Black director Spike Lee, who won the Oscar for Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015, released his latest work "The Blood Five" as the Black Lives Matter (Black Lives Matter) event sweeps the world in 2020.
In the film, black equality, human greed, redemption, politics, war, post-war stress disorder (PTSD), etc. are all manifested. The rotten tomato index of this film is 91%, and the popcorn is 55%. The film critics are optimistic, the passers-by are very poor, and there are mixed praises and criticisms. In my opinion, the film seems to have too much to say, mixed together, but lost its meaning because of too much meaning, which is confusing. If the evaluation is harsher, this should be a bad film made by the big director.
First of all, the equality of black people is obvious. Considering off-site factors, the film was launched on Netflix on June 12 this year. The protests in the United States triggered by the death of Freud are in full swing recently. Over the past few decades, black groups have unchained their shackles, but have not pushed down the fence, and white groups have put down their whips and have not abandoned their prejudice. But the content of the film is not limited to this.
This shocking shooting photo is called "Saigon Execution" (Saigon Execution). It records the moment when the South Vietnam National Police Chief Nguyen Yuluan shot a Viet Cong prisoner. It is considered to be the most influential photo about the Vietnam War. The photographer is the US military. Military photographer Eddie Adams.
Or maybe this is not a black affirmative movie, not a treasure hunt movie, nor an anti-war movie. When we zoom out the close-up shots, we can see more metaphors in the film under the panoramic view.
·Puzzling group of five
The five main characters in the story fought side by side in the Vietnam War.
The beginning of the film took 3 minutes to introduce the cause of the story. The U.S. national power reached its peak with the moon landing, and various political and interest factors brought about the Vietnam War. The living conditions of the blacks have not been improved. The civil rights leaders headed by Martin Luther King and Malcolm X have received widespread support among the black groups, and the civil rights movement is in full swing.
Blacks were attracted by government policies to participate in the war in large numbers, and on the battlefield, there were frequent conflicts between black soldiers and white officers. The struggle for equal rights among the blacks is advancing with difficulty. On the other hand, the innocent Vietnamese people have been devastated.
The little girl under the incendiary bomb. The Associated Press reporter Huang Gongwu took this photo and named it "Fire Falling from the Sky." The next day, the "New York Times" published this photo that truly showed the cruelty of war on the front page. This photo set off a new wave of anti-war in the United States, bringing the U.S. military's withdrawal from the Vietnam War ahead of time by six months. This photo won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
During one mission, the team found a box of gold bars in a crashed transport plane. This box of gold bars was used by the United States to support [South Vietnam] and should be handed in. But Captain Norman (played by Chadwick Bosman) proposed that this box of gold was used to support black communities, families, and brothers to improve their lives. And when he learned of Martin Luther King’s assassination, he prevented his partners from committing atrocities against white comrades in arms, vowing to abide by Martin Luther King’s anti-war and anti-violence.
The gold was buried on the spot because it could not be brought out. Norman, the spiritual leader of the group, died in the Vietnam War. More than 40 years later, the remaining four people regrouped in Vietnam and began a journey of searching for gold. However, in the process, due to human greed, the so-called black brothers and former comrades-in-arms fell apart and died one after another.
The irony is wearing a red baseball cap, which says that Paul, who made America great again, died under the guns of Vietnamese mercenaries hired by Jean Renault in France, and fell into a grave he dug. Only one person in the five-member group is left. Together with the French demining girl, the gold is brought out and donated to NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and black sports organizations.
·metaphor
The film mainly involves five black American soldiers, a French demining trio, a French businessman (Jean Renault), a Vietnamese, and a box of gold bars. From this we can vaguely see some mappings in reality.
Vietnam was a French colony before World War II. After the end of World War II, the Vietnam Independence League (the Communist Party of Vietnam) led by Ho Chi Minh declared independence to France and established the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam" in Hanoi [North Vietnam].
After that, the former Vietnamese emperor in exile established a provisional government in Saigon with the support of France [South Vietnam]. Finally, [South Vietnam] was supported by France and the United States, and [North Vietnam] was supported by the Soviet Union and China.
Vietnam is the box of gold bars in the eyes of all countries in the world. Because of their interests, various countries fought a battle in Vietnam. After the U.S.-Vietnam campaign ended, Sino-Soviet relations became ill, and China and the United States established diplomatic relations. The Sino-Vietnamese war broke out and the United States supported China.
The changes in the relationship between the characters in the film are just like the relationship between several countries in reality. There are no eternal friends but eternal interests. And the captain Norman, played by Chadwick Bosman, is the embodiment of the perfect spirit, hoping to maintain "love and peace" in the cracks, but he died early under a gun that seems to be a misfire. , Is also an inevitable fate.
When the "war" came, the truth was sacrificed early, and we killed our family and brothers for profit. Those who survived finally distributed the "gold bars" in hopes of restoring a trace of the original intention of the war, and fortunately they would be redeemed in the dried blood. And those who fell in the blood of war, they were finally restored to numbers by media historians, and the so-called "truth" of justice or evil. This "truth" is like the film itself, there is no right or wrong, and everything is confusing.
"Blood-sworn Five" may not be like Spike Lee's previous movies, and has a reputation in film history. Originally, a genre of a Vietnamese veteran treasure hunt was carried too much private goods by him, and he became a little confused. Or maybe this also reflects the more confusing Vietnam War?
Therefore, equal rights for blacks is the biggest metaphor in itself, because the problems of blacks are never the problems of blacks themselves. They reflect the common problems of mankind. The equal rights and wars derived from it are all just appearances. The "truth" buried in it is controlled by politics and interests. The media emphasizes through a certain position, people interpret it from a certain angle, and different opinions claim that they have mastered the world. The truth.
But the truth is always a virgin, and all positions are just smug masturbation in the end. Perhaps like "Snow Country Train", in the end, all of us have been played.
Spike Lee has shown us many positions. Is this a bad movie? I'm not so sure anymore.
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