"Curse" was shot by Japanese, and its style is very similar to "Blair Witch". It creates a real documentary style through the swaying and unrefined DV shooting technique, so as to achieve an attitude that the audience can believe. But compared to "Blair Witch", "The Curse" is obviously better in storytelling. It can be said that it directly brings the audience into supernatural events, and one horror and strange thing is in front of the audience. One by one, the Japanese can still lead the way in the creation of an atmosphere and the narration of strange details, which is incomparable to the college students in "Blair Witch".
At the beginning of the film, it tells the life of the supernatural novel writer Kobayashi. Like a regular author profile, although it is not detailed enough, the works in the lens and the photos of the characters with a sense of age bring the audience into a real world, as if it is a real world. A character special column on TV is average. But then, strange things happened to Xiao Lin. Writer Xiaolin's house was burnt down by fire, and Xiaolin's wife died, but Xiaolin disappeared, and the body was not found at all, only a videotape that had been sorted was left. The production date of this tape was two days after the fire broke out. forward.
Here, no one actually cares whether there is an inevitable connection between this videotape and the fire at Kobayashi's house and Kobayashi's disappearance. But the technique of the documentary tells the audience that if you want to unravel what happened to Xiaolin, you must watch this videotape. This kind of strength is extremely in line with the production technique of exploratory TV specials, that is, to give a result, and then the director will start to tell the quest. the process of. The point that is very emphasized here is that the process given by the director may not be a real exploration process, but many people will follow the thinking of the director without thinking. The production methods such as "Into Science" in the domestic central ten sets are like this. The audience can only proceed with the thinking of the director, and the premise of not being able to participate in the exploration can cause such programs to often do mysteries.
As a result, this tape by the writer Kobayashi became the backbone of the story. When the character Kobayashi was told at the beginning of the film, all the shots were basically stable and normal, but the shots in this tape recorded by Kobayashi Shaking and irregularities began. Since this tape was edited, Kobayashi also came into contact with a lot of related video materials in the process of exploring the mystery, so when these contents were involved, the video style immediately became normal. The existence of these related video materials undoubtedly increases the authenticity of Kobayashi's material record, thereby greatly improving the credibility.
The production of the film obviously follows the style of general TV exploration. Therefore, this film is basically shot with a TV documentary method. Its main purpose is to ask the audience to follow in the footsteps of Xiaolin, and then unconditionally. receive all information. But in fact, despite the assistance of this kind of mirroring, it may not be easy to achieve audience recognition, especially for a horror film about ghosts and gods.
The most amazing thing about Japanese horror films is the creation of the atmosphere, and the techniques used in this creation are color, smoke, depth of field, bizarre images, and even the sudden appearance of evil spirits, etc., but this film is a documentary style because of Therefore, these techniques are almost difficult to use, and it is necessary to show an absolutely realistic shot, but how can this absolutely realistic image effect convince the audience? That's what the Japanese are best at talking and talking about. In many Japanese horror films, the horror spoken by the characters is extremely important. It often gives the audience a sense of immersion, and this sense of immersion seems so close and real, thus creating a real sense of psychological terror.
The director of this film is obviously faced with a major problem, that is, how to implement such a sense of horror through the language of the characters in the play when the image style cannot create a unique and special atmosphere?
Writer Xiao Lin discovered a bizarre clue due to the needs of his career. The family found out that there was a strange phenomenon in the neighbor's house. They often heard the sound of crying babies, and the mother and son of the neighbor's house almost never went out. This was originally a very ordinary event, and in the eyes of the audience, it may be a problem such as autism. Of course, Xiaolin went to the interview with a curious attitude, but the door was closed, but the mother looked a little weird, the pigeon that died tragically in the yard and the little boy hiding behind the curtain. But all this was not enough to have a terrifying effect, so, a few days later, the mother and son moved away, and the family who provided Kobayashi with clues died in a car accident. Here, all things are not connected, and there is no necessary logic, but it is strange that they are combined together, but the meaning of terror is still not manifested. Kobayashi just found out that the strange mother who moved away was called Jiu Jing.
The next step is the appearance of a girl with superpowers. The director obviously knew that with the shaking DV, the audience could not recognize the ability of the little girl, so he used the power of the TV station to show the girl's superpower in a TV column. , so the audience's sense of trust involuntarily increased. But the little girl named Yano became ill after showing super powers.
