Fish, Dogs, and Words in "A Fish Called Wanda"

Christine 2021-11-15 08:01:24

a fish

In the Anglo-American cultural context, "cold fish" is almost used to refer to cruel and ruthless people.

In "A Fish Called Wanda", "Fish" is even more burdened with multiple identities.

One is as a play element, the other is a prop inside the lens, and the third is as a metaphor for "Wanda"-a cold and ruthless woman. The fourth is as a cultural symbol.

Throughout the operation of the movie, as an object/prop, the fish first participated in the construction in the opening scene. We saw two "Wandas" wandering in Ken's room, and the basic characteristics and emotional relationship of the three people Present. In the climax passage, the fish was caught by Otto and swallowed, which also echoed the plot’s suggestion of characters and emotions. When Ken’s nasal cavity was filled with Otto, the fish became a cultural symbol and appeared in Otto’s words: "Fries should be served with fried fish." Then he picked up the fish in the fish tank and swallowed it. Maybe he thinks that this eating action helped him digest the shadows of a certain British culture that used the same language to move into his body.

As an element of the play, compared with the symbolic objects in "Two Old Smokers", the fish appears slick, flexible, and harmless, and it does appear as a comical, nonsensical, and logical black. comedy. The direction of the characters is out of control and full of imagination. The actions of each character are more to show the unconventional characteristics of black comedy and the contradictions and struggles that are always inconsistent in reality.

Three dogs

The movie uses a secondary line to show the process of Ken assassinating the old woman.

Dog-loving Ken accidentally killed the old woman's three dogs in the process of killing. The death cycle of the three dogs is almost an essential part of the movie. On the one hand, it shows Ken's "anti-social" personality, which corresponds to his lack of social skills. On the other hand, it reveals the strategies of many black comedy films: using the constantly appearing cycle of death as a mockery of the concealed death of the conventional world and highlighting the "value".

Everyday words

The core of black comedy movies is subtle irony and flipping. Complete the iteration and reversal of classic values ​​in a joking way.

For example, the use of words in movies shows the lack of character and interest of each character.

The United Kingdom and the United States share a set of language systems, but they present structural barriers to communication due to cultural differences in socio-historical geography. It is impossible to explain a certain form of opposition within a language, because it is moderated by the use of language. And when this language system falls on a specific individual, it even presents an indispensable self-contradiction within the language.

Someone (Otto) tries to learn deep language (philosophy), but is madly clumsy in the rules of the language of life. For example, he does not allow anyone to say "stupid". It turns out that he lacks his own words and tries to use those recognized Language to collage yourself. Some people (Ken) stutter and lose their social discourse and power, but they also have personal anger and ecstasy. There are also people (Wanda) who have a variety of styles, but do not understand foreign languages, so they lose an endogenous desire. Wanda vacillates among men. It seems that they are both right and left, but in fact they are just a fish in a tank.

The protagonist who plays the lawyer is actually the screenwriter of the film, and this kind of discourse penetrates from the outside of the frame into the inside of the frame. A middle-aged British man with a fat belly, depressed and dull has realized compensation in the text of the video. Sexual counterattack imagination.

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Extended Reading
  • Doug 2022-04-22 07:01:09

    To paraphrase Lolita's comments, the film's theme should be the abduction of stoic British men by dynamic American women. Don't call me stupid, small language fanaticism, I wanted to tell you for a long time, Aristotle is not Belgian.

  • Ryley 2021-11-15 08:01:24

    None of the actors in the film looked pleasing to the eye, which greatly reduced my enthusiasm for watching. The plot is messy, it's a trick of extravagance, and there is also a funny thing, that is, looking tired~~

A Fish Called Wanda quotes

  • Otto: Nice fish, Ken. You know what Nietzsche said about animals? "They were God's second blunder."

    Ken: Well, you t-t-t-tell him from me that I kuh-kuh, I kuh-kuh...

  • Wanda: I looked at the clock... because I was saying to myself... It's five to seven, where could he be going with that sawed off shotgun?