If you don't get the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, "Better World" may not receive much attention. Because of this type of film, it is simply going to Oscar. Although there are magnificent and beautiful photography, the characters are also very emotional, but refugees, turmoil, medical assistance, and direct references are really too explicit to say. For a film festival like Cannes, they may even want you to tell the truth about the bad things of the middle class, or else you can play it in a cryptic manner, without saying it too clearly. So like the ending of "A Better World", the cross-age talks about life and death and Bai Sha, it is simply impossible to happen. This kind of remark should be to let the critics and the audience play their associations and speak for themselves. To put it more ugly, this is clearly self-dressing and the pursuit of harmony. After all, with Oscar's approach, it seldom chooses "low movies" with unresolved problems, but tends to favor such things as "Encouragement" and "Better World". Everyone hurts each other, and misunderstanding is inevitable, but the ending must be the pursuit of integration and reunion, which seems positive.
The first half of the movie is very catchy, and the scene in the tent is always shocking. Naked wounds, even if the black skin and solidified blood are indistinguishable, once you return to that environment, the audience will feel uncomfortable in the face of those numb and desperate eyes, and the doctor will always drag his body back exhausted. . If the filming in the African world is still the standard process and seems too far away, then the Nordic passage about personal family experience seems very real. This is obviously repeating the growth experience of many people. If someone beats you or bullies you, what your parents will do. Among the people I know, many parents just ran to file a complaint, but it didn't help. Otherwise, it was Christian who did it in the film, hitting it back, and hitting him hard, hitting him bloody, and always remembering the lesson. Sometimes, I even feel that the latter approach is right, and blindly patience is not the way. You can not be evil, but you must first make yourself strong. Perhaps this is the so-called pessimism of human nature, but it is like the social reality and the overall situation of the world. It is not a relationship between people or a war between nations. The trouble will never end in a day.
Speaking of this damn violence, Kitano was once asked by reporters why he was obsessed with exaggerated violence. Kitano refused to give in, and sneered at each other. After making so many beautiful love moving movies, has the world changed for the better? Therefore, this is also a kind of disillusionment that many people will feel when facing the ending of "Better World". This is solved here, but over there. The doctor couldn't bear it and went crazy, but he could only give it to the refugees to solve it and let him vent. He himself still kept the purity of his hands. The doctor has always adhered to his personal guidelines and was unable to fight back when he was beaten, but his life guidelines did not work in Africa. Facing the persecution of human nature and the refugees whose relatives had been killed, he could not persuade the other party in terms of reason and justice. Who can guarantee that if he had a gun in his hand, he would not hit the black boss on the ground. After all, he also has to channel his anger, it is impossible to absorb it infinitely, like a bottomless black hole.
People hate themselves or others. Once this emotion is let go, the result will be uncontrollable. Li Cangdong's "Mints" once described a man who was destroyed by violence. He was a victim of violence, but in the end he fell into a vicious circle of violence, and it was difficult to save himself. He asked a person who had been tortured by himself: Life is beautiful? Right? The other party was trembling after hearing this. It can almost be said that beauty is also the theme of this movie. It is not easy how to look at the world, especially the children in the growth period.
What Christian does does not exist alone. Compared with the children in films such as "Elephant", his tendency to violence is justified. Who wants to hate himself. "Better World" set up such a link, children's mistakes always come from family failures and parents' faults. Christian transferred his hatred of his father to other things. From the moment he immersed himself in the CS scene, it was not difficult to guess what the director was thinking. Of course, precisely because of such assumptions, too many tendencies and assumptions, this is also the reason why I think "Better World" is difficult to take one step forward. The child’s problem lies with the parents, and the world’s problem lies with revenge. If every problem can find the law and reason, why is the world still so bad? "A Better World" made the problem too clear, it would be better to leave some room for thinking.
The point of "Better World" may be here, the doctor's priority, he may just teach the children something, may just save some people. However, he made the world a little better-better than what you just saw. Just having said that, I don't know if this is blind optimism or self-comfort. For example, before the two world wars, mankind seemed to usher in a brand new situation, but in the end it still plunged itself into a worse situation. People have lived in an environment for a long time, then their opinions will become deeply ingrained and difficult to change. For the Nordic countries, they seem to have entered a state of wantlessness, but these people are still tired of living, and they can't get rid of the problem of being a person.
This film tries hard to tell the audience what is right, but in turn, this power is sometimes very limited, just like carefully set up preaching, which is too round. It is not as sharp as to tell the audience directly what is wrong, so that the protagonist finds a painful situation in which he is unable to deal with it. This kind of experience, I am afraid that there will be a lot of darkness. If one considers the specific living environment of each individual, violence is often not an option, but a must in many areas accompanied by turmoil and turmoil, hunger and death. This is another real world, and it's not beautiful at all. 【International Herald Guide】
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