A wounded soldier in the Civil War was brought back to a mansion where only women lived by a little girl who was picking mushrooms. The women and girls headed by Nicole Kidman were all excited for a "male" who suddenly appeared, and their hormones were bursting. Sofia Coppola once again uses this work to demonstrate a theme she is passionate about: the interaction and representation of women both individually and in groups. The relationship and interaction between women is more subtle, they are not as obvious and direct as men. The women in this story are isolated and of different ages, and the film shows how they interact, and in this story, each has a different relationship with the man.
1. Scenario
The visual tentacles of the female director let Jing Lai hint at the rhythm of the story. A house in a natural environment, a mossy oak forest, this one looks like an oil painting in natural light. While it's a beautiful place, houses and possessions also have a dark side, all drawn from the colonial past. Due to the war, the gardeners are no longer there, and these occupants cannot properly maintain the place, and the climbing plants are flooded, causing threats to the surrounding area. However, the group of women still maintains order and cleanliness. The refined life inside the house and the outdoor wild plants Invasion is in sharp contrast.
DP Philippe Le Sourd is a French photographer who has worked with Sofia Coppola on several commercials, and together they chose to shoot the film with old lenses. The director wanted "soft images, delicate, full of sunlight, and can feel soaked by the surrounding heat, accompanied by dense smoke", to show the suffocation of the characters under the pressure of sexual impulse suppression.
2. Male and female
The female teacher played by Dunst is very big and doesn't know how to be the most beautiful woman in the corporal's mouth. Perhaps from a tactical point of view, it is much easier to hold down an innocent female teacher like Dunst than Nicole Kidman, and she is second only to Nicole in a group of women in terms of status and power.
The huge wound on the corporal's leg was repaired with sewing needles. This scene lasted for a long time and was still a close-up. Looking at the screen, it felt painful, but Nicole was calm and composed, stitching every stitch. Whether it was the hemostasis and sawing of the legs or the organized and planned poisoning of the man, such a calm and sophisticated woman can be compared to a man who is in danger of a major event. The little corporal can't handle her. . She wouldn't be as soft-hearted as the Dunster schoolgirl who easily believed a man's words, nor would she be as mindless as little Fanning to seduce him directly with her body because of her youthful invincibility. She is brave, restrained, calm, and she takes care of things. She talks about her father and her past in conversation. She is a woman from a big family who has seen various scenes. A woman whose mind and ability are higher than a man's will not even be the prey in the target range of a man, and she is not within his range at all.
Under special circumstances, men participate in wars, women are isolated from men for a long time, and women also have desires.
As with all bad scripts and real-life farce, the man receives erotic signals from the oldest woman, Nicole, and promises the female teacher Dunst to go to her at night, only to be found lying in the bed of the young and beautiful Fanning. bed.
A story told from a female perspective, although a man is surrounded by a group of women is actually just a foil, used in the film to show the inner activities of women. The characteristics of women in each age group are different, and they can form different personalities under the influence of acquired experiences and life. In the face of sex, they are restrained and observant, with primitive impulses but also their own principles, which are different from the primitive calls of most men.
3. Women in Groups and Women in Individuals
The scene from the beginning to the end of the play is hazy, and the quiet but not bright pictures are similar to the plot of the story. Was it a man who didn't want to be scolded by the women here and deliberately played among them? Or did he stray into the envy, provocation, and fascination that he might not even know about the women?
Before the men come, the women pray, embroider, teach, weave, farm, and when everything is in a state of balance, everyone in the group is stable.
When a man comes, every woman communicates with him, and everyone has different characteristics in front of men, and they become unique individuals again. However, when the balance is disrupted and emotions fluctuate, things are about to happen. One of the three women seduced the man to bed, one pushed the man down the stairs and broke his wound, and the other sawed the man's leg with a saw and an anatomy book. The logic of the story seems to be consciously blurred by the female director. I originally thought that Nicole sawing his leg was a last resort to save his life, but the man who woke up after sawing his leg yelled at Nicole and the series of reactions that followed were unbelievable. Without doubting what the man said, Nicole saw her legs just because he didn't go to her room, but went to Fanning instead. When I saw this, I suddenly felt terrible, like a horror movie. The horror of men erupted on the surface, while the horror of women was planned in restraint, and it was bottomless.
The most terrifying thing about the film is that all the girls, girls, and women are involved in the murder to some extent. They recite God, pray every day, and pretend to be hypocritical. A girl who seemed to be honest and harmless originally proposed to poison a man with mushrooms, a girl who liked animals and seemed to be caring went to pick poisonous mushrooms, and the rest cooperated with each other to perform the play.
The man was madly afraid after losing his leg, but the woman killed the man in an organized and premeditated unity.
Dunst seemed to be the one who got emotional, and in the end the man died, and she offered her weak resistance by not participating in sewing the shroud for the man. However, before the man died, she devoted herself to the dinner after him, and when he apologized to the women, he said that he would leave but did not offer to take Dunst with him. Does the man have any affection for her? The idea that everything could be a strategy reappears. After the joy is over, people lose their vigilance and lose their sober cognition, and mushrooms can kill without human intervention.
4. About people
This female director has always made the positions of both sides ambiguous, so that the audience can't tell what men and women are thinking, and this kind of expression and body language described through small lenses may be the most real state of a person. Selfishness and greatness, goodness and evil, are mixed together to make human nature complex and not pure.
The use of lines, music and excessive implication are the faults of most film and television dramas in our country, making actors become more and more stupid and only acting by reciting lines.
No guidance, no critical scrutiny, no deliberate creation of certain values, and let human nature play, such expressions are advanced.
The man they rescued was killed by them again. Compared with men's exaggerated ferocity exposed on the surface, women's silent viciousness and infighting are more terrifying.
This is a thought-provoking movie.
The unfortunate man, the peony flower is also romantic, the Chinese title is so well translated, I am afraid that this man will not dare to be romantic with a woman again when he dies.
This film, I can say it is a typical teaching material of soft and strong? Although it is not positive.
The man died, the body was carried outside the house, and a group of women gathered again. In the camera, they sat or stood dignifiedly in the corridor outside the house, waiting quietly. . . . . . Everything is back to a state of equilibrium, seemingly calm as water.
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