Uncommon themes, very small and unmarketable films, unique styles, but for some people it is a feast.
On the day I watched this movie, it was still cloudy in Taipei, and occasionally there was a light rain that didn't require an umbrella. I remembered the wrong time, so I had to "sorry" all the way to walk all the way. I rushed out of the MRT station and saw the whole theater. It was gray and gray under the cloudy sky. I am sensitive to shades. I hurriedly entered the theater, hunched over my waist to find a seat at the back, and glanced at it, there were not many audiences, only about twenty people, which made me think it was more like a private screening. After heaving a sigh of relief, he focused on the screen. The set was simple, mainly light colors, cool tones, and low saturation, just like today's weather . My heart was beating very fast, there were only two characters on the screen, they seemed to be facing each other, I was breathing heavily through my nose, they talked from time to time, it felt very " no drama", and then there was silence, I was still gasping, and then It's an unusual soundtrack - I knew right away - it's very European .
"Una" is an 18+ rated drama romance starring Cannes actresses Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn. It describes a 13-year-old girl Una falling in love with the uncle Ray next door. This is naturally a taboo that the law and society cannot tolerate. Love, so the two wanted to run away, but in the end, by accident, Ray was imprisoned. After that, he went incognito, went away to a new country, and started a new life, until Una saw his photo in a magazine and broke in desperately. his life. This film has not won any awards, and it is rarely mentioned in China, but in fact, after its premiere at the 43rd Telluride Film Festival, it was successively selected for international film festivals such as Toronto, Busan, and London, and won many awards. Foreign media praised and a vote of fans.
"Una" is adapted from the classic drama "Blackbird" by stage master David Harrower, but compared to the plot, I prefer the different audio-visual experience it brings , so I pay more attention to his director. The Australian director Benedict Andrews directed may not be known to many fans. The reason why he is unknown is because "Una" is the first film he directed. Benedict is a talented theater and opera director . He is good at adapting classic plays such as Shakespeare and Chekhov with modern and radical thinking. At the same time, he also likes his own original plays and writing poetry. His poetry collection "Lens Flair" also won the 2016 award Mary Gilmore Awards.
Benedict has lived in Europe year-round and developed in Berlin, Germany before settling in Reykjavik, Iceland. I think that's why Una has a distinctly modern European, especially Scandinavian, style . If you ask me what kind of style this is, I think it is very personal and unpopular . Just like galleries or museums of modern art in Europe, they are generally cool in color, minimalist in design, and very empty, far from the more familiar atmosphere of the Forbidden City in Beijing, the National Expo or the British Museum. You feel mysterious, strange, and even infiltrating every exhibit in it, so it is different from domestic traditional literature and art, which is through culture and heritage, with a sense of history, story, or other works of art with aesthetics, It is not necessarily beautiful, but most of them convey emotions or information directly through the senses first . When Benedict described his artistic pursuit, he also said that he hopes that his dramas are instinctive, raw and bursting with life (visceral, raw and bursting with life). He likes to create works that contain conflict, sharp and powerful, so as to impact people's understanding of the world. Therefore, "Una" also has such style and characteristics.
The kind of viewing experience and atmosphere described at the beginning of the article continues throughout the film, and two-thirds of the film is also indoors - in the factory at the beginning, and this film is almost entirely Una Dialogue with Ray. Because Ray screwed up the company's layoff meeting and annoyed the employees, and just as Una was chasing after him, the two kept hiding in the factory, arguing all the time while hiding, but constantly recalling the past. With each change of location, the stories of the two people's past slowly surfaced.
Both Una and Ray in the film are a complex of contradictions: Una loves and hates Ray, and she has traveled a long way to find what she wants. When she finds out that Ray is married, she is even more jealous and possessive, accusing her. He was holding Ray and wanted to be possessed by him; Ray was frightened, terrified, regretful, apologetic, but wanted to possess Una again, but tried his best to control himself. The two fled to the lounge, talking, silent, suddenly arguing and swearing (in fact, the rhythm of the whole film), silent again, turned around abruptly, smashed things frantically, and then fell to the ground on a messy floor. After Una got up and walked into a row of lockers, Ray hesitated for a moment, then followed, Una put his hand into Ray's pants, and then the two started to undress. But when Ray was pressing on Una, he got up and left mercilessly, leaving a naked body lying on the cold floor, with a close-up of delicate facial features, like an abandoned model. Then the camera cuts to the row of lockers, blocking everything, and no one knows what's going on behind, just like when Una and Ray were hiding in the bushes in the park when they were children. "I thought you brought the pads to make us more comfortable, but you're just afraid that my clothes will get mud and stains." And the whole movie is like this time they have sex, they pull out before they come, I You can't even say that part of the 90 minutes was foreplay and that part was orgasm.
And the unusual soundtrack I mentioned, is one of the highlights of the movie. The soundtrack is generally forgotten, because its purpose is to make people unconsciously enter a certain atmosphere. But this one really stuck with me, it's more like a sound effect, because there are no lyrics, no melody, just beats, beats that keep repeating, more like the soundtrack used in horror movies, and very similar to European modern video art use . As for pictures and shots, most of the movies are mobile handheld shots and fixed camera shots . The most impressive moving shots are the ones used to follow Una wandering around the factory looking for Ray, when she was 13 years old looking for Ray at night. My favorite fixed-camera filming is the interlude of a private meeting between the two of them in the park. The only scene in the picture is the lush bushes. Finally, Una leaves alone, walks towards the camera, and walks straight to the audience, suddenly switching to 13 years old. When she was sitting on the bed, she kept staring at the camera, staring at you in front of the screen.
Like many European films, especially short films, "Una", which is only 90 minutes long , doesn't feel like a movie or a story, it seems to have no beginning and no end . It is a work that has no direction or inclination , and will not comment on Una's paranoia or Ray's scheming, let alone glorify or criticize such "unconscionable love". It is just a simple but most straightforward presentation (not even discussing human nature), presenting such events and such people, (may) make you think, not give you answers, just like many modern art The work, without even a creative idea, at most tells you the artist's life and what he was doing at that stage, and then you just stare at it yourself. Because if you start to look and think, the goal has already been achieved, and the result is not important.
Benedict said, "Great plays address us simultaneously at the concrete level of everyday experience and the metaphysical level of myth and dream." Then I think Una should also move in this direction.
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