Some people may have PTSD, or they may not belong to modern civilization at all, and why do we, arrogant and arrogant human beings, provide them with so-called "help", they don't need it at all, let alone you to allow it Allow, respect the diversity of the same species, this is my biggest feeling after watching this movie
Everyone has the right to choose their own way of life without affecting others. Relief agencies have no right to integrate male protagonists into society, and male protagonists have no right to let their daughters leave society.
This is a very rich film. In addition to the living conditions of marginalized groups, the reintegration of post-war traumatized veterans into society and the education of their children, this film has also done a good thought experiment, that is, in today's society, in a state of being completely alienated, How far can you escape.
The protagonist of the film may be an extreme example, a veteran who is mentally and physically unable to integrate into society due to post-traumatic sequelae. Unlike many homeless homeless people, staying away from the crowd and escaping from society is his active and only choice. And thanks to his military training, he has strong wilderness survival skills that made this choice possible. It would be fine if he was the only one living in the forest. But he's still a single father. He also had to take on the responsibility of caring for his daughter while the post-traumatic sequelae pushed him to the brink, which made things worse.
But amazingly, he did it. My daughter grew up healthy and happy in the jungle, like a spirit of nature. However, social workers took their hounds to their hideout and used forklifts to destroy their small home, forcing them to reintegrate into society and start a gregarious life.
The good-hearted social workers found free housing for them, a temporary job on the forest farm for the father and schooling for the daughter. My daughter was new to all this and quickly integrated into the community life. But the father re-awakened the trauma in the process of being forced to join the group, and suffered every day. Although he tried to persevere for the happiness of his daughter, in the end, because he could not contend with the fear in his heart, he took his daughter to start the journey of escaping the crowd again.
Are you saying he doesn't love his daughter? He loves it more than anyone else. It is very difficult to take care of a child in addition to surviving on his own in the tough jungle environment, but he gritted his teeth and did it. In addition, he also taught his daughter to read and write, and even made her better in knowledge than children who normally go to school (it also shows that her father must have been a well-educated talent in the past). When his daughter complained that her feet were cold from the rain, he took her daughter's feet and put them on his belly to warm them up. There is no doubt that he can sacrifice himself to save his daughter without hesitation when faced with the test of life and death. However, it is a pity that no matter how many life-and-death moments they have experienced together, the warmth of the crowd has broken the solid bond between father and daughter like a trickle. A bee colony is a good metaphor. The daughter felt the warmth of the bee colony. When she proudly showed it to her father, his expression was complicated. He didn't know the benefits of being gregarious, and he had no choice. Between the unbearable mental illness and the responsibility of taking care of his daughter, he had no choice but to give up his responsibility.
Back to the topic at the beginning. How far can you run away from society completely? In order to escape from the crowd, the father in this film had to hide in Tibet like a wanted criminal, and had to endure the pain of separation. Most people probably don't have such a serious problem with this father as to be completely out of the crowd. But we may have all had this thought more or less - I wish I could escape for a while and hide in the old forest. When our life is not going well or the stress is too high, such thoughts may give us temporary relief, because "this is what I can do if I want to do it". However, this film uses such an extreme example to show you that you can't. The long-evolving human society has trapped you like a cobweb. If you try to escape from society, people will do everything possible to capture you, interrogate you like a criminal because of your abnormal heart, force you to go to church (force you to accept mainstream social values), and do it for you "for your own good" Provide the "standards" of social people (house, job, car, etc.). Until you start working on the hive all over again like a busy worker bee, and eventually become friendly and gregarious. "Don't do it" and "can't do it" are two different concepts. Desperate male protagonists are still struggling to break free from the social network, and it may be impossible for ordinary moviegoers to have empathy for veterans with post-traumatic sequelae. But at least can you be a happy worker bee when you realize that our freedom has limits?
Of course, as far as the current education situation of "thousands of troops crossing a single-plank bridge" is concerned, many times we have no choice, and those who dare to make alternative choices will often pay a considerable price.
The film "Leave No Trace," directed by Debra Granick and starring Ben Foster, explores the choice of ordinary people over their children's education and lifestyle in modern society.
