Class conflict and self-growth.

Rozella 2022-01-09 08:03:04

The following is my personal understanding of the movie.

First of all, the hostess’s family is a very typical family in the typical class differentiation in the United States, with terrible parents, terrible life, and confused self. Such families can be seen in many American dramas and movies such as "Shameless" and "My Personal Iowa" (hereinafter referred to as "Shameless" and "Iowa"). In "Shameless" the Franks, the same bad parents, bad life, and the confused self of each different person. In "Iowa", the protagonist is even born of incest between his mother and his brother. Growing up in such a family, there is no way to desire anything. Selling magazines (I think this is a kind of plot medium and it has symbolic meaning) allows the heroine to constantly find her own value, just like the heroine in a movie is asked what is there Dream? She said, "No one has ever asked her like this." Then she talked about her dream. It was very simple and unpretentious. She had never seen anything in the world. She always distrusted the male protagonist and the female boss. Looks disdainful. The source of this emotion is the nature of her family, the distrust of others and the overprotection of self. Just like the male protagonist will carry a gun with him because he does not trust others, everyone in the magazine selling group is the same, born in an un-rich family or has a somewhat unpleasant growth experience. It is the high empathy in character that makes them connect with each other.

The same "marketing" in different communities also reflects this class conflict. There are three to four communities mentioned in the movie, one of which is in the city and looks like an intellectual middle class (the movie also mentions that this community should be In the community where the lawyers and the like live, it is described in detail that a family is the first "sales" training of a male lead and a female lead. This family also has a certain typical American family symbol, the aggressiveness of the typical middle class, and the arrogance of the traditional Christian middle class. These are reflected in the female householder’s ridicule about the male lead and the teaching of her major, as well as the saying that the male lead and the female lead utter the word fuck because they are trapped by the devil. Such details are all understated in the movie, but they cannot be missed, because they can better reflect the mutual contempt and contempt of this class and class. Although this is not the main point of the movie, it is a background.

In the other two communities, there is a community dominated by workers. The movie also mentions that these people are rich but they also start from the lower class, so they will pity those "junk white people" very much. This is considered a class transition in the movie. The last community is a less affluent community. In this community, the hostess has also seen a family similar to her own. In the movie, close-ups of the same family photos as the hostess’s house are also given, which is also implying that the hostess is buying. The magazine’s journey goes from big cities to ordinary industrial towns to impoverished villages with nothing. This shows that the heroine started from herself and finally returned to herself, and then greeted her new self. Therefore, there is also a scene where the heroine finally releases the turtles into the water and rises from the water. This is to show the theme and the continuous growth of people. The heroine gradually grows through meeting different people and experiencing different things. This is also like the theme that the director loves to reflect in the movie, the growth of a girl. It is also reflected in the director's another work "Fish Tank".

Maybe this kind of youth is what many people yearn for and despise by many people, but what the movie wants to tell is after all a form of our life. Isn't everything about the heroine of youth? Is this kind of youth to be despised? It's all life, it's just that everyone's experience is different.

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Extended Reading
  • Cassidy 2022-03-23 09:02:46

    Andrea Arnold is good at depicting the psychology of troubled women at the bottom. This can be seen from the previous works "Red Road" and "Fish Tank". The new works are charming in photography, and the use of light is quite meaningful. Hand-held brings dazzling highways. The film experience, the selected music is great, it fits the restless and confused situation, no matter how big or small the animals appear in the film, there are quite a few overtones, but the film is too long...

  • Catalina 2022-03-19 09:01:07

    Sorry for this kind of Duras-style white trash girl's thoughts. I really hate it... There are too many such youth road films, each one is touching, and each one makes me sad for a cheap one, so what? That's it. But in the end, dancing by the bonfire was really beautiful, and listening to the same song, I could only walk through the gloomy river on the outskirts of the city. I envy them for their youth, everyone is precarious, at least there are people who know how to carnival.

American Honey quotes

  • Krystal: Where's that accent from?

    Star: Texas.

    Krystal: So you're a southern girl. A real American honey like me. You know that song?

    Star: No.

  • Pagan: You know what Darth Vader looks like beneath that mask? He's a skeleton. Just like the rest of us.