Heaven and earth are not benevolent
A Jewish child during World War II, Joska, after escaping the clutches of the Nazis, what will he encounter on the plains of Eastern Europe? The ignorant and hostile Slavic peasants and village women, the sluts, the sodomites, the brutal Cossacks and the ruthless German soldiers... almost all of them can be or could be a threat to his existence.
Others are hell, Sartre said.
Two thousand years ago, Judas betrayed Jesus, the Messiah, to the Romans. Since then, the Jews have been labeled, expelled from their homes, scattered everywhere, discriminated against, and barely survived.
In the movie, a bird is smeared by a birdman and then released. It sees the same kind and flies to the flock of birds with joy. However, the smeared bird is no longer accepted by its kind. They frantically attacked it, pecked it, and killed Fang Xiu.
Are the Jews the smeared bird?
The farmers who drove Joska into the river were ordinary people, the village women who attacked the bird catcher and his lover were ordinary people, the villagers who threw Joska into the cesspool of the church were ordinary people, and the fisher girls who intercourse with rams were ordinary people. People, sodomites as brewers are ordinary people too. When they were burned, looted, slaughtered and raped by the Cossack cavalry, they were victims; and when they encountered Joska, who was weaker than them, they were ruthlessly attacked and abused, and they became the perpetrators.
They robbed the dead Jews of their finances and even stripped the dead; they dragged the broken-legged horse found by Joska on the ground until it died. Simply evil.
Religion and even superstition can only provide temporary shelter. The witch of the village, who cures Joska from a fever in a mysterious way, provides him with a brief shelter, but is soon driven into the river by malicious farmers. A well-meaning priest places Joska in a church, only to be adopted by a sodomite. Once the aged priest dies, the coveted villagers throw him into the cesspool as a demon.
Joska's final redemption is accomplished by a Red Army soldier. He used the bullet to tell Joska: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Later, when he was bullied again, he used the experience he had learned from the Red Army snipers and the pistol he had given him to kill the man who bullied him.
Facing the cruel environment, Joska had to become cruel. How many people did he kill when he was young? three. Sodomite, innocent passerby old man, bully in the market. It is the evil of war and the human heart that turned a child who knew how to rescue hamsters and sick horses into a murderer. Human evil!
Most of the time, this movie is a masterpiece. The screenwriting, set, makeup, etc. of the film are all carefree, and the photography technology is first-class, and the frame by frame has the beauty of Nordic simplicity. The texture of black and white film brings the seriousness of the documentary.
Through the experience of a Jewish child like Joska, the director shows the God's perspective of "the inhumanity of heaven and earth". It can be said that it is well-intentioned to let a child who is not deep in the world experience the Avici hell of the people of the world. Under the war, the kindness in human nature was sealed up, and the animal instincts hidden in the idea of human survival were revealed. Killing, sodomy, indulgence, survival of the strong... Civilization fades away, leaving only the primitive ignorance.
Mr. Gu Sui said in "The Poetry of Camel Temple" that "painting is divine; carving is capable. "Water Margin" is close to the former, and "Red Mansion" is close to the latter." That is to say, when Shi Nai'an wrote "Water Margin", he used simple brushstrokes and was almost natural, while "Red Mansion" used complicated brushstrokes to be too carved. The heroes of Liangshan described by Shi Gong have no heart at all. When Li Kui's mother was eaten by a tiger, "the crowd laughed"; when Wu Song killed Pan Jinlian, he ripped open his clothes and cut open his five internal organs; when Yang Xiong killed Pan Qiaoyun, he cut his tongue and removed his five internal organs. It is concise and neat, without any personal stance, just telling stories one by one, just for the purpose of "punishing the dead mind of the predecessors" and "preventing the minds of future generations before it happens".
For another example, KJ Kutcher wrote "The Life and Times of Michael K.", in which K, a low-level black man under the apartheid system, also used this perspective of God. He watched K tragically die and rot in an unjust society.
For another example, Isaac Babel wrote "The Cavalry Army", and the background of its story is very close to that of Joska. In Poland, Ukraine, and Ossad in southern Russia, the Cossacks tyrannically killed every Jew.
"In front of my window, several Cossacks were executing an old white-haired Jewish man for espionage. The old man suddenly screamed and broke free. It was too late, it was soon, a curly from the machine gun team. The hairy young man grabbed the old man's head and put it in his armpit. The old Jewish man stopped squeaking, and his legs were split. Curly took out a dagger with his right hand, and killed the old man lightly, not letting blood splatter. come out". Then Babel turned to write other things without saying a word.
Perhaps the highest level of creation is like this: only tell the truth as much as possible, without commenting. Just like the blank space in ink landscape, the more space you leave, the more room for people's imagination. Once you add too much personal stance, your work becomes more personal to you.
If there is a pity to say about this film, it is that the director failed to carry out the perspective of God to the end.
The odds of a Jewish child surviving on the plains of Eastern Europe full of enemies are close to zero. In the end, however, the director reunited Joska with his father and reconciled. This is the craftsmanship of carving, pleasing the audience, but failing to be natural, it will not be a great work.
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