"Outstanding Citizen" tells the story of a Nobel Prize-winning writer who is invited to return to his hometown to give a speech, confronted with the opposition of two lifestyles and values, and experienced life and death.
Writer Daniel won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but it seemed to bring the end of his career as a writer, and he never wrote again for the next five years and declined invitations to various world-class events.
One day he received an invitation from his hometown, the Argentine town of Salas, inviting him to go back to the town's art festival and granting him the status of a "distinguished citizen". After much deliberation, he decided to be invited and returned to his hometown after 40 years of being away from home.
◆Return to Hometown
When Daniel first arrived in the town, the mayor asked him and the beauty queen to stand on the roof of the fire truck and gesture to people along the street, and people's eyes were full of admiration.
◆Consumption
People are consuming Daniel, as he puts it: "As a celebrity, I'm like some kind of outfit, taken out of the closet and dressed to various cultural events."
The mayor asked Daniel to participate in various cultural activities, hoping to increase people's support for him through Daniel and pave the way for his political career;
The father of a disabled child wanted Daniel to buy him a wheelchair, taking it for granted;
Daniel went to participate in an interview on the TV station, and the whole program turned out to be a commercial;
A fat man grabbed Daniel and said that his deceased father was the prototype in the novel, and asked Daniel to go to his house for dinner;
The fan girl went to the hotel to devote herself actively, in order to let Daniel take her out of the village;
Fat Antonio showed off in front of Daniel that he had married Daniel's ex-girlfriend Irene, and invited him to dinner at home, kissing Irene in front of Daniel. Not only that, but he also said that he would take Daniel to hunt and use a shotgun to show off his majesty. After dinner, he took Daniel to the bar and boasted that every woman in the bar had been conquered by him twenty or thirty times. Force and sexuality—two of the most primitive human abilities, are the only things Antonio can beat Daniel.
◆ Opposition
Nothing in the town has changed, it is still as backward and wild as when he fled 40 years ago.
Daniel is conveying his cultural and artistic ideas and values to the townspeople. But townspeople saw his novels as a "traitor" for his novels to gain foreign acclaim by denigrating his hometown. He went from returning home to being the public enemy of the town.
"The only thing we have in common is that we were all born in the same place."
There was a complete break between him and the town.
The mayor said at the award ceremony of the exhibition that he should protect culture, but Daniel said: "People always regard culture as a weak and fragile thing, but culture is indestructible, even in the worst situation, it still remains. Can survive. There is a primitive tribe on the African steppe, and the word 'free' is not in the local people's vocabulary at all, because they are free." He exposed the mayor's political trick in the name of culture - put " The place where the word "culture" is on the lips may be the desert of culture.
◆The two sides of human nature
Daniel told a story when his car broke down on the way home, and he and the driver were sleeping in the wild: a pair of twin brothers, the younger brother killed the older brother because he was jealous of his wealth and his wife, and replaced the older brother. At the same time, the fire light shone on his face, the light and shadow alternated, half light and half dark, which seemed to be a metaphor for the two sides of human nature.
On the one hand is a lofty ideal, on the other hand is vanity and desire.
While promoting the artistic concept of not being in the company of the world to the people in the town, he couldn't help kissing his ex-girlfriend who was already a wife, and he didn't resist the temptation to accept the dedication of the fan girl who came to the door.
On the one hand, he was banished from the world like a prophet, and on the other hand, he was executed like a criminal.
◆The place of slaughter
In the confrontation, the town is already hostile to Daniel. He wanted to take his ex-girlfriend Irene's car to escape the town, but Irene's husband Antonio and the fan girl's boyfriend were waiting for Irene at the entrance of the hotel. —They may have spotted Daniel's crossing the line with his wife and girlfriend. They put Daniel in the car and took him to complete the previous "hunting" plan. Daniel stood on the car, just like he stood on the fire truck when he came, the difference is that now the car is heading for the hunting ground in the depths of the night, and the admiring eyes of passers-by are now full of hostility and ridicule, just like It was a parade when he was taken to the execution ground.
Like prey, he was pulled to the place of slaughter. He who was originally participating in the hunting activity became the target of the hunt. He staggered away amid the gunfire, and at the last shot, he fell, fulfilling his wish that "the one basic thing that a celebrity lacks the most is my own death."
"Death, everything will be level and orderly, my name will be inscribed in eternity, it's over."
◆Death and Rebirth
The real irony of the film is that the plot does not end here, and a new scene is reopened. The camera moves to a press conference where Daniel appears on stage announcing his new book, Distinguished Citizens. The things that happened before were all written into books by Daniel - they were consuming Daniel, but they were consumed by Daniel in the end. It turned out to be a story in a nesting doll-like story.
A reporter asked if these experiences written by Daniel are true? He unbuttoned his coat and pointed to the scar on his chest. "You can think of it as a fall, or a gunshot wound." At this point, the truth no longer mattered.
He was literally "dead".
He once said, "The most commendable thing I have ever done in my life was to escape that place."
"The one basic thing I lacked the most as a celebrity was my own death."
40 years ago, he just escaped from this town physically, and now he wants to make a complete end to this town in his heart.
Was his death driven by people and a complete break with his hometown, or was it the price he paid for his "sin" against the town?
Perhaps the lofty ideal and maverick is dead, and now standing on the stage is the one who reintegrated into the crowd and received flowers and applause.
Just like his face in the light and shadow of the fire, and the story he told about "the twin brother killed the older brother".
As he wrote in the book: "The protagonist in my book can never leave. And I, can never go back."
Like the flamingo that left the flock and drowned in the pond alone.
PS: On the way back to the town from the airport, the car broke down and they spent the night in the wild. In order to make a fire to keep warm, Daniel tore up his book to keep warm.
"In order to survive, I burn the books I wrote." This sentence also seems to be the subtext of the entire movie.
View more about The Distinguished Citizen reviews
