Obviously, this movie returns to this old but evergreen theme:
What is existence?
This is a wonderful journey, first seven and a half floors. The seventh and a half floors are at the junction of the seventh and eighth floors, so the floor height is shorter than normal. People can only bend over and arch their backs when working in such a narrow corridor, and cannot stand. Secondly, what is even more amazing is that by chance, the doll master found a passage behind the wall through which he could enter John Malkovich's thoughts for 15 minutes.
In the beginning, people's mentality was just curiosity, after all, this is the world in the eyes of others. After the fresh experience, people begin to examine their own lives before experiencing the lives of others. It just so happens that Malkovich is not an ordinary person, but an actor, a person whose quality of life is much higher than that of ordinary people, which provides ordinary people with a better choice.
For men, this means: a
more successful life, higher social status, and beautiful
women are more interesting for women:
women’s consciousness still exists, but there is a man’s body.
The penis and vagina play their roles together, unprecedented physiological stimulation, and then affect the psychology.
The story unfolds like this. When the doll operator Craig’s wife Lotte entered Malkovich’s mind, she fell in love with the woman Craig was obsessed with, Maxine, and Maxine also fell in love with Malkovich, who was possessed by Lotte. In this way, two women frequently passed through a man’s body. Have copulation. An angry Craig kidnapped his wife and locked her in a cage with the orangutan, while he pretended to be Lotte and entered Malkovich's consciousness with Maxine. Maxine thought it was good, so he fell in love with Craig's consciousness and Malkovich's body.
Everyone's existence has changed because of entering the consciousness of others. The life they want to achieve, the flesh they want to achieve, are all satisfied. The director seems to explain this truth in the first half of the film:
As long as the consciousness is his own, even if the body is someone else's, the joy of the body can still be felt through the brain.
With this premise, the protagonist in the film can be more arbitrary. Craig simply completely controlled Markovich's mind, occupied his body, and used his fame to fulfill his once embarrassed puppetry career. Although Maxine became his wife, he still missed the feeling of Lotte possessing a man before.
Then came the chaotic battle of consciousness, but this is not the Malkovich of a certain person, there are a lot of people waiting to experience different lives, and a group of elderly people waiting in line to enter their thoughts, in order to make their consciousness never disappear. .
Do people really want to be Malkovich? No, people only use him to achieve themselves, such as Craig; or through him, to know themselves, such as becoming the two protagonists of lesbians. People are not attached to what the body is, but attached to their own "thoughts." Consciousness and the body are completely separated in this film. It is not just their own body that can feel the joy, even to make their own consciousness forever Pass it on, do not hesitate to occupy a younger body. This is definitely the eulogy of Hegel's "absolute concept", where consciousness is equal to the existence of human beings. Chinese-style Marxism must not like such a film because it reverses the status of the primary and secondary. This is definitely a film of inherited and typical Western thoughts, because only Western thoughts have legends and desires about the immortality of the soul.
So Malkovich was used alive, because his consciousness was not strong enough, he could only be himself when the consciousness of others left. He is just an empty shell, and different thoughts can travel freely. Being John Malkovich is just material becoming, but spiritually it is a tribute to the absolute self.
We have jumped from existentialism to absolute idealism again, "I think, I am solid." This is an exposition of Descartes. Isn't what is left then a consciousness of manipulating others? You can abandon your body, but cling to your own consciousness, because that is what really proves that you are still yourself.
Existence is consciousness. This is the core of this film. We still remember that when Malkovich entered his consciousness, the world became Malkovich. Men, women and children, all have a face of Malkovich, and the language has only one tone, which is Malkovich, so this is also the only word. When the whole world has become "me", it is simply a nightmare. Is this also the inconsistency of consciousness and body? Here is a foreshadowing.
It is precisely because of the inequality between consciousness and matter that has created the unbalanced psychology of human beings. Let us return to the ancient but still unsolved problem: the
mind longs for eternity, but the body is powerless.
This film is a tribute to self-consciousness. It is an invisible struggle. It is no longer an ancient melee fight, but a spiritual mutual devouring, terrifying and sad.
After Descartes, mind and matter became two parallel lines, and they did not interfere with each other. Existentialism strives to take root in the body, and only on the basis of the body can self-choice be made. And in today's spiritually developed and human body numb, doesn't the sense of exchange make people feel the freshness and meaning of life again?
e
2009/08/02
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