Slate Magazine: Conscience in ordinary people

Ollie 2021-12-28 08:01:32

Fruitville Station is a station of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART), located in Oakland. On the early morning of New Year’s Day in 2009, right here, a 22-year-old black male Oscar Grant was shot in the back by a white police officer of the MRT system. The reason for the shooting has not yet been investigated (at the time of the trial) , The policeman claimed that he mistakenly used his pistol as an electric shock gun, and this gave him a reduced sentence). When he was shot, Oscar had just celebrated the New Year with friends in San Francisco and was on his way home.
The film begins with a video clip shot by a few onlookers using physical phones. It is the debut work of young director Ryan Coogler. It's quite low-key, but it's guaranteed to be made, and the content is moving. Director Kugler is only 27 years old, a graduate of the USC film school, and a native of Oakland. When watching the fighting scene, it was difficult for us to recognize what was going on in the chaotic and noisy scene, but the gunfire after the chaos made the result clearly uncomfortable. Because following the review of the film, we followed Oscar Grant to experience the last day of his life, and had a connection with his more distant memories. The audience knew what was going to happen next, so the gunshot was inevitable. Adds an unbearable sadness to the rest of the film.

The film starring Michael B. Jordan is well-known to movie fans for "The Wire" (The Wire) and "Friday Night Lights" (Friday Night Lights). His delicate and exquisite performance has portrayed Oscar into an "atypical" character on the movie screen: he is not a common warm image in movies. He was a mean prisoner in prison. He was late for many years and was lost in the grocery store. When his girlfriend Sophina (Sophina played by Melonie Diaz) accused him of having an affair with other women, he was too lazy to deny it; but at the same time, he and his girlfriend were raised together For his four-year-old daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal, played by Ariana Neal), he is a loving father, and to his single mother Wanda (Wanda, played by Octa Vija Spencer (played by Octavia Spencer), he is another filial son; he works hard to get his life on the right track every day, and he also gave up small drug transactions to avoid being jailed again.

Most of the last day of Oscar’s life was spent buying a birthday dinner for his mother to celebrate with the family: he went to the market where he used to work to buy seafood, and also selected birthday cards in the name of his sister (Although his sister had asked him not to buy junk cards with white people on them, he still bought them). In the process, he ran into a stray dog, which happened to herald the fate of Oscar; he also flirted with a white woman, it was this woman who unintentionally led the tragedy at the last moments of Oscar. With the guidance of the lens of photographer Rachel Morrison, we spent a seemingly unremarkable day with Oscar, and the sad tone of this can only be felt by the audience. The information entered by the protagonist on his mobile phone is displayed on the big screen, which is one of the few tragedy factors in this low-key, realistic-style film that allows us to face up to the experience.

As the last quarter of the sad part of the movie unfolds, every line seems to ironically emphasize the contingency of the protagonist’s tragic fate: his mother previously advised him and his friends not to drive, but to take the MRT to the destination. "Because it's safer"; he sent his daughter to his relatives for the night, and comforted her that the gunshots outside were nothing more than fireworks; when we finally found the camera turned back to Fruitville Station, the mobile phone at the beginning of the film The shooting picture appeared on the big screen again in a fictitious form: it did not explain too much where things had progressed, but directly showed us that the chaos caused by racial prejudice can quickly rise to extreme violence. The scene is switched again: Oscar's girlfriend, friends and family appear in the hospital and survive the long night while waiting. It is not expected that the protagonist will die from excessive blood loss in the early morning (although the audience already understands it). The audience couldn't bear to witness this scene: Oscar's mother begged his son's angry friends to let go of their anger and unite to cheer for Oscar. Like the male number one Jordan, the performance of the film's female lead Octavia Spencer is perfect. The role she portrays can easily be interpreted as an idealized image of a saint, but she has injected harsh, even arrogant highlights into this role. Especially in the scene where she went to visit her son in prison, her mother's stern love for her son was vividly portrayed by her.

The name of the film has not been modified by the jury, and it has been able to keep its original name. It won the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award in the theater group at the Sundance Film Festival. Award) Two awards. At the same time, the international release of the film coincided with George Zimmerman's trial of "Trayvon Martin Murder". The viewer may think that this cruel coincidence provides an excellent opportunity to discuss racial discrimination in the United States, but the original intention of director Kugler is not to denounce the abuse of power by the police or the limited life opportunities faced by young black men. The power contained in "Fruitville Station" is reflected in its unique narrative style and the conscience of ordinary people in the film. After watching the movie, you will not sigh about an abstract social issue, but feel deeply sad for the meaningless death of the protagonist of this imperfect and complex tragedy.

Original addresshttp://language.chinadaily.com.cn/article-102658-1.html

View more about Fruitvale Station reviews

Extended Reading
  • Ernestina 2021-12-28 08:01:32

    Written and directed by Ryan Coogler, he presented the Fruitvale subway station incident in San Francisco with a surprisingly calm and objective perspective, and worked hard to restore the last 24 hours of the life of the black youth Oscar Grant. The director took the size just right, neither deliberately sensationalizing to beautify Oscar’s image, nor to vilify the police’s accusation that justice was delayed, everything was left to the viewers to judge, silence was better than sound, we felt so unanimously at the moment the gun fired. Shock and sadness

  • Deon 2022-04-23 07:03:10

    Without the fans' self-obsessed social criticism and racism, the truth of the film is that life should be so trivial. In the perfect 80 minutes, Oscar's identity as an ordinary citizen is carefully outlined, a reformed man. His son and grandson, a husband and father who cares for his family, a good employee who treats people with kindness, it is after constructing such a kind image that the arrival of the last ten minutes is very shocking

Fruitvale Station quotes

  • [last lines]

    Tatiana: Where's daddy?

  • Lead Surgeon: He didn't make it.

    Wanda: I need to see him.

    Lead Surgeon: Okay, you can see him. But they don't want you to go into the room or to touch him, because they ruled it a homicide.

    Wanda: I need to see him.