When the world becomes the villain

Clarissa 2021-11-24 08:01:24

From the appearance, "Going Through Water and Fire" is easily reminiscent of "Old Nowhere". The Texas where their stories take place has similar character settings and a dim space background.

"Old Nowhere" talks about unprovoked and pure evil. The Coen brothers created a cold-blooded killer, Anton Zieg, who killed police, passers-by, and even the employer who had just given him the task. The whole movie makes people shudder, just like the Texas landscape it outlines: loneliness and desolation. In this even somewhat abstract world, killing has become Anton Zieg’s way of survival. Last year’s Japanese movie "A Generation of Disorders" is similar, and the protagonist’s way of getting along with the world also relies on pure violence. The subject of "Going Through Water and Fire" is also evil, but the object points to the world and environment in which the characters live. And for the characters is full of deep sympathy.

The film begins with a robbery. Before the picture appeared, the tragic and uneasy soundtrack lingered away, which seemed to herald the coming of a tragedy. As the culprits began to speak, the soundtrack came to an abrupt end. Unexpectedly, there was no tension in the whole robbery. The gangsters did not seem to have done anything like this. They were clumsy to make people laugh. The bank tellers were also teasing them for being novices and admonishing them seriously. When the bank manager came, they even greeted each other, and the whole scene was shot with a little black humor. When they fled the bank and drove on the road, the sad and uneasy soundtrack before the opening sounded again. The signs on the roadside with "Bankruptcy" and "Debt Relief" laid out the background of the film's economic depression. Through this quiet technique, the director puts the bank staff and the gangsters in the victim's situation, and they are all shrouded in a bad atmosphere.


As can be seen from the subsequent dialogue, the culprits are brothers. The older brother Tanner was wild and unruly, while the younger brother Toby was calm and restrained. It was introduced by a client that their mother mortgaged the real estate to Midland Bank by means of a "reverse mortgage" due to poverty. The bank gave the mother the least funds to meet the needs of life. When the mother died, the real estate was owned by the bank. . By chance, Toby discovered that there was oil under the farm. In order to repay the huge loan to recover the property and give his ex-wife and son a safe living condition, Toby called his brother Tan to join the team and used the bank robbery to repay the loan. . Their approach is very unique, they just grab the change and won't take the initiative to harm the innocent.

So we can see that the robbery of the two brothers is actually a resistance to their environment. The real villain in this story is the world they are in. Interestingly, the client mentioned above also became the "rebel" in the story. Like the two brothers, he was filled with indignation at the bank's shameless behavior. The title "Hell or High Water" came out of his mouth. He reminded the two brothers to go to the bank to reclaim the property in advance even if they "fought through fire and water".

Ben Foster, the actor of Tanner, said in an interview: "The core of this film is brotherhood. Generation after generation, a history of violence and distortion, this film is about how they struggled to survive together. The director used a scene to emphasize the love of brotherhood. The two brothers drank and played in the sunset. Their figures appeared on the screen in silhouette. The background music was "I'm Not Afraid to". "die", brotherhood is silent and strong, and the breath of death has permeated the poetic situation.

The interlude of the whole film is very heavy, or bold, poetic or sad, which should be timely in accordance with the atmosphere of the film.

The opposite is a symmetrical figure: the policeman who hunts them is also a two-person partner. Inspector Marcus was wise and alert, mocking the descent of the Indians under him in every possible way; Assistant Alberto was taciturn and endured everything.

It is worth noting that the director has repeatedly edited the relationship between the police partner and the two brothers. On the one hand, it highlights and intertextualizes their brotherhood; on the other hand, it also highlights the interweaving of the four. destiny.

I saw in a review that the director said that in his opinion this is a neo-western movie. The famous film scholar Robert Caulk described the conventions of western films in his book "Film, Form and Culture" as follows: "Building civilized communities in the wild hinterland is the core of the western film narrative. White settlers and barbarians The narrative of human struggle and heroes seeking to protect small communities from gangsters was quickly determined." In this film, the screenwriter evolves these two conventions into more complex conflicts on two levels.

In the first level of conflict, the object of confrontation between the two cowboy brothers has become a bank. In order to change their fate, they committed robbery and murder, which is very different from the traditional cowboys against Indians and maintain justice and order. "When the cowboy becomes a gangster", this new era background of Western changes has added sadness to the characters.

The second level of conflict is the police versus the brothers and gangsters. There is a key dialogue between the police partners. Alberto pointed out that the banking industry has infringed on the residents just like the American army's purge of the Indians. This sentence not only countered the detective’s mockery, but also vividly pointed out the behavior of the banking industry. Brutality and shamelessness. And their pursuit of this pair of gangsters naturally lost the pleasure similar to the confrontation between the police and the bandit in "Noon".

The screenwriter used the setting of characters to compose the possibility of western films in the new era, and at the same time enriched the drama conflicts, but also took into account the reality of this aspect, which is a brilliant pen (this film was nominated for the best original screenplay of this year's Oscar) . This is also the brilliance of this story. In this film, the two brothers are both complicated, the boundary between good and evil is blurred, and the police's law enforcement has lost its natural legitimacy and fell into a predicament.

The idea of ​​this story is very similar to "Guling Street Juvenile Murders." Yang Dechang accused the oppressive era through a real homicide case. He believed that "this homicide is not a pure murder. The environment, the murderer is the whole environment, and Xiao Ming himself is also the murderer." Xiao Ming also killed Xiao Ming and his own ideals and innocence. He also faced imprisonment in the end. This film is a completely cold tragedy, and Yang Dechang's attitude is always on the sidelines.

Although the creators of "Go Through Water and Fire" sympathized with the brothers, their behavior violated the law after all and must be tried. The tone of the film has also changed from the initial lightness and humor to tension and solemnity. Tanner drew the police fire alone for his younger brother. In the final battle, Alberto and Tanner died one after another, and their deaths became the high point of the film's tragedy. Tanner's death was to ensure a balance of values. However, while punishing evil, the power of justice is also lost. This ambiguous treatment of the fate of the police and bandits in the play continues until the end of the film.

Marcus, a retired detective, came to his home to hunt down Toby. The tension between them was prevented by the normal life of this broken family. The law enforcement officers could not make a judgment that they believed to be correct, and the two sides reached a tacit agreement to end the war temporarily. In the last shot of the film, the camera swept over this almost wild wilderness scene, bringing out the oil drilling rig that pointed to hope, and finally slowly disappeared under the grass, concealing the audience's vision. The gleaming blue and yellow let us see some hope that the world will become better, and at the same time, in the face of this tragedy, we can only turn a blind eye for a while and get a little respite.

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Extended Reading
  • Syble 2022-03-22 09:01:33

    Have you ever met anyone get away from anything? The brutal brother and the low-key brother, the old cowboy and the Indian, the red-necked dilapidated town, the people with two guns in Texas. A lot, very good

  • Laverne 2022-04-24 07:01:04

    Western literary flavor, in the desolate and barren background, poverty has become a desperate gamble for evil.

Hell or High Water quotes

  • Tanner Howard: Lord of the plains... that's me.

  • Toby Howard: Slow down.

    Tanner Howard: I ain't speeding.