This film should be an unpopular classic, few people see it, and even fewer people understand it. There are only a few film reviews on the interpretation of this film, some of which are understood as the American patriotic theme, and some are understood as too strong personal heroism, and they feel that they are all biased. I want to talk about some points that I think in terms of personal perception.
"The Postman" is a 1997 movie, and the director set the background of the story in 2013. 16 years later, due to the outbreak of a devastating war, mankind is facing the collapse of civilization, all modern facilities no longer exist, and they are displaced to survive on this scorched earth. The film is in a short time span of the world, and now it is about to join 2021, the war has not come, and the world has not changed for the better.
In 2013 in the film, the democratic system that the United States was proud of disappeared, and the social order of freedom and equality was broken by terrorist organizations with military weapons. The dictator Bethlehem is an extremely narcissistic tyrant. On the one hand, he painted a self-portrait in front of a mirror, pretending to be noble sentiment, on the other hand, he kept violently arresting strong men from towns and replenishing his army, in order to better expand the scale of control. , Delusion to rule the entire territory. Under the threat of force, the people in the cities and towns turned over their property to save their lives, some took orders from the organization, and some joined in for a share of the pie.
One day, a homeless man came to one of the small towns and performed a Shakespearean play with the donkey that accompanied the villagers. Unfortunately, he was forcibly taken away by the ruling organization that came to recruit troops just to make a living. After being able to escape after thousands of risks, a scrapped postman car was found. Originally carrying the lost letters and pretending that the postman delivered the letter just to cheat the villagers into a bite of food, he did not expect that his unintentional lies brought great comfort and desire to the villagers.
The villagers easily believed that he was the "postman" from the reorganized government of the United States, and firmly believed that there was hope for the reconstruction of human civilization. So one after another wrote a letter for the "postman" to take it to relatives and friends who had lost contact. Getting in touch with the outside world, no longer being forgotten and isolated, gave the villagers more courage and meaning to live under the predicament of survival at that time. Only then did the "postman" realize the weight of the letter he delivered, and he was even more unable to tell the villagers the truth. At the same time, young children will have the ideal of being a postman in their hearts. They will gather together, put on postman uniforms, and set up postman declarations, and write letters to cities and towns in different places.
The dictator Bethlehem discovered that villagers who had not dared to raise their heads in the past are now looking directly at him, feeling that their ruling prestige has been shaken, and in order to arrest the "postmen" who reorganized the government departments, they have increased the killing and plundering of the villagers. At this time, the "postman" did not want to become a hero who stood up and sacrificed, but wanted to escape to the ideal "utopian" town. In the end, the ability to confront the powerful violent dictatorship was entirely because the young children insisted on choosing to resist and the strength of the villagers was assembled. Even though they knew the lies of the "postman", their determination to overthrow the oppression of terrorist organizations and regain their freedom and human rights gradually pushed the "postman" to become their spiritual leader. At the end, the "postman" uses the legal provisions used by the dictator to deceive the people to defend his power to challenge the power, and finally restart the establishment of a democratic legal system.
Americans' universal values and the spirit of defending personal power are deeply interpreted in this film. Human nature is unreliable. The temptation and monopoly of power will only completely lose the supervision mechanism that society should have, and the people will be kept alive. Therefore, a system with a sound legal system, restriction mechanisms, and personal protection can enable the entire society to develop upward.
The most important show in the film is not the heroic image of the "postman", he is just a little figure who wants to shrink back. What makes him is the unyielding woman around him, an individual strength that cannot be ignored, every ordinary person in the town. Everyone wants to send "a letter" and is willing to call the civilized world. Just as it is not meaningless for us to speak for ourselves or for injustice. As a healthy person, pursuing freedom and equality and safeguarding one's own rights and interests should be inherent in the body.
Don’t tell me that it’s a virtue to give up a small family for everyone. If you don’t even have the courage to change your own dilemma, you cannot create a good future society for your children, you cannot get the most basic respect in social relations, and you cannot get personal property. To the most basic guarantee, what is the meaning of your so-called "everyone"?
If a person becomes the defender of the illegal privileged class without knowing it, he is the saddest existence. The purpose of your life is to let the upper echelon better exploit you.
In the film, the villagers in each town are isolated from the outside world. In reality, we are not forced to be isolated from the Internet of the world. The inequality of information has caused us to lose too much truth and thinking, sinking into a marketing network full of falsehoods. Saying that such an environment is healthy and good, is the society you yearn for?
The "postman" in the film is called Shakespeare by the dictator, which also has a certain meaning. A passage from Hugo’s "Les Miserables": "As long as the social punishment caused by laws and customs still exists, artificial hell will be created in the heyday of civilization, and bad luck will be artificially added to the destiny of God; as long as this century’s The three major problems—men fall due to poverty, women fall due to hunger, and children fall due to ignorance—will not be resolved; as long as in some areas, the phenomenon of social suffocation still exists, in other words, from a broader perspective From a perspective, as long as ignorance and poverty still exist on the earth, works like this book will not be useless."
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