Since I got involved in the hard-working profession of online media, it seems that it has become a luxury to want to watch movies in my spare time. In my freshman year and second year, I was in a trance, thinking that my grand ambitions when I entered and exited the school have long since been discarded. Running around, I also stayed up late to edit, and worked hard to find actors, and the filming was not painful or itchy. After all, a movie is an extravagant and expensive dream. Rather than directing it in front of the camera, it is better to sit still and enjoy it.
After reading "The Prisoner" for a long time, I feel that some words are not well written. Rather than calling it "The Prisoner", "The Labyrinth of Sin" is more direct and directly named the theme of the film.
"Prisoner" seems to tell the whole process of solving a case and chasing the murderer. With the continuous promotion of the plot, the real murderer is arrested and the girl is rescued. It's just that the director used two clues, a two-line narrative. On the one hand, the carpenter's father pursued the murderer in his own way, on the other hand, the policeman Loki's investigation. In the process of finding the murderer, three key characters appeared, one is Alex with a flawed IQ. Weirdly gloomy and uncharacteristically cowardly, all the blame was on him at first, so Koehler, who loved his daughter, lynched her. The other is Bob, who raised snakes and stole blood clothes. Under the pressure of the police, he drew a maze and then grabbed a gun and killed himself. The third is the priest, who, after persuading the murderer man to no avail, imprisoned him and hurt him, and then spent his days drinking heavily.
My father was an eager, frizzy but cautious and strict carpenter, a self-centered hunter who obeyed the laws of nature, and a devout believer. At the beginning of the film, a good scene of hunting and killing deer was staged, which not only portrayed the character of the father, but also paved the way for the subsequent tragedy. Seeing blood at the beginning is not a happy comedy routine. When he learned of his daughter's accidental disappearance and was inextricably linked with Alex, the father showed his hunter's nature and imprisoned and lynched the suspect Kohler. But after all, my father is not a man of great evil, and he will pray outside the door where Alex is imprisoned. When the truth came out, the reckless father found the murderer, but he became a prisoner under pressure.
From her daughter being imprisoned, others being imprisoned, to herself being imprisoned, "The Prisoner" is such a "sin labyrinth" with repeated performances.
In addition, the director continued the incisive display of human nature in "Scorched Earth City". There is a saying in the bible: "Everyone in the world is a sinner and we carry too much dirty mud"
In this labyrinth of sin, no one is simply a good person, not even God. I vaguely remember Li Changdong's "Miryang", a woman who changed from believing in God to rebelling against God after being hit hard. The Prisoner continues the same path. The murderer in the film, Alex's aunt, is also a mentally battered person. He devoutly believed in God and faithfully asked God to save his son's life, but in the end, he was ruthlessly taken away by the disease. When a person returns to despair with infinite hope, his spirit changes from resentment to hatred. Under this extreme emotion, the aunt becomes a child abuser. Although this character is hateful and hateful, the truth behind the incident also tells us that this is an old and childless woman who enjoys pets and people, and is extremely lonely. In addition to the aunt, the father is also a character full of contradictions. Believing in God, but contrary to the content of the Bible, while playing the role of a hero, brave and strong, and above the law, violence against the weak. There is such a line in the film "Let them become demons like you", and the aunt and father, who also lost their children, are caught in the labyrinth of human nature.
Rainy day, prison cell, fallen leaves... The overall tone of the film is very depressing, and Roger Deakins' photography creates a bleak and lonely atmosphere in late autumn, especially the scene of rushing to the hospital on a rainy day, multi-camera fast shooting, constantly flashing The bright lights, the screeching brakes and bells, and the raindrops hitting the wind pushed the film to a climax. In addition to the sophistication of photography, the details are even more fascinating.
1. The transformation of my father: I have never believed in the good and evil of human nature without a reason. Most people who sin and do evil are pitiful people. Likewise, what the father did from victim to perpetrator is not difficult to understand, but there is one detail that determines this transition. The murderer, whom his father insisted on, was released with integrity. When he returned home, he saw his heartbroken wife, and when he planned to continue the investigation, the radio in the car sounded: "There is always suffering in human life, especially those who fall into sin. All people are born guilty, and therefore must suffer." The words of a man trapped, either disoriented or devastated, were like a morning star, guiding his father's decision to lynch Alex. This is also the nature of the hunter, the original relationship between catching and being arrested, waiting for death and taking the initiative to attack.
2. The whistle: The whistle is a sign, exclusive to the daughter, and also represents hope. There are three whistles in the film. The first time was a song sung by the youngest daughters of the two families on Thanksgiving Day. The lyrics were edited to indicate that they belonged only to her or her close family. This is an introduction. After the daughter disappeared, the father heard a whistle from Alex's mouth and insisted that he was the murderer, so he decided to lynch. The third time is at the end of the credits, where the father is imprisoned and uses the whistle as a prop to call for help.
3. The scene of abusing a dog: I believe that many people, like me, believe that Alex is the murderer when he sees the scene of alex abusing a dog, but we were wrong. After all, alex is a man with an IQ of only ten years old. What he does is not cruel by nature, but an imitation of the environment and characters he is in. Children are born masters of imitation. Here, it can also be seen from the side that the aunt treated the kidnapped children with cruel methods.
4. The priest: The priest is an important character that is easy to be overlooked in the film. His appearance is the first step to solve the doubts. In the priest's basement there was a long-dead, bound or imprisoned man. This man is the husband of the aunt, the one who disappeared in the photo. In desperation, men who also believed in God cast the fire of revenge on their children. The priest said "he is challenging God", which shows that he is not arguing against children but God. After killing more than 100 innocent children, the man did not want to continue a big fight with his wife and then came to the priest to repent. A person from believing in God to challenging God to the final helpless compromise, he himself is also walking in the labyrinth of sin. So is the priest. After learning about this man's cruel methods, he wanted to persuade him to let go and return to justice, but seeing no results, he had to be imprisoned. After that, the priest fell into a life of alcoholism all day long. It seems that even priests do not necessarily believe in God.
5. Labyrinth: In this film, the labyrinth not only refers to the sins of human nature, but also has specific objects. To put it simply, the maze is the pendant worn by the dead man, the map on which they buried the dead child, and the lingering nightmare of the two victims (Alex and the snake man). When the snake man drew the maze, we thought that the plot would lead to the scene of exploring the maze to find the corpse, but at the end we found out that the maze is actually a virtual illusion. Everyone is already in the maze, but some people go out. Yes, some people are still awake.
"Prisoner" is undoubtedly the best suspense work of the year, with Uncle Wolf and Gyllenhaal and the geek Paul Dano all offering wonderful performances. But it still lacks some strength to surpass classics such as "Silence of the Lambs" and "Zodiac".
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