JJAbrams has become popular with the production of "Lost", and has entered the big screen in recent years. Among them, the new film "Clover's Archives" in 2008 is undoubtedly an excellent work that inherits the spirit of "Lost".
The so-called "Lost" spirit is not the structure of suspense puzzles, but the diversity of narrative methods. The traditional film narrative is nothing more than the telling of the transfer of the film. At most, there are so-called novels and comics of the same name, which form the peripheral products of the film, which seem to enrich the content of the film. However, the stories narrated by this kind of novel and the film itself are often independent of each other, so they cannot form a complete narrative system with the film. But the narrative of "Lost" is innovative. In addition to launching games and deepening the storyline, it has also established simulation official webpages of several fictitious organizations in the series (such as Dharma organization, Hanso Foundation), introducing the history, current situation, and personnel of these companies, and attaching hidden videos , To help movie fans understand the nature of the business, and then gain insight into the general ins and outs of the "Lost" story. This kind of narrative method, in addition to forming a realistic interaction between fictional films and real fans, is more important to broaden the breadth and depth of the narrative. Putting important but inconvenient clues in the film in these games and web pages can extend the meaning of the film, and the original images can be used to explain the plot more compactly. Therefore, the narrative methods of "Lost" are diverse. It uses the Internet as a medium to ingeniously tell the audience more information other than the film, so as to make the plot of the drama more full.
"Clover's Archives" is a science fiction film produced by JJ, which also upholds the diverse narrative spirit of "Lost". The story told by the film is actually so simple at a glance-the story of a small character who survives hunted by monsters. But the most attractive thing about the film is not only the shooting mode of the camcorder, but also the clever layout of the clues. From the point of view of the film purely, the source of the monster is not explained in the film. But then several mysterious film-related websites suddenly appeared (including the official website of a fictitious organization similar to "Lost"). At the same time, YouTube also suddenly appeared a large number of indistinct videos of oil fields destroyed by mysterious creatures, and some News from many countries are reported. These webpages and news are naturally JJ's alternative tricks for revealing the line. At this time, a new round of narrative outside the real film is only now beginning. It turned out that the Japanese beverage company where the male protagonist worked had a drug leakage incident, which caused biological mutations and eventually led to this ecological disaster in New York!
If so, the piece of "Clover's Archives" is actually a trinity combination of film + webpage + YOUTUBE video. To grasp the details of the events recorded in the entire archive, we not only need to watch the video, but also to further investigate the direction of the event by browsing other short videos and small web pages. In fact, the "Clover Archives" tells us a novel way of film narration-instead of piling up all the material in the film, it takes the most important narrative point as the first visual (that is, the main line of the film's narrative). Other materials are permeated in the form of tidbits on the Internet that is convenient for people to view, forming a "photo album" of three-dimensional narrative inside and outside the film, online and offline. If so, movie fans will not only be hooked by the lively pace of the film, but also smile knowingly for picking up other easter eggs.
JJ has already demonstrated his super ability of interactive narrative in "Lost". For example, in the "Looking for 815" game, we learned a lot about the island where the 815 passenger crashed and the slave ship "Black Rock" from the emails, text messages, and notebooks of the protagonist Sam Toomey. In the "Clover Archives", the scope of interaction has been further expanded. There are blogs of staff from Japanese beverage companies, mysterious websites, and even commercials for the drink! Judging from the twists and turns of this narrative, "Clover's Archives" has absorbed the essence of "Lost" and is a masterpiece. And to say that "Clover's Archives" is the continuation of the spirit of "Lost", and of course it is also a fair and objective evaluation.
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