At first I thought that our generation was too late in life and had not seen any old Yugoslav movies. A few days ago, my roommate said that he had watched "Walter Defends Sarajevo", and he was immediately in awe. I believe that our parents’ generation has completely different impressions of Yugoslavian movies, because Yugoslavian movies, like Indian movies and Albanian movies, are an important part of their memories when they were young. Once upon a time, the country of Yugoslavia was still our socialist brother, and, like China, it was at the same time antagonistic to the United States and the Soviet Union. So much so that when the Kosovo war broke out in 1998, many of us Chinese still stood on the stand of the socialist brothers to fight for the Yugoslavia, unaware that this country has undergone earth-shaking changes. From the Kingdom of Yugoslavia to Tito’s Yugoslavia, to Milosevic’s Yugoslavia and many former republics, to today’s Serbia and Montenegro, Yugoslavia has experienced great changes and great turmoil. . Therefore, when the subtitles "Once upon a time, there was a country called Yugoslavia" in the beginning of "Underground", we can imagine what mood Kusturica had in making such a film that condenses the history of the motherland. .
The creative style of Yugoslav filmmakers today is very different from those old movies in memory. The absurd plot and magical realism of the film "Underground" may confuse the audience. When I first watched this film, I kept asking myself: Is history really like this? However, after reading it, I no longer doubt it. Many details of the film made me smile knowingly, making me feel that it was something that happened around me. Therefore, I can only draw this conclusion: history itself is so absurd. The artist only reveals the absurdity that we have long been used to. This is the value of modern works of art, since the mission of art is no longer a simple and accurate depiction of reality.
It takes courage for Kusturica to show the history of the motherland in such an absurd form. I think it was the memory of his motherland when he was young and the experience of wandering abroad for many years that made him think constantly and deepened his feelings for the motherland. As a result, the nationalist Yugoslavians under Milosevic jumped out and accused him of demonizing Tito's revolutionaries into thieves and liars. This is also easy to understand. It is difficult for people living in a framework to jump out and think about problems, so both history and reality have been filtered and transformed in them. When something closer to the real is presented without filtering, it is often difficult for them to accept it. In fact, each of us lives in such a framework more or less, believing in some assumptions similar to "the war is not over yet". In this sense, we also live underground. Therefore, when we see the absurd underground life in "Underground", we should think about it, it is actually our own life.
There is a detail in the second half of "Underground": When the son of Kudo who was born underground went out of the ground and saw the sun and the moon (he could not distinguish between the two), he felt frustrated and terrified. He said to his father: "We can Back underground?" I also often wonder, if one day we walk out of the framework in which we live and see the world closer to the real world, will we be afraid? Would we hope to return to the dark underground? Observations in recent days have made me more and more inclined to answer this question in the affirmative.
For such a film with rich connotation, I cannot make more comments. I can only talk about one more impressive detail, that is, Kudo and his son came to the ground from the ground and saw that they were filming about himself. The movie scene. We usually call movies about movies "Metamovies". There are also movie scenes in "Underground", which should be called a meta movie to some extent. The plot mentioned above reminds me of Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo". The male protagonist in "The Purple Rose of Cairo" came to reality from the movie and encountered a series of conflicts. In the eyes of people on the ground, Kudo of "Underground" is a sacrificed hero and a character in the movie; he has been living in the underground "state of war", which is exactly the same as the background of the movie being filmed; when he came down from the ground When I get to the ground, I also come to reality from the movie. The conflict between the underground and the ground, coupled with the conflict between the scene and the outside, finally produced a dramatic ending in which Kudo killed an actor who played the role of a German officer. This detail is designed to be full of tension, providing a lot of space for thinking, allowing us to examine the reality of our lives, and to think about the similarities between reality and the absurd movie plot.
Having said this, I can't help thinking that our China is also a country that has suffered severely in modern times. We also have a history of resisting aggression and we have also wandered between communism and nationalism. Can we produce works that deeply ponder national history like "Underground"? Of course, the implicit cultural character of our Chinese is not conducive to the production of such unruly works. But aside from this, do we have the courage to examine our own history in this light? I have to answer regretfully: I'm afraid not. Because we are still immersed in the glory and setbacks of the past, the two contradictory emotions of inferiority and conceit still occupy our hearts.
The first half of "Underground" has two subtitles about World War II: "In 1941, the German army bombed the city, and the entire city was turned into ruins." "In 1944, the Allied forces bombed the city. The German bombing was even more violent a year ago." In 1998, three years after the publication of "Underground", NATO troops bombed Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, on the grounds that "in order to end the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo." On the other hand, Milosevic’s Yugoslav Army carried out a carpet bombing and shelling of Kosovo on the grounds of "clearing the separatist armed forces mixed in with the masses." I don’t know what to say about history repeating itself again and again. I can only bless Yugoslavia, a country that once existed, and its people. At the same time, I also wish my country and people who have also experienced vicissitudes of life, and hope that all the nightmares in history will never happen again.
(For the history of Yugoslavia, refer to Qin Hui: "Nationalism: A Bloody Tragedy Under a Double-Edged Sword-Yugoslavia-The Origin of the Kosovo Problem")
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