Sheep have the fate of sheep, and people have the way of life

Monroe 2022-04-02 09:01:18

Originally published in "Beijing Youth Daily" "Beijing Youth Art Review" on June 24.

In many films about people and animals, the loyalty of animals is used to reflect the fickleness of people. No matter whether the animal species is common or rare, the dark side of the body will be deliberately erased by the creator, only to magnify the beautiful qualities that human beings want them to have. In the Nordic film Ram, which won the Un Certain Regard Award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, the goats are not driven by the wishes of Icelandic herders, especially brothers who have not spoken to each other for 40 years.

If you don't look at your words and actions, and place yourself in a modern society, you are simply asking for a dead end. Men and women who crave some emotional comfort from their pets need their eyesight. In the picture of the younger brother bathing the love sheep in the bathtub, if we switch to our familiar daily life, the seamless connection should be that the new-looking cats and dogs are eager to get into the arms of their owners. But the sheep seemed to be suffering a great humiliation, and just wanted to escape as soon as possible.

However, there is nothing wrong with the living standards of sheep in northern Europe represented by Iceland, which is sparsely populated in the film. As the country with the smallest population density in Europe, Iceland is difficult to divide people into groups. The heating method of the cold fairyland relies more on the mutual support of relatives and friends. The sheep, which occupies an important seat in Norse mythology and legends, are not only the source of life and economy, but also the sustenance of emotion and life for the Nordic people, especially Icelanders. Sheep do not need to preach with the slogan "equality of animals and people", status is born.

In the eyes of the two brothers who have been singles for most of their lives in the film, sheep are the only carrier for them to resist the lonely and monotonous life, and they are bigger than the sky. Just like Ken Lodge's 1970 film "The Boy and the Eagle", the Eagle is the only proof of his identity as a teenager in a dull industrial town in the UK. The brothers looked happy when they called the sheep "baby". They were all parents who loved their children, and the only thing they wanted in return was that they could live healthy and stay together.

In order to exterminate the disease that is similar to the plague that spreads widely among the flocks, the government issued official documents to slaughter and bury goats in a centralized manner. Herdsmen with family members accept the reality with sadness, or plan to move to other places to make a living, or wait for the arrival of a new breed of sheep two years later. The goats don't care whether their "noble" bloodline will disappear, as if they were brainwashed by Darwin's theory of evolution, and understand that genocide and the survival of the fittest are natural laws.
The two brothers, however, are trying to figure out how to deal with each other. The rude and reckless older brother resisted stubbornly, to no avail, and the gentle and delicate younger brother secretly left eight sheep to hide their vitality. When the only remaining fruit could not escape the bad luck, the brothers released their suspicions and found that each other was still each other's support. Compared with the well-recognized title of "The Ram", the subtitle "The Tale of Two Brothers and Eight Sheep" is more reminiscent of the audience.

But the sheep are regarded as treasures by the two brothers again, and they are only props for their emotional reunion in their twilight years. Director Grimm Hacknelson used sheep instead of other animals to connect the two brothers, because sheep are ordinary and ordinary, and it is more universal to talk about things through sheep. The shepherd dog in the film has also acted as a "mediator", but it is obviously incapable and has no self-confidence. He finds the place where the two brothers meet in their hearts. Evidence almost turned into nonsense.

And if the brothers have been living together, will the importance of the sheep diminish? The end of the video gives a positive answer. The two drove eight sheep to the plateau for refuge. They encountered extreme weather. The younger brother lost consciousness in the violent snowstorm, and the older brother used his body to keep him warm on the spot. The two naked old bodies embraced each other without any visual aesthetics, but in the icy and snowy environment, it is hard to be moved by other distracting thoughts. Whether the sheep will be swallowed by the bad weather is not the point.

The brothers resisted their insults outside the wall, and it was only natural that they reunited afterwards. But in fact, for decades, the two have reserved a place for each other in their hearts. The older brother's attempt to use his body temperature to "wake up" his younger brother's body is easy for the audience to compare with the previous picture - the younger brother once used an excavator to send his drunken brother to the hospital to save his life, and he fell to the ground. The place is the door of my younger brother's house, which is a few steps away from the residence. However, the different oral orders before the death of the parents made the farm that originally belonged to the assets in the name of the younger brother, after being occupied by the older brother, obviously could live in the vast world everywhere, and the younger brother insisted on opening up another world near the elder brother's house. Of course, the behavior of the younger brother stealing the sheep was not just for himself.

Such a film with a simple story and a cold style naturally has regional characteristics, including the music created by piano, bagpipes and other musical instruments, and it also has a cold air. It seems that the Icelandic style can penetrate large and small screens and rush directly to the audience. And every detail that is related to each other has also worked hard. It seems that they are all related to sheep, and they all refer to the changes in the relationship between the two brothers.

For example, the explanation of the reason for the discord between the two is through the dictation of the younger brother to the stranger. But the audience flashed back to the brothers' handshake and the way they got along before, and they were able to automatically fill in the picture - almost every time the brother burst out, he used double-layer violence on his brother in words and actions, but his brother was willing to be a victim . The audience's emotions were tied up in the scenes of brothers and opponents quietly, and the warmth finally broke out in a concentrated manner. No wonder the audience couldn't resist.

Similar to the practice of using rams to test the emotional index of two brothers, it can also be found in the short film "Wrestling" directed by Hack Nelson in 2007. The short film wraps wrestling moves with dance, both soft touches and fierce confrontations, pointing to the emotional curves of a gay couple. At the end, under the watchful eyes of the two of them, the body got closer and closer, and the wrestling was rewritten step by step into a face-to-face dance. The reaction of others, especially the married wife and daughter present, was hidden. The ending is the same: if the next second of life is irreversible, it is better to let time stop - the parties are obviously more cunning than the audience, persuading the director to freeze the warmth they want. The little flowers blooming from the slightly cruel life gap, at least at this moment, are blooming romantically.

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Extended Reading
  • Pearlie 2022-04-08 09:01:13

    6.5 The theme of the reconnection of two brothers in a strong conflict is so lackluster

  • Jane 2022-04-05 09:01:07

    Icelandic New Wave masterpiece. It happened to be 10 years apart from the Romanian New Wave that started with a kind of attention award in 2005. According to the director, it was deeply influenced by NCR (mainly the processing method and ending of "history" in the film, etc.). The photography is excellent, the play and method are very realistic (later the same as the Swedish [crow] and the French [small peasant]) and it is closely related to the environment. The characters are also well written. Almost five stars.