Many years ago, I read the story of American wasteland development, and there is one sentence that has left a deep impression on me.
The original words can’t be memorized. The general meaning is:
Most of the history in this world has two parallel main lines: an open line is written by the historians, emperors and generals, each leading the way, you sing and I will appear; a dark line is Under the shadow of history, it is made up of the unknown majority: small people who rise to fight, merchants and pawns, and carts to sell pulp. These little people just eat and drink lasa daily, but they are like butterflies fluttering their wings and finally gather into a gust of wind. It really affects the direction of the historical trend.
At the beginning of the 17th century, a group of Puritans set off from England and boarded a cargo ship called the "Mayflower" and landed in Plymouth in the New World. After more than two months of ocean voyages, their hometown has been left far behind the horizon, and there is an endless virgin land under their feet. These people are regarded as radical religious heretics at home, with the contradictory qualities of a godly piety and an adventurous risk-taking, both of which have become the foundation of their lives.
Then the wheel of history rolled forward, and an emerging country named "America" was entrenched in series on the east coast of the continent; then, adventurers began to survey the vast area in the central and western parts of the continent. Into the Movement” spread out with a lot of ink and color. The white man and the aborigines were short-handed, and used revolvers and high leather boots to deal with the bows and horses of the Indian tribes. After countless bloody battles, the Indians were finally forced to compromise and sign a reservation agreement. After that, the vast hinterland of North America, with tens of thousands of kilometers in length and width, has become a horse ranch for American cowboys.
The above is part of the bright line of history that we know well: civilization overcomes barbarism, and advanced transformation is backward.
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is also based on the "Westward Movement" as the background, and the focus of the movie "The Revenant" should be the dark line of history.
—A story about a white man who assimilates, trades, survives and revenge at the tip of an Indian’s spear.
The whole film shows a trend of minimalism: a single-line narrative that goes straight to the end, a revenge plot without surprises, plus the protagonist's throat is injured and unable to speak, most of the shots are filled with white snow, etc. - Photography The scheduling of the film is quite dazzling, but it is understandable. The photographer, Mr. Emmanuel Lubezki, went to Sanlianzhuang for the best photography Oscar this year.
The advantage of minimalism is that it is convenient for us to extract some symbols and guess its corresponding metaphorical meaning. However, I personally think that the connotation of this minimalist film does not lie in his projections and metaphors, but in the story itself.
In the movie, Goras, played by Xiao Lizi, married a beautiful local Pawnee girl and had a son. Although he was white, he had already been integrated into the life of the Indian tribe.
But the sudden invasion of his fellow white people burned his home and took the life of his beloved wife. It was around that time that Golas killed the lieutenant who had pointed the gun at his child. For the first time, he strayed from his obstinate meekness, but only for a short time.
In the days that followed, he lived with his only relative, his yellow-skinned son, and mingled with the white hunter team.
But fate made him watch his son be killed, and he was seriously injured and abandoned in the wilderness. Since then, the seeds of hatred have been sown in his heart. He used bear claws and sharp stones to inscribe "Fitzroy kills my son" on the stone wall every night, crying blood every word.
He rips live fish, chews beef liver raw, swims across glaciers, sleeps on horses at night, survives nine deaths, and survives inhuman ordeals, all because of the endless hatred in his heart.
In the movie, Goras heard his wife say in a dream: "When the storm comes, you stand in front of a big tree, you see the branches fall, but the trunk is still strong. ' That's because the roots are deeply rooted under the tree trunk, and now hatred has become the root of Goras standing in the blizzard of the wasteland.
In the end, Golas survived with superhuman will, caught Fitzroy and confronted him with gnashing teeth.
That bloodthirsty share of life and death is no different from the primitive ancestors who fought for the right to mate on the same land as they crossed the ice bridge in the Bering Strait tens of thousands of years ago.
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Yes, behind the seemingly simple story of survival and revenge in the movie is the reverse evolution of a docile white man who has transformed into a barbarian who grinds his teeth and sucks blood. Since Glasgow drank blood, he returned to ignorance in his way of life, and since he took murder and revenge as the only driving force to survive, the gentleness and norms that belonged to a civilized person in his heart have also disappeared.
You say, who caused all this?
Is it really the Fitzroy who killed his son and abandoned the wild?
In fact, from Fitzroy's point of view, or from his moral point of view, what did he do wrong.
