Oedipus complex meets westerns

Darion 2022-01-04 08:02:36

The first time I watched "Brothers Hissters" was when resources were first published on the Internet. It's not that I like this movie, I just feel that I have to start writing the first long review, so it's better to do it now. When watching Sisters, I also had some questions about the use of some of the director’s shots. Although the director has never made a similar film before, it is still necessary to make up for his previous films to understand his style and the topics he focused on before. This also allows me to better complete this film review. In addition, I also re-watched the Western films "Going Through Water and Fire" and "Old Nowhere" with similar themes.

Entering the topic, from the perspective of the script, "Brothers Hissters" is undoubtedly a small plot movie. The characteristics of small plot movies are: open ending (they are at the mother’s house at the end, and no one knows what life will be like afterwards), internal conflict (the younger brother Jacques Phoenix is ​​driven by the Oedipus complex, and The elder brother is out of guilt and the desire to protect his younger brother, which I will explain later), multiple protagonists (no doubt two protagonists, regardless of the length of time and completion of the character arc), passive protagonist (the younger brother takes the initiative, the elder brother passive).

The narrative core of this small plot film is undoubtedly the completion process of the Oedipus complex.

We can first ask why the protagonist is driven? This is very important. Many movies begin by describing what journey the protagonist embarks on without telling the audience what they are driving. Movies above the standard line will tell the audience the motivation of the characters before the climax of the first act, about 30 minutes before, which is the so-called "motivating event".

In the 27min of this movie, John Riley appeared in a dream after eating a spider.

In the dream, a man held an axe and chopped down a car with severed limbs. "Eli, come closer." After that, Eli woke up from the dream. Audiences with a certain degree of movie-watching experience will know at this time that the current life of the Sisters brothers is inseparable from this dream. This is internal conflict.

At 1h26min, John Riley said to Ritz Amed: "When we were kids, Charlie killed her father. I'm the older one. it should be me. Just after that, Charlie was never the same "Finally, the most important part of the Oedipus complex appeared-father killing (another tender western film in recent years, "Going Through Water and Fire" is also about brother killing father). The motivational incident surfaced. The younger brother Jacques Phoenix left his hometown because he killed his father and caused a lot of things in his hometown. Out of guilt and desire for protection, the older brother became a bounty hunter with his younger brother. What is interesting is that in the last line, the elder brother called the younger brother "her". After the conversation, he cut directly into the elder brother to cut his younger brother's hair. After taking a look at their surname, "Sisters", it is not a bad idea to translate it into a crony brother.

The second ring completed by the Oedipus complex-self-breaking arm. Generally speaking, the simplest summary of the Oedipus complex is: when a person is young, he faces the impulse of killing his father and marrying his mother, which is caused by the castration of patriarchy. The director used his self-destructive arm in the film to further deepen the complete eradication of patriarchy. In the film 11min, Jacques Phoenix said to his brother: "You do realize our father was strak-raving mad. That was his gift to us. That was why we were good at what we do." The killer's instinct was inherited from his father. Jacques cut off his arm and the killing of his father was completely completed.

After the complete "father killing", the two brothers were finally able to return to their mother at the end, and the "marrying mother" was completed. The Oedipus complex is not uncommon in the use of ideology in movies. In "Film Criticism", Mr. Dai Jinhua also has a specific analysis of the Oedipus complex in another movie "Vanilla Sky".

Director Jacques Odia is still very popular in this film, and this film also won the best director award at the 2018 Venice Film Festival. Next, I want to specifically talk about some of the director’s private goods:

The director used a lot of voice-over commentary in this film. According to Robert McGee’s "Story": “Voice-over commentary is another method of revealing narrative information. Just like flashback, it is as good as it is used. Use it badly. The test for voice-over commentary is this: ask yourself, “If I delete the voice-over commentary from the script, can the story be told well?” If the answer is yes, then leave it in the picture. In general, the principle of “less is more” usually applies to this. The less skill, the stronger the effect. Therefore, anything that can be deleted should be deleted. However, there are special cases. If the voice-over commentary can be deleted, and the story can be deleted To justify it, it’s very good, then the only reasonable reason why you have to use voice-over commentary is to use it as a contrast or foil." Woody Allen is full of Woody in "Anne Hall" It’s really okay to delete your own voice-over, but Woody’s irony and insights can allow the audience to see different expressions. In "The Sisters Brothers", the appearance of the voice-over always makes me vigilant. I will consider whether the appearance of the voice-over is due to the lack of audiovisual expression of the director, and I have to use narration or this voice-over will lead to the development of the next contradiction. , The turning point plays an indispensable role?

