"Gemini Killer" does not go beyond the conventions of action movies. It opens with an action: Henry Brogan, a professional killer played by Will Smith, sets up a sniper rifle and looks at the target from the scope-a certain "bioterrorist" ( Later, we learned that his true identity was not the case.) The train he was riding, in this series of shots, as we saw in the trailer, an extreme fisheye lens distorted and deformed the roaring train. , It seems to “turn” in a certain way. From the text, the “prey” in the train has indeed changed the state—from life to death, and the turning also happened to Henry, but not because of a mistake, but because of He completed his task perfectly, and "knows too much". When a machine starts to reflect, it becomes a process of de-mechanization, and Henry becomes a person.
Going back to the opening scene, in addition to "turning", another important symbol comes from the target behavior of "hit". The train was "hit" twice. In the fisheye lens mentioned earlier, The camera "hit" a weird shape before the bullet, and the weird side of the world smiles at us to show our existence.
The above is the analysis of the first combined segment of the film, centered on "turning" and "hit", and if we bring this theme into the whole film and create a new connection with Ang Lee’s creative process, then we will find "Gemini Killer" also implies a certain turn of Lee Ang's own. This turn is sad, but it can also be obsessive. Maybe soon, he will completely bid farewell to the early years of our creative career before we know it. .
One: Retracement, game or indoor drama?
On the surface, "Gemini Killer" is a video game-style road film. First of all, he adopted a metaphor of "levels". The development of the film revolved around Henry's journey to Columbia, Hungary, and then back to the United States. The stage-style event arrangement finally returned to the original point, the boss was removed, and then the so-called "customs clearance video" explained the ending. Secondly, the United States, Colombia, and Hungary, which are located on the three continents, are not connected by geographical logic. , But the three are connected randomly. In cyberspace, we can usually see such hyperlinks, which break the sense of space between text and text, and reshape it into a new spatial order.
But the deep structure of "Gemini Killer" is contrary to this freedom. Henry did not go anywhere. The threat of "Gemini" forced him to retreat to his original state and retreat to a one-act indoor drama. Everything he reached The place is the continuation of the indoor space.
This is the first reason why only "Twins" can truly match Henry. When we forget the typified surface movements and the stylized sci-fi world view of the 80s, we can discover another story: a passionate "dominant" The man in his middle age met with a strange mirror image (or, we can understand it as a voice from within him, "not his"). The power behind it is threatening and dominant. He is This power was stunned, and then he recognized that this was himself, coming from within him...
The above series of stories are inseparable from Henry's repeated reiteration of his willingness to "retire", and "Gemini" will eventually appear overnight when he intends to live in seclusion. "Retirement" means turning attention to the inner, and turning to the inner will have to face one's own incompleteness and glimpse the more traumatic mirror image of the real world, and the "mirror" is not a reflection of the external world, but the self Another appearance of, precisely because it is internal, it cannot be defeated; Henry does not dare to look in the mirror, but the mirror will always find him. From this moment on, he is truly "retired".
Two: the father who was questioned
And when Zakarweski told him that the DNA of "Gemini" was exactly the same as Henry, it was like she was saying "I'm pregnant" and a ghost in the name of a father hit him. In other words, Henry, a celibate, was hit. "interpellation" as the father, which means identity "mirrored my own." after that, he had to love him, absolutely responsible for his identity.
The name of the father and its variants often exist as a threatening other in Li Ang’s creative process. When the name of the powerful father appears, the subject is either obedient, or like "The Hulk", with Fran. Kenstein's way died with this father.