Killing the Indian boy was out of self-preservation in the style of "not my race, whose heart must be different", not to mention that the view that Indians were savages was very common among the white people at that time (it was the fact that Golas married a wife and had children like a succulent. Really shocking.) As for the promise to escort Goras and his malicious intentions in the middle, it is very simple. The promise is to make money, and the murder is to cut off the burden. This group of wasteland hunters wandering among the Indian tribes was originally "the poisonous snake's mouth to win the gold pearl". Desperados, profit-seeking and self-preservation are all instincts.
——Instead of criticizing Fitzroy’s morality from the perspective of God, it is better to understand the reasons for Fitzroy’s creation. Besides, how can we guarantee that after going through the trials and tribulations of the law of the jungle, Gorath will not To be the next Fitzroy?
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Naturally, we also meet some less frustrating characters in the movie.
For example, the Indian who helped and healed Goras when he was hungry and cold represented the possibility of the white seal to eliminate conflicts and shake hands for peace. Then, he was hanged inexplicably in the chaotic morning.
Another example is the captain of the hunters. He is like Chao Gai, the king of Tota in "Water Margin". He takes the lead in righteousness and hates evil like hatred. to get revenge. In the end, he caught up with Fitzroy and told him in a grand manner: "I'm going to take you back and put you in prison", so he was greeted by the black lever shotgun muzzle, and the whistling through his head. bullet. His death represents the old guns who stick to European civilization. The gentleman, elegance and classical spirit they insist on are useless in this rough and desolate new continent.
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, this is the bloody code hidden in the dark lines of history deciphered by The Revenant.
All hope has been stifled. Since the ancient Greek sages began to weave thousands of years ago, the suit of "civilization" decorated with compassion, gentleness, education and restraint has been woven by the pioneers of the west. They slammed open and abandoned them on the ground. They exposed their wild and strong bodies, bared their terrifying fangs, and wielded long axes and daggers. For the most primitive desires, they went forward one after another.
Civilization's victory over barbarism has always been a lie. In the dark line of history, only barbarism and barbarism trample on each other.
Even the most civilized person who knows poetry and books can only be assimilated or eliminated under such a jungle law of natural selection.
Everything is inevitably going downhill.
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So far, this is a desperate story of human beings falling and returning to ignorance.
But fortunately, the movie still leaked a hole under the shrouded darkness.
religion.
In the era of the Westward Movement, Americans measured the land with their footsteps, and were torn between Indians and poisonous beasts.
People wake up in the middle of the night every night to check the shotguns loaded in their arms - maybe they are singing and drinking tonight, and they will be cut off by the head of the owl tomorrow morning and made a mummified corpse.
In a turbulent environment, under the mighty force of nature, personal strength is really insignificant. Therefore, people take refuge in the glory of God, and believe that everyone's fate has already been written, and those who are pious and godly will be blessed and go to heaven.
In those days, even the most daring desperadoes had a revolver in one hand and a cross in the other.
So, the heinous Fitzroy would say, "Don't wonder where we're going, God will show us the way. 』
In a blood-soaked Shura slaughterhouse, the holy cross blooms proudly.
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Goras also had his own religion.
In the whole movie, apart from the main line of revenge to the end, there is the only branch line that is elusive in flashbacks or dreams, which is the revelation given to him by his "wife".
In the branch line, we can gradually see clearly that the dead wife of Goras has become the Virgin of his spiritual world.
Comets hang in the sky, and the skulls of cows form hills.
Birds flew out of the chest of the wife who should have died, and she was able to control the wind like a god.
She comforted her gently: "As long as there is still a breath, we must fight on. ” (“As long as you can still grab a breath, you fighti.”)
All of this gave Goras the courage to forge ahead in the ice and snow.
His wife is his religion, and survival is his cultivation.
At the end of the movie, Golas was only a fatal blow to get his revenge, but at this time he recalled the Indian proverb like an oracle:
"Vengeance is in the hands of God." ' ("Revenge is in the God's hands.")
So he gave up killing.
This also implies that the humanity in his body has not been devoured by the irrepressible beast after all.
He went all the way and finally didn't completely turn into a beast.
Golas, who put down the butcher's knife, was relieved. He raised his head and saw his wife smiling brightly in the snow-covered woods.
So, this is the ray of sunshine that leaks out from the dark clouds: religion, and inner strength, may become our guide to rebuilding civilization after the war has subsided and the dust has settled.
——We are reminded of the "Mayflower" that crossed the ocean two hundred years ago. It brought two rather contradictory things to the New World: one was adventurous and provocative, and the other was religious piety.
How like it has been destined somewhere.
I first posted on my personal WeChat public account: Feidaochi, welcome to pay attention!
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