The movie itself is not very interesting, from the characters to the plot, it is terrible, it is impossible to empathize, many details are dealt with too hastily, and the conflicts pass by in a sloppy manner. The only interesting thing is the treatment of vision and maternity, but this is also the credit of the original novel. The movie is just a summary of the story.
The first is vision.
The setting of the story is more interesting. Suddenly something frightening appears. It is so terrible that people who see it will want to commit suicide, and they will go crazy if they don’t commit suicide. As for what that thing is, there is no explanation. It is called in the movie. 'it' or'creature' may be Cthulhu as the horror novelist Lovecraft imagined, but it is worth thinking about this setting to drive people crazy or spread mass suicide by'seeing'.
At least in Western society, vision has always been revered and is called the noblest sense organ. This is also obvious in the English language. I ('I') is pronounced the same as the eye ('eye'). I see often means I understand. It seems that I understand something, just as if I saw that thing in my mind, so vision and thought are closely connected. In addition, Descartes said, I think, therefore I am, self is the self that thinks, and I am my thoughts, and my thoughts are often compared to vision or to be displayed in a visual way.
In the process of modernization, vision has also been continuously strengthened. Early printing made written words the main way to spread knowledge and ideas. Through "seeing" we understand the world to obtain knowledge and seek truth. After the emergence of photography technology, people have gone further. People do not only describe words through words. Knowing what happened in other places and other times, you can also'see' those scenes through the camera lens, which seems to be closer to the truth. In the contemporary era, these technologies continue to advance. The Internet provides massive amounts of information. Video captures various fleeting moments to make them eternal. Virtual reality technology makes people truly immersive. However, with the development of visual technology, we see with our eyes What we arrive is becoming more and more unreliable, farther and farther away from the truth, and rational thinking is constantly being challenged. There are fake news on the Internet, selfie cameras come with beauty, and videos are full of computer-generated clips. All these are driven by the capitalist economy and consumerism, all to stimulate our nerves and desires - anger, fear, Pleasure, jealousy, etc. Perhaps we have never been the kind of rational individuals envisioned by Descartes, but contemporary technology and culture flooded with vision have greatly magnified our irrational side.
And this movie reflects the current connection between vision and irrationality, implying that visual culture not only brings information explosion, convenient life and rich entertainment, but also a threat to rational subjects. Therefore, the person who saw that horrible thing would either kill himself and stop watching it, or lose his rationality and become a lunatic. Vision no longer promotes the formation of the thinking self, but becomes a force to destroy the self. Although the movie shows this horrible thing as some kind of huge supernatural power (with shadows and sounds), as long as you hide in a closed room or blindfold it, you don’t need to look at it, but this thing itself does not have a fixed image, probably I also want to use it to refer to the self-destructiveness brought about by the obsession and obsession with vision.
However, if the criticism of visual culture is understood as the main theme of film, the biggest problem is that the medium of film itself is a typical visual technology. Like a novel, a movie also hopes to bring the audience into the world it presents, to give people an experience of being separated from daily life, and to make people feel empathetic. While this movie criticizes the vision, it also relies on the vision to convey information. Contradiction and a sense of distance, I cannot and do not want to experience the end times it presents.
The second problem is motherhood.
The heroine played by Sandra Bullock is very clichéd. How a heroic mother raises and takes care of her children in a harsh environment and carries the maternal glory to the extreme, but the mother itself is very empty. At the beginning of the film, she was accompanied by her sister for a prenatal checkup. Her words showed that she was very resistant to the birth of a child. She also doubted whether she could establish a relationship with the child, and even considered giving it to others for adoption. After the emergence of the apocalyptic scene, all of her resistance and doubts disappeared in an instant. After giving birth, she became a super mother and ventured to find food and supplies, trying to provide her own son and the little girl entrusted to her by the pregnant woman with all the needs of life. The seamless transition between them did not reflect her struggles or inner contradictions at all. (There was only a little conflict between her and the little girl, but it was resolved by shouting in the jungle to express the truth, too casual)
The movie ignores another possibility. A pregnant woman who does not expect to have a child knows that when the end of the world is coming, she knows that the future of the child who is about to be born is very terrible, at least much worse than the world before the end. Will the pregnant woman consider killing the child? ? If you get rid of it, there won't be one more person to suffer her suffering. If it is because she was pregnant late, and if the abortion will affect her, then the physical injury suffered in the process of reluctantly aborting the child is compared to being a super mother trying to raise the child and alleviating the child’s suffering, perhaps it is Greater move. Of course, it would be very controversial to say that, after all, our society basically defaults to pro-life. However, the film presents the heroine’s ambivalent attitude towards having a child and then ignores such an obvious possibility of psychological development. It appears to lack depth and the characters are very unreliable. They are completely reduced to props to promote the plot, and cannot be liked or empathized. .
Of course, it can be said that the reason why the heroine can survive tenaciously in such an apocalyptic world is precisely because she has two children to take care of, and the children are her spiritual pillar. This is also the understanding of motherhood that we are accustomed to, and we often even regard being a mother as the ultimate achievement of a woman. Only by becoming a mother can a complete woman realize her potential, become stronger, and become the best. self. But in this way, the heroine's decision to give birth unconsciously or subconsciously is very selfish. Her son is so innocent, and he was taken into such a terrible world without being asked for advice. It can be said that what she has done It is immoral to impose a miserable life on others.
However, broadly speaking, childbirth itself is probably immoral. As Schopenhauer said, there may be happiness in life, but there are more sufferings. We are all suffering people (fellow sufferers). The essence of existence is suffering, and no suffering is better than suffering. Then the absence of existence is better than existence. Better. So the contemporary philosopher David Benatar's book on anti-natalism is, Better Never to Have Been.
While this movie tried to present the image of a super mother, it also concealed the immoral side of her motherhood.
In short, the setting proposed by the movie is very interesting, but the development is too bad.
* There are various reasons for anti-fertility. Benatar’s reason is more abstract, from the perspective of the individual who will be created. It seems absurd, but it is also difficult to refute. Who can say that his life is happy and painless, and he has lived his own life. People who think seriously, who wouldn't occasionally sigh "It's so tired and hard to live". There are also some anti-fertility activists who think for themselves that having a child will occupy more resources and opportunities, which is not conducive to personal freedom and development. This statement is easier to refute, especially criticized by traditional social customs, but it is also itself One of the valid reasons. Other anti-biosis people do not start from themselves, but out of consideration for environmental protection, they oppose fertility, the earth's resources are tight, and the increase in population brings more consumption and destruction; deepen it, post-humanism (Post-humanism) It is believed that humans are also part of the natural environment and are not much more noble than other creatures. The earth does not exist for humans. Therefore, we have an obligation to consider all other non-human creatures.
Anti-fertility activists are more likely to be accused of standing and talking and not having back pain. They have already been born, and they say that if they never existed, it would be fine. It sounds hypocritical. Of course, the more ugly statement is that since it feels that existence is suffering, Then why don't you go to see Marx? However, these are personal attacks, not a counterattack against the rationality of antibiosis. It can even be said that those who attack antibiosis in this way are precisely those who are too conservative. They regard all customs as the supreme truth. So I didn't even dare to doubt it a little bit.
Reflecting on whether fertility is ethical does not mean that everyone must be opposed to fertility, but that people want to think about their own behavior and have a more comprehensive understanding, rather than go with the flow and go through a life that is not self-selected.
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