"Elephant" is a film that reflects the theme of youth. Among similar themes, Yang Dechang's "Guling Street Juvenile Murder" and Chen Guo's "Made in Hong Kong" are both known for depicting the cruelty of youth. The pictures are rough and gloomy, and the film language is extremely fierce, just like the director wants to show the sharp texture of blood. Zhang's fringe youth, eventually heading for destruction. And in this film, the pictures are so exquisite and beautiful that it is really pleasing to the eye, the rhythm is poetic and relaxing, but it shows such a cruel fact-the campus shooting.
To be honest, within half an hour before the start of the film, Lang really didn't know what story the director wanted to tell. I thought it was just like Jia Zhangke, purely trivial displays. At the beginning, the first scene, a few minutes of footage, all gave the blue sky where clouds wandered, and the noise of the stadium under the blue sky was faintly heard. Floating clouds flowed, and the light gradually dimmed until it got dark. Then all the characters appeared. The boy in blond hair and yellow clothes, the girl he likes, the boy who is taking pictures around preparing for the film festival, the student couple who has just come to register, the unseemly librarian with a low self-esteem, the chirping bird pie, Junxiu, melancholy and being bullied. The boy... the film’s narrative clues are completely based on the individual characters, and all of them are doing things that are too ordinary, which is what we all do in school. Classes, discussions, extracurricular activities, going to the campus restaurant to eat, going to the bathroom, making appointments... everything is so normal, but the hidden dangers of anxiety are lurking in it. The narrative thread in each person is often broken inexplicably, which is a bit incomprehensible, especially for people like Lang with a bad memory, ha ha. It was not until the repetition and rendezvous between different characters and different contexts, and at the end, with a gunshot, all the fate of all the characters merged in this gunshot, and it was suddenly realized that the breakpoints of all contexts were actually the precursors of death and the end of life. . A film only records the killing and destruction in one day.
The film uses a lot of long shots to record the walking of various characters. In the aisles, in the dining room, in the activity room, from here to there, keep recording walking. And mostly from the back. There is almost no soundtrack in a film. During the walking, there are only vague voices, footsteps, and laughter. This is the effect of walking around the campus alone with a DV. But no matter who it is, he walks with his head down 30 degrees. Youth may be such a posture. The melancholy of inner trouble makes people avoid themselves and the sky unconsciously. Looking down 30 degrees, I can see the road clearly, but it is not enough to examine myself and face the problem; I cannot look up at the sky and see hope. Finally the two children went to destruction in this posture, and also destroyed the freshness of others.
From the beginning to the end, the film did not render the tragic and cruel, but deliberately played down these. Perhaps it was because he considered the emotions of the family that had suffered such a tragedy, but Lang was more willing to believe that this was the thinking and ultimate concern behind the tragedy. In the process of shooting down the campus by the two children, we could hardly see the panic images we expected with inertial thinking. There were only some light but firm gunshots and some fleeing figures. The panic sound was not even as good as the trivial talking and talking before walking. Laughter; and the two children carrying guns are not brutal, but calm, even innocent. One of the children is as handsome as Mozart. When playing the piano, the music is full of melancholy and emotions. Until the end, the film did not see the slightest gloomy gloom, even when the shooting happened, the room was full of clear and transparent sunlight.
At the end of the film, it returns to the blue sky and white clouds at the beginning. The music rang to Alice, the music once played by the handsome murderer. When he started shooting the campus, he once said that he did it for love. The creator of the film obviously did not impose condemnation and hatred on the two children, but who should be held responsible? This is a heavy topic.
Maybe we should raise our heads and look up at the sky.
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