The film mainly tells the story of Oscar witnessing the ugliness of the adult world when he was three years old, determined to refuse to grow up, and rebelled against his parents, Nazis, uncles, and lovers. The whole film seems to be telling the history of Oscar's resistance, but it is actually telling the painful history of the German people struggling between World War I and World War II.
At the beginning, the movie mentions that Oscar grew up in three people: the Kashube mother, the Polish uncle, and the German father. These three people raised Oscar together, which means that Oscar's body has both the blood of a Polish uncle, the blood of a Kashube mother, and the influence of the mind of a German father. The same is true of Germany. In pre-war Germany, people of various races and countries gathered here, including Jews, French, and Poles. The childhood Oscar was a symbol of pre-war Germany, where everyone lived in the same home.
However, Oscar's relatives left him one after another, and his mother was the first to leave. How did his mother appear? It was Oscar's grandfather who was chased by soldiers and escaped under his grandmother's skirt, and that's why Oscar's mother was born. Looking up one level, what did Oscar's grandfather do? He is an arsonist who was chased for arson in 1899. When he first appeared, he wore a typical intellectual clothes. Then what about Oscar's grandmother? Sitting in the fields eating baked, unpeeled potatoes, "in her four skirts," spreading her legs to hide a man being pursued under her skirts, she is a symbol of the countryside. Intellectuals and rural women gave birth to children, but before the children grew up, the intellectuals ran away and disappeared.
Oscar's mother is the bottom people of Germany, his father is a symbol of Nazi Germany, and his uncle is a symbol of other people living in Germany (in the film, he is set as the first Polish people to suffer). Oscar's three relatives were first the death of his mother, then his uncle, and finally Oscar's father. This should be a metaphor for the Nazis first giving the Germans death penalty notices, then ethnic cleansing, and finally the Nazis themselves went to destruction.
When Oscar's mother found out that she might be pregnant again, she could no longer bear the possibility of giving birth to another dwarf, and after the priest couldn't help her, she chose to eat fish day after day, which turned out to be something she was not. Eat, but this time down whoever refuses, finally eat to death. This is a metaphor. When people believed in Hitler, ordinary people at the bottom of Germany had already begun to push themselves to death, just like Oscar's mother was forced by her father to eat an eel that was originally very disgusting, so they Wounded - their children were sent to the battlefield one by one, killed, and then the Nazis demanded that more men go to the field to fight. So the Germans prayed for God's help, but God couldn't do anything. The reason of the Germans began to commit suicide day after day, and finally died completely before the ethnic cleansing.
So, the next person who died was Oscar's uncle Jan Bronski, who was a Pole. In real history, the aggressive and threatening Poles were hyped at home long before Germany was ready to blitz Poland. Claiming that Poland was a sinful country that would kill all Germans, Hitler made a scene before striking Poland in order to make his division famous. On the evening of August 31, 1939, the Nazi SS in Polish uniforms, Posing as the Polish army, they attacked the Glewitz radio station on the German border. They deliberately abused Germany in German on the radio broadcast, and dropped several corpses in Polish military uniforms, and then all German radio stations published an article about Germany. News of a sudden attack by Poland. At 4:45 a.m. the next morning, Nazi Germany pounced on sleeping and unknowing Poland.
In the film, Oscar says from: "September 1st, 1939, I think you should know the date, when I committed my second crime. I beat my drum, not just my poor mother in I also took my poor uncle, and possibly my dad Jan Bronski, to the Polish post office, causing his death."
Like many people in reality who didn't know about it, and just had their national sovereignty destroyed by other countries at that time in their sleep, even the Poles of the whole wave of air force, Oscar's uncle was also pulled into the Polish post office completely unknowingly, toward death. In the film, Oscar's uncle was almost driven mad at the end, but he was still unwilling to surrender, unwilling to be dragged outside obediently. When it was ravaged by the iron fist of Nazi Germany at that time, the last small group of Polish troops were still defending the last piece of Poland's territory. It was not until the last and most elite 6th Armored Division Corps annihilated all the Polish troops on the island that they really occupied the island. Poland.
