(Originally published on Cinezen's website http://www.cinezen.hk/?p=6567 )
"Saudi Arabia" (A The hologram in the original name of Hologram for the King is a holographic stereoscopic projection. When users open a video conference, they can see the three-dimensional image of the other party's life-size scale. What is the use? I don't know, that was the job of Alan, the protagonist of the movie, because he was a salesman who was ordered to go to Saudi Arabia to ask the king to contract the holographic projection project in the new development area. But the vast majority of the so-called NDAs are still deserts, and Alan is always in a state of "don't know why he got here" -- a situation he's been in since before he was sent to the Middle East. From the very beginning of the movie, it explained the past in the form of a joke TV commercial: the house is gone, the car is gone, the wife is gone, a typical American middle-class life has vanished, and the protagonist does not know what to do, just like many people who lost their pensions due to the financial tsunami. people are always inexplicable. The jokes and reflections of "Sand Arafa" are based on a "mystery" word: the fate of life, the situation in the world, and the timing of the appearance of the king are as elusive as the changes in the desert terrain. Alan was originally a director of a multinational group, but today he is reverted to a "lonely salesman", living in a foreign land, but this drama is not about "the mid-life crisis reverses the victory", but the story of "the scenery does not change and the mood changes".
The design of the situation of others and other places highlights Alan's confused state and is also the source of jokes. Jokes are often about identity, the difference between "us" and "them." This can be nationality, gender, class, normal/weird, and success/failure, respectively. The subjective emotional stimulation caused by jokes can relieve the objective contradiction and tension between identity differences. The cultural differences in "Sand" at first seem to be a bit of a Western-centric sense of superiority. For example, the terrorist joke of the local driver Yousef, "because he was playing with his wife, was afraid of plotting against his wife, and was loaded with bombs in his car", which can make Americans Alan was chilled to the bone; the local negotiator's backlash, and the Kafkaesque encounter of "whoever wants to see never sees it" also made Alan, who is honest and humble by nature, feel "out of the way" and couldn't hold back Using "your own way" to open the way, but gain. There still seems to be a civilized/uncivilized conflict behind these plots. Philosopher Simon Critchley noted in On Humour that a sense of humor often brings people back to where they belong, sharing the unspeakable with fellow citizens. The jokes of national culture usually express two points: one is that foreigners have no sense of humor (don't know how to laugh), and the other is that foreigners are inherently funny.
The problem is, in Saudi Arabia, Alan is a foreigner. What Critchley said applies to Alan and the rest of the characters. In other words, in this American movie about an American in a different place, every character can be a "ridiculous foreigner without a sense of humor." Yousef's sense of humour has only the opposite effect on Alan, and Alan's joke about "just working part-time" to the locals' question "Are you a CIA" is almost in trouble. Later, when Alan and the Yousef family were ambushed outside the sheepfold to deal with the wild wolf, Alan did not pull the trigger because he realized that he (and the American capitalist) was actually a wolf, the other of sheep. Misunderstandings caused by cultural differences produce jokes, which is a common comedy design; but in the film "Sand", jokes are not necessarily funny when they appear. The jokes from misunderstandings turn into misunderstandings from jokes, and there are some postulate meaning.
"Saudi Arafa" reflexively plays with the logic of the ethnic joke of "who is laughing with whom", and has to mention another kind of other in the story: the Chinese. The film will also be released in China, and the question of who is laughing with whom is more complicated. After the financial tsunami, Alan and other Americans went down the same path of decline, while China rose, learned from the United States before, and today has become a formidable opponent. Anxiety from Chinese competition permeates the play, but the play is not a counter-attack by the consciousness of the United States, and it is not derogatory. This is a post-midlife crisis healing story. Although the beginning is a mysterious capitalist crisis and a Kafka-esque absurd situation, the ending is not to solve the mystery and counterattack, but to change the trajectory of life, develop a long-distance relationship, and become a sandy uncle , Dancing with Mystery. Cultural identity, like a three-dimensional hologram, is always an illusion. In order to heal, the film "Sand" has to put the audience into the situation of the protagonist, imagine themselves as the other, and imagine themselves as a three-dimensional image that spans time and space.
The message of the film is to accept reality and change the mentality without changing the environment. However, is this mentality of "accepting reality" as illusory as a holographic stereoscopic image? A kind of humor that Critchley admires, it does not make people laugh, but a knowing smile, often a self-deprecating wry smile, which makes people look back at their own ridiculousness, see themselves through the eyes of others, and see reality in a surreal way. Then perceive the path of reality transformation. "Saudi Arabia" makes people smile more than hilarious, but whether its inspiration for changing reality is lacking, or the change of attitude can also be a kind of change, perhaps it requires viewers to review the real world and themselves in order to understand .
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