After reading "Alive", I thought that the national teacher was still a soft-hearted person. Now that I've finished watching "Judou", I don't feel that way anymore. Director Zhang was very decisive this time, and the ending was a complete tragedy, burning all suffering in the fire. As if all the struggles are pointless, the fate has been doomed, this is the re-enactment of the Oedipus-style tragedy.
The root of this tragedy is, of course, the feudal etiquette and ethics that have been criticized for a long time. We condemn the persecution of people and the suppression and distortion of human nature by these things. This is not new, there have been countless works since Mr. Lu Xun reflecting this theme. Director Zhang's innovation lies in his concretization of this ethical outline, such as the pedantic behavior of relatives and friends, the gossip of outsiders and the shame in his own heart. He mocks the absurdity of these decadent rules and pessimistically acknowledges the fatality they bring. Dozens of times to block the coffin back and forth, although absurd and ridiculous, but it has to be done, which is sad. These feudal things have been integrated into the flesh and blood of the social environment, forming a strong inertia. What is the use of just the awakening of Judou and Tianqing? In the end, it will be submerged and coerced. If you are stubborn, it is because the huge body of the society is fighting, and what is integrated into the flesh and blood, how can you give up without experiencing the pain of flesh and blood. Even with this courage, most of them are powerless. So I can only live, hide, live in the shadows, and helplessly watch my soul being eaten away bit by bit.
One of the most influential characters in the film is Tianbai, which comes from fear and compassion for him. Tianbai committed a total of two acts of killing his father, representing his inner world and tragic fate.
The first time he killed his father, it was the father he recognized. He accidentally knocked over Yang Jinshan's bucket while playing, causing him to fall into a big dye vat and struggle to drown. There was an important change in this period of Zhongyang Tianbai. At first, he thought it was just an accident, and because he was still young, he did not realize the seriousness of the problem. He also thought it was funny that his father was struggling in the water. Then Yang Jinshan was gradually drowning, and he still laughed, but his smile was even more eerie. It just made it seem like he was happy to see his father drowned. My personal understanding is that this incident may itself be just an accident, but this accident exposed Tianbai's distorted heart and hidden father-killing thoughts. There are three sources of this idea, one is that he vaguely perceives his father's intention to kill him in the first place and regards him as a tool of revenge, and the other is a kind of feudal ethics instilled in him by his father. This kind of angry backlash, the third is that according to Freud's theory, children will develop an Oedipal complex during the genital period, and thus regard their father as a competitor, hoping to drive away the father's desire to monopolize the mother. These three reasons together led to his first father-killing behavior and reaction.
The second time he killed his father, it was much simpler. It was still in a big dye vat. This time, it was not an accident. It was him who killed his own father. One is that he is unwilling to accept the truth; the other is that he complains that his incest has brought many misfortunes; tragedy.
The power of tragedy lies in destroying beautiful things for you to see. The love between Judou and Tianqing (not just primitive desires) is beautiful, an awakening of human nature, moving people, and it is ruthlessly ravaged. Under the pressure of fate, all good things are gone. I only wish that such a tragedy would not happen now, that he would stay away from our lives and just be a tragic warning on the screen.
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