The protagonists of the film are a father and daughter. They live in tents in the forest park for a long time like a "wilderness survival" program. They rely on picking wild vegetables and collecting rainwater for food. They will only go to the town as a last resort. Shop for daily necessities.
The identity of the father is a retired soldier. He not only taught his daughter the ability to survive in the wild, but also taught her how to hide traces, because they don't want to be broken by the outside world. This is the source of the title "leave no trace".
The reason for the father and daughter's seclusion is not stated in the film, but as the plot progresses, we can speculate that the father suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during the military service, which caused him to fail to integrate into society normally and hate everything. Modern product.
Life in seclusion is hard, but quiet and peaceful. Until one day, the silence was broken by lumberjacks in the forest. Then the police and volunteers searched their campsite and took the father and daughter back to the rescue station.
Relief groups found out that the daughter was school-age and psychologically tested the father to see if he was abusive or anti-social. However, these psychological tests give people a very broad feeling. I am afraid that normal people will come to unhealthy conclusions when answering them. This is also an irony of subjective bias.
Volunteers also tested their daughter's education level and found that she was even better at reading and writing than her peers. It turned out that during the seclusion period, the father often played chess, read with his daughter, and urged her to do her homework.
However, according to the law, the daughter still has to go to a regular school. So volunteers settled the father and daughter on a farm that was willing to provide housing, and helped them go through the enrollment procedures in the hope that they could return to society.
After the deeds of the father and daughter were reported by the media, all sectors of society gave them a lot of help. Although the help was well-intentioned, it was not what the father wanted.
The farmer said to his father: A lot of people fantasize about having your lifestyle, but I'm very happy with the results now (referring to their return to society).
In essence, the farmers and volunteers are generous, not only providing material assistance, but also taking the father and daughter to church services. The daughter quickly fell in love with this colorful world, and made friends with many peers, but the father still hated modern society.
Once, when her daughter came home late from home, she said to her father, "If we have a phone, I can call you."
The father replied: "There is always a way to communicate without using a mobile phone."
During this time on the farm, my father needed to help the farm in return. The main business of this farm is to plant Christmas trees, which is to prune the fir trees into a uniform shape, and then use the machine to pack and transport them to various places for sale.
The job had a certain symbolic meaning for my father: during his seclusion in the forest, the trees around him were all different and free-growing; when he returned to civilization, he was forced to conform to the mainstream, just like the Christmas tree. .
In fact, for recluses, the biggest reason for avoiding the world may be that they don’t want to work, participate in economic activities, and don’t want to deal with social situations, which the mainstream society obviously cannot understand and respect.
Life on the farm was certainly not what the father wanted, so one morning he and his daughter slipped away and fled further into the boreal forest.
The father's plan did not seek the opinion of the daughter. Although the daughter continued to wander with her father, she gradually became tired of this hard way of life.
The forests in the north are colder and the camping conditions are even more difficult. The daughter almost caught a cold from the cold, and the father also sprained his foot by a small stream and almost died in the forest.
Thanks to the help of a kind person near the forest, they borrowed for a period of time in the kind person's RV.
After the father's foot injury healed, the father wanted to escape again, and the daughter decided to stay.
In the previous days, the father had never consulted his daughter. This time, he finally understood that if the aid agency did not have the right to reintegrate himself into society, he also had no right to let his daughter leave the society.
The woman who took in her daughter said that there are many recluses like her father in the forest. Every once in a while, she buys some necessities and hangs them in the forest for those recluses to use by themselves.
After being separated from her father, the daughter took over the job, and it became the only way for her to keep in touch with her father.
In fact, there are many examples of passive avoiders like fathers in life.
The Italian writer Calvino wrote "The Baron in the Tree". The protagonist chose to live in a tree because of conflicts with his family. He built a tree house and learned to hunt and fetch water in the tree. He never returned in this life. been to the ground.
In the movie "Survival in the Wilderness" based on a true story, the protagonist gave up a good life and went to Alaska to live in seclusion, and eventually died of food poisoning because of eating a poisonous plant.
Some people say that this way of life is very free and back to basics.
Some people say that this is a kind of "passive resistance" to cut off its own economic attributes.
In fact, it doesn't matter how you view them. What matters is to respect everyone's choice of lifestyle. After all, it takes courage to say "no" to the mainstream of society.
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