Two killers, blood-stained, traveled on vacation in Bruges with their own sins on their backs. The young killer Ray was worried and depressed, while the older killer was relaxed and thoughtful. Whether it is depression or relaxation, now that you have withdrawn to the quaint town, why not enjoy the rare freedom in your bloody career? But the plot turned abruptly. Although they wanted to travel freely, the word "freedom" was destined to miss them. It was a nightmare for them: they were willing to receive an order from the boss, Harry, to kill the thunder, but willing to use it. The order became a reality, so it took a lot of trouble and even lost his life; Lei was always confused, troubled by the nightmare of manslaughtering children and couldn't get out of it. The film portrays their unfreedom in the two people's lazy wandering around, one is forced to do things that they don't want to do, and the other is sad and uneasy because of worry. Under the winter sun in Bruges, what kind of travel do they have to go through to get rid of their own haze?
Apart from tall, short, fat, thin, handsome and bloated, the film tells us with a simple and slightly emotional dialogue that Lei and Ken have different attitudes to life. As far as Ken is concerned, he doesn't believe in anything, but he believes that to be a good person in life, he must follow good rules to do things, such as the most basic support for the old and the young. Lei immediately went on to say, help the old and the young? In this world, maybe the old woman you helped will blame you for breaking her things. He has no benevolence or beliefs. Maybe he only has a horoscope eyebrow, which will always hang on his sad face.
Two concepts of freedom have appeared in the West. The Plato school of ancient Greece said that the key to freedom lies in the possession of good. When people grasp the good, they are free to act. He is willing to kill people, but he thinks that all he kills are bad people, except for an innocent person, that is the man who was willing to kill to save his brother. At the end of the film, Harry chases and kills. Confronting Harry who wants to kill Thunder, Ken falls into a reincarnation. He is now the one who was killed by the killer to protect his brother Thunder from being killed. The reason he wants to stop Harry is to do what he thinks should be done, no matter whether he can be free from the evils of the past, at least in the process of saving Ray, he can be free.
But this view of freedom ignores the fact that it is possible that people do not know what good is? What's more, they do not act for the sake of having good, so can these people's actions be free? Ken thinks that he holds to the "good", but can it be considered good by killing all the bad guys? Therefore, the definition of "good" in Ken's mouth is not clear. The only thing he insists on is his own definition of good.
Another similar reincarnation at the end of the film better illustrates: if some people do things that are not based on goodness, then such behavior will produce a ridiculous and terrifying reality. This happened between Harry and Ray. Harry believed that Ray should die by accidentally killing the child, because this was a drafted rule. When Harry killed the mine, he accidentally killed the dwarf present and mistaken the dwarf for a child. According to the rules he said, he died by drinking a bomb. Of course, Harry's suicide was by no means an act of benevolence, but just a rigid clause left behind by the stubborn notion of “good” being removed. This is a wonderful mockery of the rules of the law of losing souls. It can neither welcome good nor avoid evil, but can only make each other deeply caught in the same vengeance and grievances that you come and go.
From Ken to Harry, the worst situation has emerged, that is, in real life, some people do not have the ability to recognize and have the good, how can their actions be called freedom? So there is the idea that goodness is outside of people. This is the Christian view of freedom, which was first written by the theologian Augustine. He said that we cannot grasp the truth and goodness by ourselves, unless the God who represents them appears to us, freedom can only be given by the truth itself, that is, freedom can be enjoyed by believing in the grace of God.
Perhaps from a certain perspective, being in Bruges is in Christianity. In Berman's magnificent book "Religion and Revolution", there is a chapter called "Urban Law". When describing the new cities that appeared in the 11th and 12th centuries, Bruges was specifically mentioned. He said that these cities are not the first cities in the history of the world, but there has never been a city that is exactly the same as them. Although many historians have put forward historical, economic, and military factors for the emergence of such a group of cities at that time, Berman still added two factors that he considered important: "religious factors" and " Legal factors". Because the establishment of these cities is a religious union, a regional organization that relies on the same religious values and religious rituals. The spirit and identity of the city built at this time originated from the Christian church. The establishment of Bruges came from the charter granted by Count Philip at that time. On this basis, it established its own city laws. Even these laws and rules are full of religious sentiments to reform reality and save the world.
With Berman’s argument, let’s take a look at Bruges that two killers visited during their holidays. After a brief debate between the two of them about the game, Ray followed Ken to the first stop of the killer tour: the "Church of the Blood of Jesus". In the gloomy church, the candlelight reflected Lei's heart full and willing awe and piety. The purpose of the first stop may be this: the knights of the Crusaders brought back the blood of Jesus’ death, and the death of Jesus is the so-called "incarnation", which in the religious sense symbolizes that Jesus took the sin by replacing the people of the world with the flesh. After that, everyone in the world would use Christianity in exchange for salvation at the end of the day. The following scenes are scenes of religious oil paintings stained with blood. The oil painting uses delicate brushstrokes to show the various pains and retributions that people have to bear for the sins they have committed. Lei and Ken finally stopped in front of an oil painting, which was the "Doomsday Judgment". This tour shows that Lei is not only entangled in his own experience, but also completely ignores the path that should be taken to get out of the predicament. He is indifferent to the solemn church precisely because his concept of salvation is unusually weak. When he sees the tragic scene of the oil painting, he can arouse fear in his heart, but he doesn't know the meaning at all.
Next, Lei recalled the scene of the accidental killing of a young child, and the choreographer arranged it very religiously. The location of the killing was arranged in the church. When the time was arranged as a warning, the slain was the priest, and the manslaughter was the child who was praying. In short, everything was standing in the extreme opposite of Christianity. Lei's lack of freedom is precisely because he does not know how to do good, and he ignores "belief." This kind of freedom concept emphasizes that there is no other way to freedom, and it can only be sought in religious beliefs and saved by the grace of God.
For faith, Lei seems to be a natural insulator, and for sin, he has a startling sensitivity. He could ridicule indifferently in the church, but in the early morning mist he shed tears when he thought of the sins he had committed. When facing Ken talked about the history of the church, he was careless and humorous, but when he saw the oil painting of skinning and meat cutting, he felt To the torment-like wounds. Although, in the movie, he drinks and picks up girls, fights, drinks and drugs, and does whatever he wants. But as soon as he saw his horoscope eyebrows that were always twisted on the clockwork, everyone knew that what he possessed was anxious and distressed rather than clear freedom.
In the muttering of the last shot, Ray finally realized that this damn Bruges was the purgatory after his doomsday trial. When he committed a regretful evil in the church, he came to spend time in a town where everything was wrapped in religion. Because of his own sin, all his encounters here turned into painful suffering and punishment! No wonder from beginning to end, his attitude towards Bruges was fuck to the end.
In Bruges, of course the killer does not have a holiday, the killer can only face the wall. In Bruges, love is not a way to forget the guilt of the past. The beauty and warmth of a blonde can't hide her nature as a drug dealer and a robber. In Bruges, I want to be relieved once and for all, but suicide cannot be successful, because the guns of others are always faster and more ruthless than my own. In Bruges, even if you get on the escape train and stay away, you still have to be brought back by accident. In Bruges, the postures and scenes of Lei Lian's final death are recurrences of his crimes.
This is like Bruges, which is like a holy city and a ghost domain, so absurd and so nonsense that even the final curtain is confused and at a loss. At the moment of dying, Ray cursed Bruges while whispering that he didn't want to die. At this moment, he said that his inspiration came to light, is he beginning to approach freedom, or is he farther away from freedom?
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