Movies are the art of visual images. Every frame is the expression that the director wants to tell. The characters are not created by superficial text narration, but gradually become clear in the actions of the conflicting characters. "Borrowing a Knife to Kill" is a blockbuster thriller directed by Michael Mann in 2004. The film is concise, lean, and compact, and the entire script has no "fat" or nonsense.
An ordinary night in Los Angeles, with yellow as its keynote, the city shimmering with metallic shimmers, headlights winding by and merging into a white line, the lighted road forming an illusory ribbon, two A lonely soul meets Vincent, a professional killer, and Max, a passive and cowardly taxi driver. In this short and long journey, the two very different people influence each other, and the emotional impact causes a deep sense of self-confidence. think.
1. Gradually die with the dream of "one day"
Max works as a part-time "night taxi driver", which is a plan for his dream - to open a small island limousine company. After all, before realizing his dream, he needs to pay rent, social security, and medical expenses. Max is afraid of confrontation with taxi company bosses and dispatchers. Faced with their provocation and bullying, he bows his head and escapes again and again. He sticks to his work principles and keeps the taxi clean and tidy. It is simply the cleanest car in Los Angeles. taxi. Carrying all kinds of passengers to different destinations, noise and quarrels often occur in the car. Whenever this time, Max puts down the light shield and takes a short vacation while looking at the postcards of Maldives. He likes to drive at night, less crowded and noisy during the day, wider roads and more tips, a part-time job he has been doing for 12 years.
As each other's life attacked each other, Vincent pressed the question step by step to tear off his fig leaf and destroy his dream. Max is just a microcosm of us ordinary people, just like the phrase "one day" we often talk about, one day we will realize our dream and open a small island limousine company; one day, he will meet him The lover of your dreams; one day, everything will come true and live as a person to the fullest.
When I was a child, I asked what my dreams were, and we always shouted out loudly. Even if we didn’t even know what scientists did at the time, when we were young, we had a honeyed confidence, and we could sway in open-crotch pants. After struggling for half an hour, what I really wanted to do was buried in my heart, and I dared not say it.
In the reinforced concrete city, hot emotions and emotions are rarely responded to, or even drowned out by coldness. In meeting the expectations of others and material life, we learn to bind ourselves in the cage, and lock our desires deeper to escape its call. , the dream of one day as a solace that we have embraced mediocrity, after all, everything I do now is "part-time", and one day I will realize it.
In the film, the director borrowed Vincent's words. In reality, there is only now, today, now, and now. Waiting for the "one day" in the dream may seem like a pursuit of perfection, but in fact it is just an excuse. "One day" is a concept that "only exists in the brain, not in reality". Holding the dream of "one day", we gradually exhausted our life, leaving only a completely old soul watching TV on the sofa.
2. Loneliness is like a shadow in the sun
Vincent 'rescues' Max by killing cop who stayed with Max after shootout at nightclub in South Korea, all heading west on his way to downtown: ambulance, view from outside , police, helicopters, and other vehicles, only this taxi goes east, and only two people in the car form a strange dependence.
Vincent is a killer with a six-year career. Growing up alone has made him emotionally flawed. He cannot have the empathy of normal people, and he has lost his "humanity"; Max, poor children take up the family prematurely. In adolescence, when it is most necessary to express freely, he learns to hide his thoughts and emotions. Two people with different backgrounds and experiences and completely different personalities have an unexpected commonality in their hearts - loneliness.
Most of us experience collective life from elementary school to junior high school, and there are always "exclusive small groups" in the class. In order to stay in the group, everyone must do "the same thing as the people around them", and such conformity can safely accompany us into adulthood. As adults, we always allow ourselves to re-enter the group, expand our relationships, and get busy with social events day after day... We are constantly connected to others through Weibo, gatherings to fill our schedules, entertaining gossip, hot news, impulsive Consumption can numb your inner state. Over time, we forget how to communicate deeply with ourselves, and we become less and less aware of ourselves.
Even if we forget to know who we really are, our longing always exists deep in our hearts. Inexplicable depression weeps for no reason. Every late night when we can't sleep, loneliness swept through the struggle with self-conflict. Gradually, some people are alienated from the materialistic life and take the initiative to enjoy the taste of loneliness, while some people coexist with loneliness and achieve self-reconciliation. Such loneliness follows like a shadow, like a shadow in the sun, everyone is a carrier of loneliness.
3. Nirvana Rebirth and Destruction
As a professional killer who has never missed a shot, Vincent has a delicate appearance in a suit and leather shoes. In order to complete the contract task, he desperately kills 5 people. He always has his own Plan B, and completes the task beautifully, as if a real professional manager. He believes that the whole world and everyone living in it is "something in the dark", a random probability event. Our lives are meaningless because we are just a tiny speck of dust in the vast universe. If our existence is meaningless, our lives are meaningless. Killing someone has no consequences. . As Tolstoy said, without God, without a moral system of right and wrong, "everything is permissible".
Max was a coward at the beginning. He was bullied and did not dare to resist. He paralyzed his heart with dreams. He never examined himself. The ending - either be killed, or kill the old enemy.
Max went from a passive coward to a man of action, from a visionary to a successful man. When there was only one last day left in his life, he looked into his heart: there is no need for "one day", no need to wait, just today! Just now! So he accelerated the car frantically, swerved to the right and slammed into the guardrail being repaired. The car flew into the air, kept flipping and slammed to the ground, wanting to die together, and everything was silent.
Max was coerced by Vincent to slowly regain his courage, retrieve the attitude and strength that had been discarded for a long time, and had to seize the new life after being destroyed by the old life. And Vincent has been busy "work", like a walking corpse without feelings and no humanity, after all, he also thinks that he is a tiny speck of dust, his existence has no meaning, and it doesn't matter if he kills himself. They seem to have gained something from each other and lost something, experienced a fiery physical and emotional conflict, and finally killed each other with a knife. However, one is Nirvana rebirth, and the other is going to destruction.
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