Such bold innovations appearing on such subjects are like primitive people discovering fire. Its significance is not only to find a new possibility for the subject of concentration camps, but also for the form and technique of war film shooting, which gives later generations a reference to learn. The concrete examples of inheritance and imitating have enabled the reflection and reflection on war to reach another state on the basis established in the past, opening up a new way of thinking and creation.
Generally, war films often use God's perspective to narrate, and use the lens to show the protagonist or the main crowd in the form of a bystander. The advantage of this method is that the identity and relationship of the characters are clear, and the spatial environment is intuitive and realistic, especially the performance of war scenes. Hand-held photography, mobile photography, and aerial photography are often used as the main shooting methods, so that the audience feels that they are on the battlefield. . But its shortcomings are also obvious, that is, when expressing characters’ mental activities or key props, they can only rely on obvious character actions to make externalizations, and prompts through camera language, such as close-ups, push shots, montages, etc., they can show fur, but It cannot pierce the screen between the audience and the movie like a sharp knife. The same flaw exists in other types of movies. Although this can make the audience aware, it is difficult not to create the impression that such a mechanical operation is deliberate. Although this kind of war movies (and other movies with the same situation) have gone through years of development, they have cultivated quite mature movie-watching experience among the audience, which can make the audience more and more aware of the continuity and theme of the film content. Accurate, but if it shows the inner feelings of the characters, the bearer of the story, it is still a little bit awkward.
"Son of Sol" breaks out of the constraints of this technique and uses a refreshing way of expression to carry out a brand-new exploration and experiment of concentration camp movies. One of the most striking is the combination of small format and long shots. Obviously influenced by the new realism and the new wave, the director chose to hold the protagonist Thor throughout the entire process, and the shooting was mostly on the moving back. Each shot is a long shot in the real scene, and the audience turns the camera into an eye, like an inseparable invisible person who always follows Saul, shuttles through the busy, hot, and frightened concentration camp. The director chose the 1.33:1 traditional ratio frame in order to "do not want to reveal too much information in the background", and hope that the audience will go deep into Sol's inner world under the guidance of the camera and feel his inner pain and struggle.
It is worth noting that there are also a small amount of subjective shots of Sol besides the follow-up shots. In addition, at the end of the film, it can be found that the lens has moved away from Sol and followed up with a non-Jewish child who ran into the jungle from the barn. It is undeniable that it is precisely because the film takes the follow-up lens as the mainstream that it makes the use of other types of lenses more powerful.
I think the subjective shots in the film can be divided into two categories: one type represents Saul’s inner feelings, which is a concrete representation of his emotions; the other type expresses the impact on Saul, and the scenes show a lot of content. It will have an important impact on Sol. The former is like Sol, standing on a moving truck with his head up, and then a moving upward shot of a street tree to show his inner peace at the moment after being tense; the latter is like the first subjective shot of the whole film. In the gas chamber, Er witnessed a surviving boy being held to death by a Nazi doctor. While conveying the message of Nazi crimes to the audience, it also shows that the boy will have an important influence on Saul in the subsequent series of events.
There are many interpretations of the end of the film, and there are two main ones. One is that the child is a symbol of hope, and when the war is fierce, surviving children can be seen, and Salton believes that the world is still beautiful; the other is more surreal, thinking that the child is Sol The manifestation of the child who had always wanted to bury, he expressed his gratitude to Saul in such a silent way. I personally think that both interpretations are inadequate. One is because the child is neatly dressed and the Germans let him go, so he is obviously not a Jew, and there is no surviving theory; and a realistic film, if it ends up being unrealistic At the end of the doctrine of "appearance", it is inconsistent with the overall style. Therefore, I prefer to combine the two. The child represents both hope and gratitude, and no further research is required. In any case, the final point of view shifted from Thor's body was very powerful. The director embodies the meaning he wants to express and expresses it through such an "alternative" lens. It is reasonable to cause widespread interpretation.
"Son of Sol" is not only unique in shooting techniques, but also in other aspects. The famous French philosopher and art historian George Didi-Huberman called the film "a monster that we need, unmistakable, beneficial to mankind, and innocent", indicating that its value is far from being explored. Empty. I believe that in the future, the interpretation of this film will not stop, and the imitation of it will continue.
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