Intellectuals’ masochistic tendencies

Cale 2022-01-22 08:02:03

Nostalgia is a motif with a huge amount of information in both literature and movies. The relatively widespread elite temperament and traceability complex among intellectuals makes the literary and artistic works of nostalgic themes generally serious and deep. Over time, nostalgic literary works have generally formed. A serious creative zone with anthropomorphic dignity. However, the black humor of Latin American literature and art works often has a certain kind of primitive magic that destroys homesickness. I personally feel that "Outstanding Citizen" is an anti-homesickness absurd masterpiece on a certain level, and it naturally carries the intellectual self. Introspection, it seems that there is no escape from the intellectual self-pity, but in any case, this is an interesting work that is quite thoughtful and contradictory.

Returning home with clothes is probably a spring dream shared by intellectuals. It’s a cliché, but this kind of psychological need exists in the subconsciousness of many literati, even the Nobel Prize winners in the film can’t avoid it. The memory of growing up in the homeland will definitely affect the creative brushwork of literary and art workers to some extent. Take a distant example such as Tarkovsky in exile, and recent examples such as Jia Zhangke, Zhang Yimou, Mo Yan, etc. (including recent works). Bi Gan), the memories of their homeland will inevitably appear in their works. However, is the hometown of these people's works that are "real" and "objective"? Can the subjective artistic creation standards of literary and artistic creators meet the standards under the mediocre social scale? This is a question that is difficult to answer positively.

"Outstanding Citizen" tells the story of an embarrassing homecoming that confronts reality and fiction with conflicting measurement scales. The creators of the film both teased the sourness and cowardice of intellectuals, but also responded intuitively to the country’s so-called The national inferiority has been criticized to a certain extent. It adopts a nearly reality show method, and layer upon layer of drama conflicts. Although the film has no scheduling or mirroring at all, the content of the story text is very impressive at the literary level, like Latin American art. The extremely spicy black humor also makes this film absurd and full of irony.

After winning the Nobel Prize, the writer in the film quietly returned to his hometown after decades of absence. The feeling of being close to the hometown made the writer let go of many intellectual principles in his hometown. However, the deviation between reality and virtuality is really embarrassing. The writer, who returned to his hometown with a complicated mood, soon discovered that he had become a different symbol in the eyes of different people in his hometown. Some people regarded him as a political bargaining chip, some regarded him as an idol symbol, and of course others regarded him as a traitor and an alien. What is even more bizarre is that some people even want to find the dignity of men from him. The folks all want to get the proof they want from the writers. All of this was just a simple and simple homeland impact at the beginning, but with the intellectual values ​​and local values The intensification of the confrontation and the deliberate increase of the "national inferiority" in the film, the confrontation in the film began to go crazy, the story was like a ridiculous reality show, and the drama was deliberately increased. Finally, the writer had to escape from his hometown again in embarrassment and became the gun of the inferior folks. A cowardly and helpless little animal under his mouth, civilization collapsed, gentle sweeping, wailing.

Through the shell of homesickness, "Outstanding Citizen" actually tells a story with a global meaning. The contradictory sides are not only reality and fiction, but also artistic judgment and moral standards, but also the embarrassment of the Western elite aesthetic value system itself. Obviously, if the same story is copied to the Chinese environment, there will not be too much sense of contradiction (the so-called tail of the national inferior root is everywhere). The self-ridicule of intellectuals is full of absurdity under the expression of Latin American black humor. Regrettably, in terms of the core lines of the film and the tendency of the victim’s position, the introspection of intellectuals is not deep enough, although it shows the essence of intellectuals. The cowardice and the loss of principles, intellectuals still appear in the film as a just image of the persecuted, and the protagonist’s arguments all conform to the conceptual inertia of the mainstream elite audience, and there is not much insight and thinking from this point. Look, the confession and reflection of intellectuals after self-blasphemy is itself a kind of changing narcissism, and the tendency of perpetrating intellectuals to be abused.

So the nostalgia that intellectuals use as a big move can't be fully believed, let alone take off their pants to write a letter, because maybe he has used this move to your mother before.

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Extended Reading
  • Raul 2022-03-20 09:02:46

    "Hometown that can't go back" has always been a major theme in literary works, but as the movie says, reality is better than fiction. Is "can't go back" because it can't? No, I really don't want to. The feelings that the brain fills up can only make you stand far away and touch yourself. Once you get closer, you find that the vulgarity is still there, the barbarism is still there, and you have to run away.

  • Christian 2022-03-20 09:02:46

    The script with full marks, the final two scenes sublimate the story to the culmination. Creation and interpretation, humanity and divinity, are not in the same dimension, they are often bull's head and horse's mouth. The world can't stand me, and I can't stand the world, the world consumes me, and I consume the world. Very magical and very realistic. [B+]