After Oscar's uncle dies, he begins a series of confused lives. There is a new maid in the house, she is very beautiful, and she fits all Oscar's beautiful fantasies about girls. Oscar even started to regret why he stopped growing at the age of three. But this did not hinder their enthusiasm in the slightest. The two lived and played together, and even slept together at night. But when Oscar saw his father having sex with her on the sofa, he became completely disappointed with this woman, he began to hate her, so he pressed his father on his back to prevent him from going out when he orgasmed. It was Oscar's hatred that got her pregnant. After witnessing all this, he ran away from home and actually joined the Nazis. Performed for Nazi soldiers. This is also a metaphor, Oscar is the rationality of the Germans who killed Jews, Poles while being kept in the dark. They began to expand outward under the leadership of Hitler's fanaticism. They got Lorraine iron ore and coal mines in Alsace, saw the beautiful scenery of other European countries, and obtained resources that Germany did not have before. In these occupied and enslaved countries, Nazi Germany established its own concentration camps, its own arsenals, and its own resource development factories. The Germans were freed from the shackles of the Treaty of Versailles, and they became a normal country, which was completely destroyed by the Germans at the beginning of World War II, as stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles. The Germans became the kings of the European continent at that time. Dominate the rest of the European continent by the Germans' own will. This is exactly the echo of Oscar's enjoyment of the maid in the play. (Have I said it many times: "It's also a metaphor." …)
In fact, in the Treaty of Versailles, it was stipulated that after World War I Germany ceded Alsace and Lorraine to France, restoring France's borders before the Franco-Prussian War. Deprived of all overseas colonies • Danzig, where Oscar lives, is run by the League of Nations, called the Free City of Danzig. In the military, Germany is prohibited from implementing compulsory military service. The army was limited to less than 100,000 personnel and was not allowed to possess offensive weapons such as tanks or heavy artillery, eliminating the establishment of the German General Staff. The German army was destroyed like never before, and it was written in the treaty: no navy, only six battleships with a displacement of 10,000 tons, no submarines; no air force; no import and export of weapons, no export Commodities are subject to an additional 26% fee; chemical weapons are not allowed to be produced or stored. It was not until 92 years after the end of the First World War that Germany finally paid off all the reparations for the First World War. These harsh defeat treaties put German nationals in a difficult and socially turbulent situation after the First World War. At that time, Germany accumulated a lot of grievances against European countries, which is why, under that difficult life situation, the Nazi party just raised its arms and so many Germans responded. Many German children have been indoctrinated with Nazi ideas for as long as they can remember. In the Weimar Republic before the Nazis ruled Germany, the school oath was: "I abide and obey the Constitution." In World War II, under the Nazi Party, the oath became: "I abide and obey the leader Adolf Hitler. leadership."
There are also related clips in "The Tin Drum". The Boy Scouts liked by the suicidal fruit shop owner are also a member of the black education received by the Nazis. Because many of the German soldiers sent to the front were well-trained. Therefore, on the Eastern Front, the quality of individual soldiers in the Soviet Union lags far behind that of Nazi Germany at that time, because the composition of the Soviet army is composed of civilian men who are now recruited from the country. They may have been farmers, accountants, or even men before. violin artist. However, Nazi Germany, on the other hand, arranged age-appropriate Nazi child or youth organizations for German children (both men and women) in order to provide a steady stream of troops for the Nazi expansion front. Young boys joined the Hitler Youth League organized by the Nazis. The Hitler Youth League was responsible for training future "Aryan Supermen" and soldiers loyal to the Third Reich, and attached great importance to physical and military training, so they ignored academic and scientific education. In other words, it is cultivating a group of powerful killing machines that cannot think. These machines do not need to think, because "only the head of the country can think."
Teenagers learn to use weapons, military tactics, Strengthening physical abilities and instilling anti-Semitism. After the Boy Scouts were banned from German-held areas, the Hitler Youth changed the content and purpose of Boy Scouts. The cruelty of older members to younger members was acquiesced and even encouraged, believing that it would weed out the weak and make members stronger. The members of the Hitler Youth would wear a uniform similar to that of the Nazis, and the ranks and badges of the Youth were similar to the stormtroopers. The men's team has to do things like: throw grenades, climb under barbed wire, jump into the sea and climb some tall obstacles. These young people, when the children of other countries were still studying and seeking a living on the ruins of the war, had already begun to train themselves frantically, exercising themselves on the road of becoming a regular soldier. Therefore, civilian men in many countries have to participate in temporary firearms training courses when they are called to the front line, but children in Germany can be proficient in using weapons such as grenades, automatic rifles and heavy machine guns.
A German who grew up in the Nazi era later lamented in a documentary reflecting on Nazi history: "We are learning to die for our country from beginning to end, but never learn to live for our country!"