In these films, the inquiry is often imperative: "I am your father", thus expressing the subject as a subordinate, obedient child, and the subject will not really become a father, even in "The Wedding Banquet", The film came to an end when Wei Tong’s sexual orientation was learned by his father and his father’s "surrender". The film did not really show the moment when Wei Tong faced the child and accepted the father’s name, but set it as a shadow of his father. Accessories, besides this, the father did not really surrender, but retired as a "co-victor" (we can find that from beginning to end, he did not appear to be a homophobic, but always stayed in "passing on the lineage". "On top of this traditional motive), and from this, Wei Tong ends the narrative with a cowardly, "filial" child, and in "Gemini Killer", the call for the name of the father makes Henry both the father. It is also a child, this is a complicated state, and it is also a "middle-aged state" in the true sense.
Moreover, the narrative structure of "The Wedding Banquet" relies on a typical, classical Hollywood-style coincidence. This coincidence means very few, and also means our absence. For an audience who cannot bear such a heavy burden, the whole story The tragedy can be dispelled by the possibility of an escaped parallel text. (In Ang Lee’s creation, "escape" is always a potential humanitarian theme. The text, as well as the end of Brokeback Mountain, the two male protagonists who have already married meet again) In this version of the story, Weitong and Weiwei have no relationship, or Weiwei is not pregnant, and then his father leaves, Weitong and Weiwei Simon continues to maintain a gay relationship.
However, "Gemini Killer" stripped this optimistic conviction of free will. In the film, Clay Verris created the "gemini" through Henry's DNA secret. This text that can arouse obscene imagination completely represents the absurdity of the father's name. When it came, his narcissistic celibacy myth was ironic, and then it collapsed. Henry became an ordinary person in the community. He was a father because people called it a father.
Three: At the end, the killing of the father and the return of the father
In "Gemini Killer", the "father" is murdered in a cruel way. We get close to the dark core that has been hidden under Ang Lee's Chinese peace style for a long time, through the good-evil opposition in the B-level melodrama , Ang Lee can finally describe this father as evil and use that shot as a sacrifice for "justice".
But this kind of sacrifice does not mean the disappearance of the father’s name. On the contrary, a true "father" can only truly return at this moment. When the "twin" picks up the gun, intends to kill the pseudo-father in front of him. At that time, he was taken away by Henry. We expect Henry to teach his "son" to oppose violence and bring Clay Verris to justice. Or, Henry forgave the father and the relationship between father and son was bridged. In fact, it did not. Henry used The gun snatched from the "son" eliminated the father who was threatening to both people at the same time. At this moment, the real father's name fell on him, that is, the castration of the son. This is a kind of deja. vu, only with the help of the father’s name can the father in front of you be identified as “evil”. At this time, the logic of the film is like a typical "Grim's Fairy Tales". In this kind of folk fairy tales, the stepfather/stepmother is usually Appears in the name of the evil father, and the protagonist’s resistance is understood as a call to the true father’s name, a journey to find the father, and the same is true of "Gemini Killer", the reason why it is still a " The Lee An-style film is because he did not objectify the twins, but asked him to blame his father, but the content of the question is "Are you really my father?" But it hides a real logic: "The father in front of you is not your real father, but I am, so I killed him and castrated you. All this is for your good."
"Gemini Killer" ended in a seemingly daily "normal state". "Gemini" studied and socialized on campus like ordinary students, and greeted "father" Henry and "mother" Zakarweski, and produced a small There was a small conflict. "Mother" wanted him to study humanities and social sciences during his undergraduate studies, but he insisted that he prefers science and engineering. In the end, "parents" decided to respect his own choice. Here, Ang Lee seemed to preview an idealization. In other words, he tried to rewrite his early experience, but he did not completely want to heal himself. On the one hand, he duel in the name of his father; A proud identification with his fatherhood was formed. The happy ending concealed the huge paradox hidden in the "Gemini Killer". The self-sufficient operation of the dips cycle.
references
Jacques Lacan: "Father's Name", translated by Huang Zuo, The Commercial Press, 2018-4
Slavore Zizek: "Looking Obliquely", translated by Ji Guangmao, Zhejiang University Press, 2011-3
Slavore Zizek: "Enjoy Your Dark Side", translated by Wei Guangji, Nanjing University Press, 2014-11
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