"Foxtrot"

The first time I saw an Israeli movie, I thought it was a war movie, but I was disappointed.

The protagonist of the story is a soldier and his parents. The story is about two people from the Israeli military who suddenly visited Feldman one day and told him that their son, Jonathan, had been killed in the line of duty. The family was devastated by the bad news. A few hours later, the military came again and told him. It was another Jonathan who died, and now his son is safe. Jonathan was at a duty point on the border, along with three comrades, setting up roadblocks and checking for passing vehicles. The rest of the time is boring. His father used the relationship to transfer him back, but he was in a car accident on the way home. really dead.

Nearly two hours, just such a simple story. Almost everyone in the film is slow. When they hear information from outside or see outsiders, they stare at them for a long time, and then think silently for a long time, but they still don't say a word. It fully explains the essence of "post-Hollywood".

So what is the director telling us through this film?

If the underlying political themes are indirectly depicted in the film, then the country of Israel does have a special political environment. After World War II, in order to allow the Jews who have been wandering for many years to have their own homeland, the foreign powers forcibly carved a territory for the Jews in the Middle East. Israel was founded, but there was no stable life. War and insecurity are the norm in Israeli life. I once read a travel note of Long Yingtai, comparing Israel and Switzerland. In Switzerland, people seem to live in paradise on earth, with magnificent landscapes and peaceful and leisurely life. However, the relationship between people is indifferent. People only want to live their own lives, other people's affairs, and external disturbances, as long as they have nothing to do with themselves. In Israel, people are most concerned about the land or peace. Neighborhoods are close and there is a strong sense of national identity. The streets are full of people with guns, and their vigilant eyes are full of enthusiasm. If you are a tourist asking for directions, there will be many people answering for you. Jonathan's team in the film is living a boring life in such an environment. In an uninhabited border duty point, the containers where they were staying were slowly tilting, and the old bus beside the checkpoint was painted with outdated posters of beautiful celebrities. Except for the occasional passing vehicles, only lonely camels were strolling. The four were taciturn, and occasionally chatted weakly about their own lives. Every vehicle that passes, makes their minds nervous and can be a potential enemy. Hence what happened afterward: a vehicle of four young men and women passed, and Jonathan met a beautiful woman inside, just about to deliver autumn spinach, a beer can fell out, and the soldiers mistook it for a grenade and immediately drew their guns straf. Immediately, there was smoke and dust in the car, and when the smoke dissipated, there was no sound. In the next shot, the excavator slowly pushed the riddled car into the pit, and everything was calm. All that remains are Jonathan's sketches of cars and excavators. At this time, I thought of the news I saw a few days ago. Several Israeli soldiers confronted the Palestinian crowd demonstrating in the distance, discussing how to shoot them in an interesting way. This kind of thing happens all the time in Israel and Palestine.

Who will people blame? Is it the brutality of Israel, or the extremes of Palestine? Don't people on both sides pursue a beautiful and peaceful life? It was only because of the hand of fate that these originally kind people were brought into the endless slaughter.

Looking at the whole film, I feel that the political background is far from what the director wants to express. What this film wants to reflect is the impermanence of fate and the helplessness of people in the face of this fate.

At the beginning of the film, Feldman looks dazed when he learns of his son's misfortune. The camera slowly followed his bewildered footsteps from an overhead angle, from the living room to the corridor to the bedroom, as if to show the incomparable pressure of God on him. The first thing he felt at this time was not grief but this pressure. After he learned that his son really died, the pressure was even greater. The picture uses a close-up close-up in the center to see Feldman's eyes, helpless, sad, and repentant. See the tears in his eyes. The death of their son even affected their lives. Although in the eyes of outsiders, Feldman is a standard successful person, an excellent architect, has his own company, and has a carefree material life. However, at this time, there was no material disturbance between him and his wife, only emotional torture. The wife who knew him best said, "Why can't he die at the first notice? Why is a normal, reasonable death a punishment? Or vengeance? It's God's vengeance on us. Sorry, vengeance on you. , I don't want to take credit for you. You used to insist on taking him home, even if you didn't intend to kill him, it wouldn't help. I still can't live with you. I used to be able to live with your wounds and pretend not to see, Don't embarrass you. I used to lean on you to make you feel strong. So you don't know that I already understand that you are vulnerable. You despise yourself. Your life: the company, us, the famous cars, and what you try to show Reliable image, it's all about disguising your weakness." I think it's right to say Feldman's character is weak, but he's thinking more here and now: the trick of fate. Because of his own mistakes, his son died. Maybe it's really the creator who is taking revenge on Feldman's mistakes?

The film conveys to us the mistakes people often make, one is that the military mistaken Jonathan's death, the other is that Jonathan killed someone by mistake, and the third is that Feldman asked his son to come home. If these errors do not cause subsequent results, then they are not errors. Just like a driver who made a mistake in operation and did not have a car accident, at most he would reflect on his own privately; and if someone was killed because of this mistake, the consequences to be borne may affect many people and many families. The further question is: who can predict the consequences of these mistakes? Who can guarantee never to make mistakes in the future?

The next question is: Who can predict fate? For a long time, countless people have turned to priests, gods, and fortune tellers for help, and more people have prayed for the arrangements of God and Buddha. There is only one purpose, hoping to predict their own destiny in advance, so as to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages as soon as possible. But in fact, whether you believe it or not, fate is there. It seems to be digging a hole for you to jump in. Ordinary we can never know where the pit is.

Faced with fate, people have several attitudes. Those who do not believe in evil repeatedly challenge their fate. For example, Beethoven wanted to "grab fate by the throat." Such courage is truly admirable! As a result, he left many great works for mankind, and he himself, never married, suffered from deafness, and was poor in his old age; I can only do good things, don't think about the future, and live a good life, No matter how the sky falls, accept and face any unknowable fate; and rational people are more focused on that kind of high probability event. The so-called high probability means that people want to go up. But what is the upward standard? Some people seek truth, seek knowledge. There are also some people who seek power and wealth. As long as it doesn't affect others, none of this can be said to be wrong. The upward result may make one's own destiny better. But still can not rule out small probability events, that is, the disturbance of those accidental factors. And isn't this pursuit of these inactions and struggles part of fate?

The film uses the rules of "Foxtrot" to tell us with the help of Feldman: "No matter where people go, they will always return to the same starting point." This seems to mean that although people are struggling, happy, painful, and enjoying life all the time, people can have different beliefs and ideals, but in the end they still cannot escape the mercy of fate, and they still have to return to their original thinking. In the face of fate, man is still blind, as depicted in this movie poster, helplessly crawling in an invisible world. I don't know this interpretation, right?

My rating: 6.5.