There is also a place in the film that is full of the director's satire of the Nazis. When the maid's son (also Oscar's son, the nominal younger brother) was born, Oscar's determination began to grow again. Is this child the son of Oscar's father? Or Oscar's son after having a relationship with a maid? I don't know. Anyway, the maid was pregnant with the child, but Oscar hated the appearance of this child from the beginning, and in the end, Oscar even bought the same tin drum as a gift for him when he was three years old. Oscar recognized this child as his own son from the bottom of his heart, but could this son really be Oscar's younger brother? Basically, this is Oscar's younger brother. No matter how old Oscar is, the fact that he is a dwarf will not change. So no matter how Oscar has a relationship with the maid, the maid will not be pregnant with his child. This child is the guilt and guilt that the Nazis had after raping their captive nation. Not long after the child was born, Oscar's father was beaten into a hornet's nest by the Soviet Red Army occupying Germany. So this child is left alone. Why does Oscar recognize this child as his own? Because he, like his father, had a relationship with a maid. That is to say, in the process of outward expansion, both the German people and the Nazis participated, and the injustice and anti-humanity were both sat down together. Now that the Nazis died first, Oscar, who was left behind, could only identify the child born as his own. This satirizes that the Nazis committed a heinous crime, but the Nazis have been solved, who will bear the rest of the mess and the sins? German. The identity of the Germans was multiple, both aggressors and victims, both empowered and disempowered by the Nazis. The final evil will naturally have to be borne by them.
In the second half of the film, when the maid coaxes Oscar to sleep, she says this: "Hail Mary, full of mercy, the Lord is with you. Bless the women, and the flesh in the belly of the women. Virgin Mary Ah, pray for us poor sinners. Bless us till we die, Amen." How ridiculous and tragic this sentence seems in the movie, Hitler has done the whole of Germany unjust for his ridiculous Nazi dreams. The land, put on the hat of anti-human for them. But these people are still praying for the protection of the Virgin Mary, but in the end what awaits them is that Germany was forcibly divided after the war and the territory was lost in a large area.
Why doesn't God protect them?
Because they entrusted their lives to the devil.
Now re-examine the characters in the film, they are not wrong, they are all victims. However, they also made mistakes and were executioners. It is as if we are now looking at the human beings in the world except fascism during World War II, whether they are citizens of the Axis or Allied countries, they have all been violated by the war. But aren't these victimized countries wrong?
Take Britain and France, the two worst capitalist countries in Europe that have been rectified by Germany. These two former European hegemons, one was conquered by Germany not long after the start of World War II, the capital Paris was destroyed, and the other endured. Terrifying British air battle. However, if it wasn't for the fact that Britain and France adopted a policy of appeasement when Nazi Germany first sprouted, ignoring and condoning Nazi Germany's violations of the Treaty of Versailles 20 years ago, then Germany would not have occupied Czechoslovakia so soon. There are so many arsenals built there. If it wasn't for the fact that the French executives ignored the book written by Charles de Gaulle on the importance of tank armor in the army before the war, France would not have been subjugated due to backward tactics in the early stages of World War II. As the saying goes, "The leader made the mistake, but the common people eat the hardship." It's like Oscar's father had a relationship with a maid and gave birth to a child, but his father was beaten to death by the Soviets, so this Who will feed the children? The poor maid and Oscar. But are the two of them among the erring ones? some. But who is at the root of this mistake? It was Oscar's father, who died.
This movie is a very typical anti-Nazi, anti-war movie. The Germans after the war are still atonement, and the crimes committed by the Nazis in World War II are still deeply rooted in the hearts of the Germans.
In the final paragraph of the film, Oscar falls into the grave with his own tin drum, smashing his head and blood. But since then he has grown up, and this is the last metaphor, the sanity of the Germans has finally grown up again after the death of the Nazis, has finally begun to wake up again. But what will he face when he starts to grow up? Guilt, guilt, and the fact that his small shop was taken over by an outsider, and he and the maid, who were the masters, could only live here as servants. Oscar's home in Danzig was dead in name only, and he had to go with the maid and her son to relatives in Bavaria. And Oscar's grandmother remained in Danzig and did not leave.
I think people are human because we think and feel. We know that the rights in our hands are the weapons to protect ourselves. Voltaire said: "I don't agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to speak."
I think, not only to defend the right to speak, but the human right to think is our most precious thing.
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