You've Never Been Here: Unfinished Work Brings Traumatic Feelings

Florida 2022-03-26 09:01:07

Screenings in the media field seem to confirm this speculation. "You've Never Been Here" may be the shortest film in the Cannes competition. It was originally officially announced that the Cannes version had 95 minutes, but at the final screening, the film was only over 80 minutes long. And at first glance, because of the rush of time, even the credits at the end of the film were not finished in time. At the end of the film, after the names of director Lynn Ramsey and actor Joaquin Phoenix were played on the screen, there was a black screen, and only the background music was still flowing. The applause sounded and calmed down. In the face of the black screen, there were still reporters who were looking forward to it and were reluctant to leave. No wonder journalists are so enthusiastic about Lynne Ramsey that You've Never Been Here is so special, both for Cannes and for art cinema. It has a genre shell, an anti-genre core; a deja vu story, a narrative approach with existing precedents; a great male protagonist, a little heroine who has only three lines but firmly grasps you . It reminds you of Taxi Driver or This Killer Isn't Too Cold, but it's not either, Travis Bickle's soul can't be dissipated, and your heart is broken again for whom you don't know. Joaquin Phoenix has played a decadent male lead in the past two years, and he has not wasted his acting talent at all. In the film, he plays Joe, a Gulf War veteran who has been tormented by post-war trauma and the shadow of his abusive childhood. He uses his professional skills to work as a killer saving sex slaves. In one job, he tried to rescue Nina, a girl related to a government official, but Nina was kidnapped by agents sent by the pedophile governor halfway through. Not only that, but he found that his employer and his mother were also killed. So he walked into the governor's mansion alone, to start a person's revenge and salvation. Joaquin Phoenix's succinct storyline as a mentally tormented Gulf War veteran is no easy task to immerse audiences in empathy. A little carelessness can fall into the stereotype of a genre film and turn it into a political conspiracy thriller. But in the hands of Lynne Ramsay, who was born in art films, it was impossible. Her highly personal image style is unrepeatable, each shot focuses on a detail, and the progress of the plot is connected in series. The seemingly empty picture is radiated from the perspective of the protagonist, overlapping and adding the magnificent inner world of the characters. There is a scene in the film where Joe finds his mother shot in the head by an agent. He is deeply saddened but still has no expression on his face. He just removes his reading glasses for her as usual when his mother is asleep. Random revenge for the mother, the assassination agent solved. As an agent was dying, Joe lay down beside him and held his hand while Charlene's "I" played on the tape recorder. ve Never Been To Me, apparently Joe's mother's favorite song. That moment was both funny and sad, Joe was almost like an animal, his body and his soul, all alone in pain. The lyrics come slowly: "Let me tell you the truth. The so-called heaven is a lie, a fantasy of people and places that people like." People compare the film to "Taxi Driver" because both It is the story of the hero who rescues the girl. But Joe and Nina never had the chance to have a long conversation in a cafe like Travis and Iris did. They didn't say a few words from beginning to end. Lynn Ramsey just used the editing to make people feel the relationship between the two. The sympathy of each other, that newcomer comes more from a kind of freedom when smelling the same taste. People have compared the film to Neon Demon because it was the main competition title that was very powerful in audition. But "Neon Demon", despite its wide opening and closing in audition, is pale and terrifying in text. Although "You've Never Been Here" has very few lines, it is obviously a minimalist style after careful consideration, and each line has just the right proportions. It took Lynn Ramsay to write the script for many years, and it was still writing two months before the shooting. The actor Joaquin Phoenix joined the group ahead of time and helped Lynn Ramsay complete the script with his understanding of the role. 's final draft.

View more about You Were Never Really Here reviews

Extended Reading

You Were Never Really Here quotes

  • Joe: I don't even know what the fuck is going on anymore.

  • Joe: Do you know what paradise is? It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be.