The third person to appear is a very sensitive actress Mariko, who is also doing a mystery show, but it seems that she has discovered the existence of ghosts. Of course, the show has also been stopped. In the video of the program, an inexplicably dark shadow appeared. This is the only scene in the whole film that seems to be called a ghost, and it is through the video data in Kobayashi's videotape in the movie. The ghost lens after the triple mirror is obviously to show the audience's real experience in in. In reality, the ghost stories we hear are often narrations of the narrator's narration. This sense of distance not only does not make the audience feel far away, but also makes people feel a real sense of reality. When the film downplays the ghost scene, it uses a real empiricism to strengthen the existence of ghosts and gods, which is more in line with the documentary style of this film.
The fourth important person is a psychic who appeared during Kobayashi's interview with Mariko. His appearance was funny, but he had a conflict with Mariko, like a farce. No one would believe this neurotic medium, not even Kobayashi.
There are four characters in Kobayashi's video, and the appearances of these four characters are different, and there is no similarity in the same supernatural event. on the same thing. And let's take a look at the date of the videotape in the film, the appearances of these four characters are also far apart. It is conceivable that Kobayashi's record is completely pointless and aimless. He only interviewed because he was curious. to the effect of accumulating material. This kind of record is very consistent with a writer's life experience, and even said that the curse has nothing to do with Ben at this time.
But then, a connection between the four characters begins. First of all, Yano's disappearance led to the spirit medium, and then Kobayashi went to a small village that was submerged in the water according to the clues provided by the spirit medium, and learned about the ghost sacrifice ceremony held in the village before. During this period, strange events happened to Mariko, but the director was very calm. He still let Mariko have no connection with the matter, but left a woolly mystery to the audience. Therefore, at this time, Mariko still did not enter the curse event. But the discovery in the small village surprised Kobayashi, and all the characters were immediately unified.
In this historic village, Kobayashi not only found the strange mother, but also saw a lot of woolen threads that Mariko saw, so the story finally focused these four main characters through Kobayashi's investigation into one event, namely, The curse of offering sacrifices to ghosts in this ancient village.
The way of telling this kind of story is very consistent with the cognitive process of the characters in reality. If you know that fish is a vegetable, you know that tofu is a vegetable, until you accidentally discover that fish and tofu can form a dish. This is absolutely different from the general film telling method, but it is not difficult for us to find that although the four independent characters are connected very late, the main line of the story is still mastered by the writer Xiaolin, who uses his personal identity. String the story together. His interviews, and his interests, were just one big goal, but that included a curse.
At this time, we look at the time reminder in the video tape. As the story progresses, we immediately see that the interval between each video is also shortening, which not only shows that Kobayashi has discovered the inner connection of events, but also Consciously go to explore this certain event, just because of conscious action, so the next story seems to be concentrated a lot.
When Kobayashi thought that the incident was finally over, he edited all the footage into this tape. Obviously, this is a documentary creation method, that is, looking for the equivalent content under the proposition of "curse". Ordinary documentaries also often record material without a purpose, and then edit together some useful pieces of the same theme. This is the director's secondary creation, and this kind of creation is obviously directed by the director, that is, the documentary film is not the most real record, but incorporates the director's thinking concept. Creativity is truly elevated.
Of course, the film does not end. The misfortune of the Kobayashi family and the disappearance of Kobayashi himself show that the truth of the incident may never be solved. For many exploratory topics, this outcome is perfectly normal. In many cases it is impossible to find the real answer, and the story often has a plausible explanation. The director of the film once again used realistic standards to give the final ending of the film. The ending that is not explained is the ending of the film. It is the best and most reasonable ending of this documentary film, or even the most convincing ending for the audience.
The film is obviously much smarter than "Blair Witch". The seemingly complicated and trivial details are actually carefully arranged by the director. All ordinary mirror images and every plot development point are in line with the audience's perception of the documentary, so It is bound to drive the audience and cause a resonance. This is not only a film packaged in a documentary style, but also a film made almost entirely according to the documentary style, but the director knows that the root of all this is a kind of experience that people know and the mentality of recording on TV. All he has to do is photograph the paranormal events as real as they happen to you.
By the way, every actor in the film performed believably and believably, which is also the guarantee of the success of this film!
Han Xi
2007-7-26 in Tongzhou
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