At 34min of the film, Jack Gyllenhaal tied up Riz Amed and attempted to hand him over to the Sisters brothers. Ritz said disappointedly: "It's a bomination." Jack's off-screen sound played (diary): "He watch the sunrise to the window. He stopped talking, didn't say another word." The film cuts to the next morning, Jack Let Ritz go. This voiceover is actually necessary. It can deepen the audience's empathy for Ritz, so when Jack lets Ritz go the next day, the audience will think: If I were Jack, I would also let Ritz go. So with the voice-over, the turning point here will not be abrupt.

In the film at 1h06min, the director used his favorite semi-concealed lens, leaking an eye-shaped space for the scene. But here is a close-up of Jacques Phoenix, where Jacques explains how he found the trail of Jack and Ritz, so they can start hunting. Note, however, that the two brothers, Jack and John, had already started chasing after Jack and Ritz before the camera was half-covered, because Jack and Rize had said that he had found them. The voice-over afterwards re-explained how he discovered it, but it was also a cliché. I think the director could indirectly say what these voice-overs express in the dialogue between the two brothers later, without having to do such things that affect the smoothness of the film. Speaking of semi-concealed shots, this is undoubtedly Jacques Odia’s private goods. In "The Prophet", director Jacques used this technique extensively, shaking and partially covering the camera at the beginning of the film, instead of the protagonist’s point of view, to express The strangeness and horror of a teenager when he first entered prison. Later, the protagonist started his career for the first time, and the gang boss knocked him back to the bottom. At this moment, the camera was half-covered and the most important ideology of the whole film was completed. The half-covered camera escapes from the prison from the protagonist's point of view, and the chaser panicked the deer herd. The grievances of the Arabs he killed began to burn. Soon after, the "prophecy" came true, and the protagonist began to escape from the nightmare. I want to understand the herd of deer he chased as a comparison of the protagonist who was panicked after being hit, and then the protagonist successfully killed the deer herd through predictions, symbolizing the protagonist’s fear of killing himself. Since then, the nightmare disappeared, and it also laid the groundwork for the later anti-Geism.

This western film is different from most western films in that the director seldom uses a distant view or even epic lens to express the magnificence and vastness of the west, and the geographical feature is that the director is extremely willing to express, such as Sergio Leon "Once Upon a Time in the West", "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", Kevin Costner's "Dancing with Wolves", and also include "Old Nowhere", "Nocturnal Animals", "Hunting for the Wind River Valley", and "Dancing with Wolves" after the new century. "Go through Fire", these films all deliberately use big vision lenses to express the relationship between man and nature. However, Jacques Oudiya mainly used mid-to-near shots to shoot westerns. Even if there is a long shot, the director can still shoot under the obstruction of trees or obstacles, in order to enlarge the "narrowness". As a result, the camera moved to the expression of the character, closer to the heart, so the film inevitably pays more attention to the internal contradictions between people, that is, from the relationship between people and nature to the relationship between people. . After the patch, I further confirmed my judgment that the relationship between people is a consistent topic of Jacques Odia. "Homemade Hero" in 1996 was in the context of World War II, "Rhythm Forgotten in My Heart" in 2005 was set against the refugee tide, "Prophet" in 2009 was a French gangster, and the Palme d'Or works at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015. "The Wandering Dipan" is based on the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, but in these films the directors without exception have overlooked the relationship between people and society, that is, the background of the times and the expression of politics, limiting them to people and Between people. Only "Rust and Bone" is a complete story about ordinary people. This is almost completely different from Paul Greengrass, a director I particularly love. The films directed by Paul Greengrass are all about the relationship between people and society, to be precise, the relationship between people and current affairs. "Bloody Sunday" talks about the massacre of civilians in Northern Ireland, "Flight 93" and the 9/11 incident, "Green Zone" about the Iraq war, and the new film "7.22" of the 2018 Venice Film Festival about the refugee tide in Europe. I also hope to see director Jacques Oudiya have some new attempts and challenges.

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Extended Reading
  • Yasmin 2022-03-24 09:02:39

    Every time it's like picking up two scripts and pinching them together, about is the only motivation to watch Odia's works at this stage... But it's really interesting, Hollywood lacks his ordinary screenwriters, and there is a lot of shortages.

  • Dave 2022-03-29 09:01:05

    so so. . . . I just didn't expect it to be so common. . . All good people except the commander and the village chief. . . I don't know what a Western movie with a good guy is watching, the story is pretty average, and the characters are pretty single. At once. . . It's embarrassing. . .

The Sisters Brothers quotes

  • Charlie Sisters: Alright. You're not going to like what comes next. Open your safe.

    Mayfield: No. Never.

  • Charlie Sisters: We're the Sisters brothers. S-I-S-T-E-R-S, like sisters.