When I saw the angelic Patty, I began to doubt the translation of the film. This is supposed to be a story about love and redemption. How could it have such a terrible name-"The Game of Taboos", what kind of taboos can there be at that age!
As I said, we have every reason to be deceived, and we should be deceived, deceived by the director's wonderful film techniques and such soft notes. Just as under the calm sea, undercurrents are often surging, and the eve of a storm is often quiet. The director perfectly hides an amazing story of a war period under the camera. Crazy story, I can only say so. (If you are a Christian, your feelings must be deeper than mine.)
This is June 1940. The Nazi invasion is accelerating. The residents of Paris are forced to make a living and begin to flee to the distance. They have only one purpose, to live. Patty's family is among them. But the flames of war have spread throughout France, and the true peace and tranquility can no longer be touched. In an airstrike by the Germans, the parents lost the ability to protect her young Patty forever in the smoke of gunpowder. Looking at the dead mother beside her, as peaceful as in the picture, the young child began to fear. She stood up, picked up the puppy under her body, looked at the extremely helpless way forward, and could do nothing. When her parents died, even her beloved pets left her. There is nothing that saddens her more than losing a friend with whom she has always been with her. She walked, and saw a boy. He told her that if she helped him to recover the lost cow, he would send her another dog. So she put down the dog's corpse and began to integrate into the peaceful life in this country.
Our little angel quickly made everyone like her. She is so clean, so beautiful, like a baby who has not been polluted by the world. With big clean eyes, she looked at this sudden change innocently, and tried to adapt to it. One day, the pastor asked her, have you prayed for your parents? She said she could not pray. Then the pastor taught her: "God, let us all enter the kingdom of heaven. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen." The wise she remembered these words, although she may not understand the meaning of these verses at all, but She studied hard. She asked Michele (the boy she met) what she wanted to say about those scriptures, and Michelle taught her over and over again. He also told her that when people died, they had to dig a pit to bury them and create a cemetery so that they would not be lonely. Patty asked: What about my dog? Does it have pits? It will be lonely. So they established their pet cemetery in the mill.
Patty fell in love with the cross, something beautiful and sacred. But their motives are not kind. Patty told Michelle that she wanted crosses and put them in the cemetery, just like adults did. So Michelle steals other people's crosses for Patty, and even his brother who just died. Those crosses were taken directly from the graves of others. God cannot forgive this sin. Patty asked for a cross in the church, and Michelle promised to give it to her. But if he can't steal it, Patty says you promised but you can't do it. Michelle said I tried it and was almost caught, what else can I do! Finally, their behavior was discovered by the adults, who threatened to send Patty away if they didn't return the cross, and they would not support her. Michel said no, as long as Patty is not sent away, he is willing to help them find the cross. Everyone is lying. The adults said yes, they would not send her away. But when the police showed up, they handed over the children to them, just as if they had never promised them. Michelle cried, and he said that you promised, so that you will never want to get those crosses back. In the sound of the car taking Patty away by the police, Michel threw those sinful crosses into the river angrily. Facing life, he only felt powerless. Patty walked away and sat in the crowded train station. Patty, who was put on a sign, sat helplessly, just sitting. Then she heard someone calling: Michele. Tears flowed down her eyes. She saw a woman saying goodbye to others. She rushed up, saying: Mom. The damage from the war was particularly tragic at this moment, they were just children.
The so-called taboo game refers to the fact that Patty and Michele stole crosses from other people's cemeteries in order to build a pet cemetery. This should be an unforgivable fault for the church. The most terrifying line in the film comes from the angelic little Patty. When she and Michele discussed what to accompany her puppy, she said: There are still people. This is a crazy sentence, but it comes from a child, what kind of world the director wants to express.
The ugliness of war and human nature in the smooth narrative of the film makes us desperate. We can only hear the melodious, slightly sad music telling the love and sin of human beings. The director did not describe the horror of war directly, but told us a crazy story with a surprisingly calm calmness. War is only the creation of corpses, it is useless except to create wounds. Just as Michele worked hard to create their pet cemetery in order to satisfy Patty's wishes, and even killed the animals around him, the war was only a game of killing to satisfy some people's imagination. The world is dirty. Adults will lie, will dig out the flies in the milk with the flies with the same dirty fingers, and then tell the children: it is now ready to drink. Only Patty can say: dirty. She would refuse to drink it. But what about tomorrow? In order to live, we also have to eat these dirty things. Adults can speak ill of others behind their backs, or even fight for trivial things, but we can’t. We can only sit and say: God, please let us enter the kingdom of heaven, with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit In the name of Amen. Finally, put your hands together and pray for God’s forgiveness, not only for forgiving us, but for the entire human race.
Those who died in the war could not even have their own tombstones. They were buried in the same way as dogs. When they died, no pastor said to them: Now you can rest in peace, God will allow you to enter the kingdom of heaven, and he forgives us. No children even prayed for them to let us enter the kingdom of heaven. The lives of people in wartime are like weeds.
The director uses a pure child to metaphor our world. This kind of questioning of our living state allows us to see a sad era. We can't answer whether the war created the injury or the cruelty of human nature created all of this.
I think in the story of less than 85 minutes, we should get more thinking.
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