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This is a grossly falsely advertised movie.
False advertising is a compliment here. Don't say you don't believe me, I don't even believe my straight uncle, just because of a story of "You protect the world, I protect you" in the context of bullying, I actually watched it 3 times in 4 days.
School bullying and love are just bright lines. The dark line starts from the first second of the movie and belongs to the growing pain, loneliness and fear in everyone's memory.
1. The campus metaphor
At the beginning of the movie, even after Hu Xiaodie jumped, the camera shot downwards, and a square playground surrounded by white teaching buildings appeared. The sun was dazzling, Chen Nian narrowed his eyes and looked around, only the classmates in uniform blue and white school uniforms: they were either condescending or avoiding her.
This is the director's first metaphor: where is the campus, it is clearly a cage.
The director is shaping a closed campus from the first second, and this campus is a class society, the law of the jungle, and the law of the jungle.
Why are there such cruel rules? This is a sensitive topic, and the director and the main creator can only express it with restraint: because it is also a class society outside the campus, and it is the default concept of everyone . The parents of students like Wei Lai are at the top of the society, while Chen Nianxiaobei's mother is in the gutter. What they look up at is not the starry sky, but the hope of going out, hoping that their efforts to cross the ladder will not be in vain. how to cross? college entrance examination. Under its big stick, everything gets twisted.
Everything is based on grades, and everything is based on college entrance examinations. Good and evil can only be hidden under its big stick.
For example, in the second half of the movie, after Chen Nian's class score list was announced, the class teacher assigned seats on the same day. When the results were announced, Wei Lai was named and praised by the teacher. This scene implies an adult world represented by the head teacher, exporting the values of the juvenile world:
There is no difference between good and evil, the reality is that only the fittest survives, and the weak will be eaten by the strong immediately.
Don't blame Chen Nian's classmates for being indifferent. Under the big stick, everyone is a vulnerable group. Including the head teacher who had to take the blame, he only spoke to Chen Nian before clearing the table and leaving, because what he could do was extremely limited.
It's only when I write this that I think that what really scares us in our boyhood is the jungle rules themselves.
The director of the teaching office gave severe lectures again and again, the closely guarded mock test every month, the clock in the test room was ticking, and after the scores were announced, seats were changed frequently, and even shifts were changed. Winking and reprimanding, blah, blah. These are the shadow memories that touch our boyhood. The pain it gives us is far more frightening than being bullied.
For example, Wei Lai, when she bullies her classmates outside, is she not the target of her father's bullying at home? Students who are bullied can seek help, but when they are bullied by teachers, parents and other adults, who should teenagers turn to?
2. Metaphors of growth
If there is a cage, someone will want to escape. Especially teenagers, this age is when we are most energetic, and we can only stay on campus day and night for classes, questions, and exams. Who doesn’t want to escape from it?
The only way to escape is to survive the college entrance examination.
For Chen Nian, the biggest motivation for her to choose to endure is that she can go to Beijing in a month and leave this ghost place. And some people choose violence in order to consume this energy, such as Wei Lai.
Stop, something seems wrong. Beijing, in Chen Nian's dictionary, is Beijing really the geographical location? Yes and no, because she added another sentence at the end:
When you arrive in Beijing, you will be an adult.
Then, Chen Nian's escape was like a person standing at a crossroad and looking left and right. The opposite was the world of adults, and she just wanted to run over as fast as possible. The world in which Xiaobei lives is also a jungle game, and his creed "In this world either I bully others, or others bully me" is just a parody of the adult world. He also wanted to escape, but he looked up to monitor, and if he lowered his head, he would be questioned by the police, how to escape?
Writing this, I feel that the theme of this film is still self-evident.
Growing up is a prison break.
The setting of jailbreak is the director's second metaphor.
3. Adults who do nothing
Well, what if you can't make it through?
After watching it for the third time a few days ago, I couldn't help but called my 90-year-old grandma. Because I remembered that when I was young, I was beaten by my parents, and I would also run away from home. I would go to my grandmother's house to ask for comfort, and I stopped crying immediately.
We feel that we can't stand it anymore, and there is always someone who can give us some strength to keep it going. But what about Chen Nian and Xiaobei?
- Classmates? Chen Nian said that there is no need to make friends here. Because she can't make friends.
- Family support? The setting of Chen Nian's mother in the movie is very interesting. In the scene where Chen Nian is doing her hair, she is immature than her daughter, and it seems that her psychological growth has stagnated. Xiaobei's mother abandoned him at the age of 13.
- Head teacher? As mentioned above, what he can do is very limited and useless.
- Police? Until the end of the movie, except for Wei Lai, who had an accident, none of the perpetrators were really punished by law, but Xiaobei Chen Nian's life changed irreversibly.
You protect the world, I protect you, and everything is left to the youth, what about adults? Do you especially like to sleep?
This is probably the most ironic place. The adults told the children countless truths and values. When the children, such as Chen Nian, did what they thought was right, the adults waved their hands and left , and then said chicken soup: You have to insist on doing it yourself. Yes, the sun always comes after the storm.
When Chen Nian faced all kinds of help when he was bullied, Xiaobei waved his fists again and again. When zoomed in, it was like a juvenile colliding with a prisoner. The more pain, the stronger the desire to escape, the more desperate.
So here it can be said that Chen Nian's request for help when facing bullying is just one of her expressions when facing loneliness.
However, loneliness is not just for teenagers, we will only experience it more deeply when we are adults. The difference between us and Chen Nianxiaobei is only in that. We had grandma or something to help us through when we were kids, that's all.
When we are adults, when we look back at the teenagers through movies, we will have tears in our eyes. The old police officer is right, that is because we learn to empathize when we grow up.
5. We can choose to be influenced by the past, but we can also choose not to be influenced by it.
We won't be forever young, and we won't be forever in tears. We grew up with empathy, and the director finally gave us a warm and healing ending.
I have chatted with many friends about this movie these days, no matter how many shadows there are in boys and girls, and the proportion of girls who experience violence may be higher.
Chen Nian came out of the shadows, and finally bet on the title of "To Twenty Years of Self". And what appeared in front of me at that moment was the lonely child 20 years ago, 10 years ago.
And I just want to rush over and hug that kid.
May you come out of the shadows
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