In the attitude of serious study, I specially chose an elective course called "Appreciation of Film and Television Art" this semester to conduct more in-depth study and research on film and television art. (To put it bluntly, go to the movies and wait for the teacher to teach you how to comment on a movie.)
Well, let's get to the topic of today.
I went to walk most of the campus in the rain, and even broke my mobile phone to watch this movie - "Welcome to the North"
!
The French film "Welcome to the North" was directed and starred by Danny Byrne in 2008. It expresses a desire to eliminate regional prejudice and achieve harmony between northerners and southerners through unique deconstruction of dialects at low cost.
This film has not won the Caesar Award, the BAFTA, the Cannes Film Festival, etc., but it broke the French box office record of "Escape from the Tiger's Mouth" for 42 years after it was released in France in five weeks. the highest-grossing film in France.
At the beginning of the film, it is mentioned that the protagonist Philip, in order to please his naturally melancholy and unhappy wife, used all means to deceive his boss so that he could be deployed to work in a developed city near the sea in southern France.
The first ten minutes of the plot was full of jokes, which made me think that this film is equivalent to domestic comedy films such as "Thai Embarrassment" that achieve the purpose of entertaining the audience by piling up embarrassing things one after another. Differences in language and habits for comic benefit. (I'm not belittling the value of "Thailand" in Chinese films, just saying that this type of comedy has limitations.)
In the end, Philip was transferred to the northernmost city in France, the Strait of Calais.
What kind of place is the Strait of Calais? In Philip and his wife's opinion, the North is a terrible place compared to the South, where the weather is cold, the people are ignorant, and they speak obscure dialects.
Later, after watching the movie, I also checked it out. The Strait of Calais was once a mining area and a textile industry area, and it was a place with a bad reputation (of course it is not now). It is also a high-incidence area for suicide, obesity, cancer, and heart disease, and even in some movies it is completely cold and depressing.
But "Welcome to the North" has swept away the haze of this outdated concept. Philip, who was ready to fight against the cold and rude northerners, came to the north. Although he still had all kinds of unease in his heart, faced with the unfamiliar environment, and listened to the northern dialect that he didn't understand for the time being, the kind-hearted four at the post office. Under the interaction of Huobao, he gradually stabilized and tried to integrate into the life in the north.
The tone of the whole film not only brings sunshine and warmth to the north, but also reflects the most synaesthetic warmth between people in a playful way, making the Calais in the north like gold in the south The sun is shining like the coast, and the sky is infinite.
Of course, such a tone also sets the characteristics of the characters, no matter what form of performance, enthusiasm or abuse, it is all out of the kindness of their northerners. With this characteristic, the progress of the whole film is induced to watch. The seemingly contradictory behavior just shows the dramatic conflict and comedy effect.
It is precisely because this film uses dialects for performances that there are constant jokes between the language barriers. Of course, the premise of being able to understand this film is that you need to know French or have a suitable translation. If there is no good translation version, you may not be able to understand the various jokes in it, because there are many lines between the characters in this film (I don't know if it is caused by the problem of French), and improper translation will make the audience Failing to understand the jokes in it will also make the audience feel that the lines are procrastinated and affect the viewing experience.
There is also another reason that the film has a strong local French color, and such a strong local color will be limited by the region. Those of us who do not understand the French social background may only laugh at the point of laughter, and then do not understand why the French have such a bad impression of the North, or even despise it. This type of film is also like "Thailand", the big sale in the Chinese market does not necessarily mean that the performance in the overseas market is very good, after all, they are all comedy works with strong local flavor.
In "Welcome to the North," the objective existence of regional bias is revealed from time to time: when Philip was first stopped by the traffic police on the highway, when he expressed his dissatisfaction with being dispatched to Calais, the traffic police sympathized with Philip and did not drive The ticket was given to him, but the second time, because Philip had already fallen in love with Calais, he was given a ticket neatly; the first time Philip went to lunch with Annabelle and the others, Philip said, "The small square is very beautiful." , and the fat man said dissatisfiedly, "It's not a small square, it's a big square." In response to him and so on.
Although this film ends in a family-friendly form, it has to be said that the well-meaning irony and regional prejudice revealed by the film cannot be eliminated. After all, this is a historical problem. Such problems exist not only in France, but also in other countries.
However, the film understands each other through laughter, eliminates cultural barriers between people, so that cultural barriers do not become obstacles to friendship, can it also continue in the real society? I think director Danny Byrne is trying to answer that big question with this film.
Finally, don't drop your phone like me while watching :)
View more about Welcome to the Sticks reviews
