell, which made the girl extremely excited. She always revealed her desire and curiosity about the male body, which made the atmosphere warm. Continue to rise; and through violence and death, India's first climax taste, and never return to the pure Eden. When Park Chan-wook and Miller handed over the power of choice to India, the success or failure of animal taming has already paid off. The reason why people become "human" is that in the war between human nature, human nature is important to know how to tame or tame. Unleashing the wild and bloodthirsty side of beasts, this hurdle between humans and beasts, realizes the true value of why humans are humans.
Let's talk about the "desire" part, it is said that women's hearts are needles in the bottom of the sea, and you will never know the "ideas" between their legs. Just like India, a four-handed play, its sensational shooting technique penetrates the boundaries of family affection, love, and hostile position, just like a "spiritual love drama". And the disappearance of the uncle after the playing is also unique, blurring the boundary between reality and illusion in an instant. Is this playing a move for Charlie to break through India's heart, or the spiritual climax of India's desire to explore? Perhaps, combining the above two, this can better represent a state of Charlie's entry into India's heart.
The four-handed piano playing is the pavement of India's lustful exploration, and the explosion of lust after the death of the target is the most "amazing" scene in the film. The timing of the cut-in is very clever, and the protagonist's mood is pushed forward step by step. It can only be said that Park Zanyu's grasp of the atmosphere is really amazing! Besides, the plot arrangement of "Holding Ice Cream in Hand" will also make you shudder, very much like the playful and terrifying way of dying in "Three Watches 2: Cut Love". Here is the killing of Charlie, and there is a description of India enjoying ice cream by the freezer as if nothing had happened. In contrast, the former is enjoying the excitement of killing, and the latter is obsessed with the stimulation of the tip of the tongue, and the blood of the two is flowing. The evil bloodline from "Stoke", under the catalyst of ignition, the part of "conspiracy" is instantly triggered.
As for how India self-discovered "conspiracy"? The key should be the dinner Uncle Charlie cooked. The steak on the table was bloody, and India ate it all. The blood is Uncle Charlie's. It's like Edward and Bella in "Twilight". Once you taste Charlie's blood, you know that family is family.
In addition, "Stoke" has made an interesting arrangement. In the film, Park Chan-wook constantly cross-cuts India and his mother to do the same thing, as if they are two sides of one body, but also like a mother and daughter. However, in such a similar superficial behavior However, they are mutually exclusive of each other. In the first half of the film, I thought that the hostility between the two stemmed from possessiveness over the loss of a father (husband), just like the rival relationship in "Circus of Horrors"; in the second half of the film, the reason why India hated her mother came from the two ideological height gap. India's mother once questioned her daughter and said, "Who the hell are you!", showing strong fear; India's silence towards her mother shows that she is unable to communicate. She hates her mother's behavior, and she doesn't want to become a woman who faces death only by crying and crying, can only seduce men with her body, and just wants to be locked in a mansion without the ability to survive.
Therefore, India needs feminism in her blood, and she kills the man who threatened her, ordered her, raped her in the film. Even at the end of the movie, she stood alone on the edge of the road, watching with cold eyes the policeman who had just been inserted into the head by her with large scissors slowly died. This scene echoes when India first met Uncle Charlie. In order to avoid his uncle's gaze, India could take a long detour from outside the house to return to the house, and then sit under the stairs in the back room to rest. At this time, she heard her uncle's voice coming from the top of the stairs. The uncle standing at a high place said to India: "You were caught by me, do you know why? Because you are standing below me." With a displeased expression, he climbed the stairs, deliberately taking up one more step than his uncle, showing the state of mind that women do not want to be subservient to men. Looking back at the high and low changes in the positions of India and the police (women go up and men go down), it looks like a complete reversal of the overall situation.
The three leading actors of the film, Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, and Matthew Goode, all turned out to be quite "nervous". Among them, I appreciate Mia's performance. Although she is only a little girl in 1989, you can't find it through her eyes. Especially when she performed the masturbation scene of the girl's lust and growth, the girl was not shy and wrote in her eyes. The resistance and ambition displayed by the male animals will be discouraged. As for Nicole's role as a mother, it is a hard punch for her bottleneck period in recent years. The mother who said "giving birth is to make up for her failed life" all day long was being manipulated and toyed with, and even in the end, the ending gave her nothing but moaning powerless, but Nicole put this on. This kind of mother who is so weak even in attack power, interprets it vividly, far better than the character in "Dog Town" who wants to be a bitch and a torii.
From this point of view, the actors are fermented into fine wine in Park Chan-wook's film, and this wild and precise image style paired with the layered soundtrack is no less exciting than any of Quentin's movie OSTs. The gothic style of music paired with cool-toned shots is comparable to, or a variation on, The Bat. "The Bat" converts blood-sucking into libido, and the desire for sex and sin is expressed as blood-sucking behavior. Park Chan-wook deforms and distorts human desires to challenge the boundaries of morality, just like Luis Bunuel's surreal look. In the aesthetics of influence, there is a strong national character and a strong sense of smell, just like his vampire bat will emit vulgar and absurd when it sucks blood. The humming sound, between the chirps and tuts, makes one's scalp tingle, and this treatment is also very prominent in the original sound of "Stoke". If Hitchcock is changed, he will definitely use Bernard Herrmann's works to express it.
After watching Park Chan-wook's "Stoke", I wondered if there is another self who is apostate from reality hidden in the core of everyone. When the pressure is suppressed for too long, desire strikes, and evil is excavated little by little. Come out, so we are an outlet for our own life, maybe like in India in the movie, through cynical killing, as if on some psychological level, we vented our psychological dissatisfaction with reality on our behalf, in order to obtain spiritual relief .
Rating: 9.5
Lines: Who the hell are you!
Excerpt: Uncle Charlie wrapped his belt tightly around India's mother's neck. He shouted excitedly, "Come and see India!" India, come to me now!"
published in the online magazine: http://digforfire.net/?p=7583
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