[Smell of Plum Chicken] Poulet aux prunes
Director: Marga Satapi /Vincent Paland
Starring: Matthew Amalek/Geshfi Farahani/Maria de Medello /Isabella Rossellini
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Production: Le Pacte, France
Length: 93 minutes
★★★☆
Text_Xipak
[梅子鸡之味] tells the story of a suicide artist, although it is about death, But the brisk comic-style rhythm, without the slightest sadness. Although the film still sets the story in Iran, it is different from the previous work [I grew up in Iran] by the two directors, Maja Shatapi and Vincent Paland, which focuses on society and history. The story in this film is more like It takes place in a fictional city with an overhead background (in fact, the first shot of the whole film is directly transferred from the comic to the real shot). The actors speak fluent French, the signs are written in Iranian, and the architectural style is like a mix of Paris and Tehran in the 1950s. All this is born out of Satapi's personal life, but there is a kind of detachment that belongs only to movies. Getting rid of the heavy social shackles also gave the film a soil for imagination.
As Zizek often said, we often see the protagonist in cartoons running from the cliff into the air unknowingly, but only when he realizes that there is no land under his feet will he really start to fall. Indeed, the real tragedy begins the moment we discover it, and this is the case in this film. The brushstrokes of the fairy tale conceal the heaviness of the theme, although the two directors have already informed us of the inevitable ending of the death of the protagonist Nasir Ali eight days later in the third part of the film. But like watching a cartoon, even if you know that the protagonist will fall to pieces, it will not affect the audience's expectations of watching the movie, but you can more peacefully ask the internal reasons that prompted him to commit suicide.
Most of the time, the audience will forget this tragic fate and will be attracted by the various forms of the film. Nasir’s memory occupies a large part of the film, but this memory is not straightforward. It is voiced by Edvar Beyer, who plays the god of death. (We didn’t know that he was the god of death until the end of the film). A completely objective perspective introduced Nasir's life and brought out all kinds of people around him. Slowly give Nasir a reasonable explanation for his suicide. In this process, a large number of cartoons, spoof American sitcoms, and Sophia Rowland's huge breasts appeared in the dream, and other diversified passages were interspersed. The language of the lens is also eclectic, and the freedom of movement like a comic frame is everywhere. In fact, these style elements have appeared in [I grew up in Iran], and [Smell of Plum Chicken] is obviously more like a cartoon dressed in a live-action film. Rather than saying that this film is a transformational work of the two directors, it is better to say that they are using a more ingenious way to continue their unique self-style.
Although it has borrowed from the complex flashback structures of [Sunset Boulevard] and [American Beauty], [梅子鸡之味] has a completely different feeling. It did not come up with a complicated answer and a conflict of thousands of times. It is a tragedy that attributes everything to love. A failed love shaped the current artist Nasir, and the encounter again many years later made him finally decide to commit suicide. Although this treatment evades the ultimate proposition of death, it conforms to the fairy tale tone of the comic-style interpretation of the film. At the end of the film, Nasir died as promised. In these eight days, there was no turning point. The two directors used different perspectives to repeat the key passages of the whole film. As the god of death implied, in fact love is only part of the plan, no matter what the process, everyone is flying towards their own death, everything seems inevitable. From this point of view, the film is cruel. No matter how Hollywood spoofs fairy tale classics, it will eventually end with a happy ending, allowing the audience to leave the theater without burden. But for Shatapi and Paland, they can borrow the fairy tales at will, but they are unwilling to change the most essential laws of life. This is also the bottom line of this fairy tale film for adults.
Climax: In the 89th minute, Irene appeared at Nasir's funeral.
Wonderful line: Because of being tricked again, Nasir decided to kill himself. Eight days later, he was buried next to his mother's grave.
Suitable crowd: adults with childlike innocence
(Originally contained in the screening room of "Watching Movies")
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