The film "Eco Box" started with an interesting idea. There is no doubt that the director and the screenwriter added a lot of minutiae settings and details on top of an initial idea to justify the story, which is a bit fantasy. What would have been the setting of a black humor style has gradually developed into a weird and thrilling story. Unfortunately, the film has not been able to dig out the true meaning of this setting. Some interpretations may be feasible, but they cannot hide the void and shallowness of the script. After "The Art of Self-Defense", Curly and Imogen collaborated again, although the two people still contributed a lot. Good performance, but dragged down by the quality of the film itself, "Eco Box" is by no means as interesting as "The Art of Self-Defense".
1. The story of a dove occupying a magpie's nest
From the first scene of the film, the director hinted at what kind of movie it would be. An alien bird occupied the nest of other birds, squeezed out the unhatched eggs and newly born babies, and then let the mother bird feed itself and grow strong. growing up.
The movie is roughly the same. Tom and Gemma were deceived by the developer and went to a community called Yonder, but were trapped in the endless loop of countless identical houses and couldn’t leave. After trying everything to no avail, a baby was born suddenly in In front of them, they fed and took care of the child, and the child grew rapidly. In the end, the two were unable to raise or eliminate the child who did not belong to them. So Tom and Gemma died one after another, and the child left the yonder community and took over. The position of the last real estate agent lures the next couple into this predicament and raises the lives of the next generation for them.
Alien creatures have invaded the human world and asked humans to help raise their children. Although this child seems to be no different from humans, his strange behavior and behavior are all calling out the uniqueness of this creature. .
It observes the lives of Tom and Gemma. It almost frightensly imitates the voices of the two. It grows so quickly and screams to express its dissatisfaction. Finally, its neck bulges with two vocal organs. , Shattered Gemma's last chance thoughts.
2. Bundle of family and house
Although on the whole, the movie tells the story of the alien invading the human family by using a metaphor that a dove occupying a magpie's nest, it is clear that the part about the family in the movie can have more interpretations.
Tom and Gemma belong to the kind of family with insufficient financial resources. They want to buy a new house, but they seem to be embarrassed in their pockets, and after they have that house, they can't live without it anymore. This is actually very much like a bondage of housing loans to the younger generation of low-income groups. When a young couple carries a housing loan for decades, they will inevitably interact with this building for a long time to come. The house has established a certain connection, and with the passage of time, even a house that looks satisfactory at first will gradually become boring, but suffering from financial pressure, disgusting and unable to leave, this is the portrayal of many younger generations.
Similar to this, the child’s bondage to a family, the burden of caring for the child is explicitly expressed as the child’s screams and Tom and Gemma’s responsive care for this, and as time goes by, this care becomes more and more serious. It's annoying, but it's a pity that this child, like this house, locked the two people tightly in such a small space, which became a heavy burden that was reluctant and had to bear.
3. The conflict between fatherhood and motherhood
In addition to focusing on the plight of the family, the film also reflects the difference between fatherhood and motherhood in Tom and Gemma's different attitudes towards children.
Tom can be regarded as a typical father role. He is cold, not speaking much, and goes out to work every day (digging holes). When the child makes a big noise, he will punish the child and lock the child up. This is like a severe Father's behavior.
Although Gemma keeps saying that she is not a mother, she tells the children stories to coax them to sleep, teaches the children, and chats with the children (although it is to set information), including saving the children when Tom in the "father" role punishes the children. The child's behavior actually happens to play the role of a "mother".
Of course, in the film, the father and mother played by the two people are both false and forced, just like a game. Gemma may have invested a little bit of real emotions, but this bit of truth is also after she sees the truth. Was torn to pieces.
4. Those settings that add to the weirdness
As I said at the beginning, such a setting is actually very easy to make into a "black humor" style movie, but the director obviously has no intention of this. He added many strange little settings to make the style of the movie strange. .
The most basic settings such as the community that cannot be walked out, the house with house number 9, the house without mobile phone signal, and the house that cannot be dealt with on fire, every day I don't know who sends the supplies, and the newborn baby. These basic settings are all in order to create such a cage that seems to have no walls, but cannot escape.
Other settings are foreshadowing the story of "the dove occupying the magpie's nest", which naturally expresses the child's singularity. In addition to the imitating voice, rapid growth, and the vocal structure of the neck mentioned above, the child looks strange The TV shows and the books in strange languages brought by the children also serve this purpose.
Others, some are to create a unique visual style, some just add weirdness.
For example, the fake clouds in the sky, the strong colors in the room, the strange soil, and the complete silence during sleep, including the tasteless strawberries (maybe the food behind is also tasteless), these scattered settings This film puts a layer of confusing and curious veil.
Although in my opinion, it is not necessary.
5. Self-digging a grave? You still haven't dig deep enough
One thing we care about in the film is that Tom keeps digging downwards.
Different from Gemma's task of caring for children, Tom, who is also unprofitable in caring for children, found himself with such a mission, which is to keep digging down.
I have been thinking about the meaning of his excavation, or what he would encounter when he excavated. Because the translation of the title vivarium is a botanical garden or an ecological tank, I might just dig down until I reach the side wall of this ecological tank.
But it seems that I was thinking too much. He dug into the body bag of the former head of the household, and that pit became his own grave in the end.
This is a meaningless excavation. Perhaps what the director wants to express is the emptiness of such efforts.
However, the director eventually turned the film into nothingness, in other words, a work of little interest and meaninglessness. He could have made this setting very interesting and ironic, but he didn't do it. Similarly, he could dig deep into some of the concepts in it to express profound meaning, but the film is still superficial. So after watching the whole movie, there are not too many memory points or feelings of being shocked. The whole movie seems to be digging a big hole, and finally fills in carelessly.
Let me say, since I plan to dig a hole, dig a bit bigger and deeper.
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