Black and white and the rise of color

Alda 2021-11-16 08:01:26

Black and white

With the support of TV programs, the film rationally creates a black-and-white utopian society. The existence of Happy Valley is a spiritual refuge from real life from the beginning.

Because of the daily boring, boredom, and frustration, we always yearn for a different life and want the world to be a better place. This kind of beauty can mean a more harmonious family, a more united society, and a richer life...

Happy Valley is such an imaginary place that is better than the real world. Like David, we can put all our spiritual emotions on this fictional world.

This simple place only presents beauty, stability and happiness. These qualities are almost the goals that most people pursue in their lives.

But if, like the experience of the David brothers and sisters, when all the stability and beauty come from imagination to reality, the absurdity of the world will gradually emerge.

Black and white as the keynote symbolizes all unconventional and inhumane states. In Happy Valley, whether this state is congenital or transformed, I prefer the second one.

If there is no color gene here, and only inspired by two outsiders, the process of "coloring" cannot achieve the same effect as an "infectious disease".

It can then be considered that the residents of Happy Valley exchanged a single stable life with rich colors, voluntarily or involuntarily, and buried their personal characteristics deep in their hearts to obtain the steady operation of the external social machine.

But depriving the diversified colors and leaving only a simple world with clear black and white is crude and absurd. It is a kind of whitewashing. Even David, who was originally a supporter of Happy Valley, realized this.

Therefore, his behavior began to run counter to the previous "normal" of the Happy Valley blindly. Under his influence, the residents also realized this, and it was reflected by the colored people.

If it is said that Happy Valley was transformed from a TV show into the real world in an instant from the beginning, then the people inside have gradually followed in and completed the transformation from a character to a real person.

This is a growth process of self-discovery, inner return, and acceptance of the real existence of good and bad. This is true for people in Happy Valley or outside.

And the concrete appearance of this spiritual growth process is color.

Color rise

From the appearance of the first red rose to the azure blue of the entire sky, the road to the rise of color is a melody from weak to strong.

Among a hundred white spots, there is a black spot, which is different, novel and surprising, a dozen black spots are few, confrontation and threat, and eighty or ninety black spots are many, it is truth and power.

At the beginning, the appearance of various visions in Happy Valley shook the stable position of the mayor and the head of the family, which was a symbol of traditional authority, and the father, while the mother, as a housewife who had been suppressed for a long time, shared the same situation with the theme of color. .

Therefore, in the development of the film, in addition to the two brothers and sisters, more attention has been paid to the mother.

When David put on makeup for his mother to cover up the colors he had already acquired, the society's malice towards minorities and the inner struggle of the weak are fully revealed in this lens.

Later, the power of the color side continued to grow, and the contradiction between the two sides reached the culmination of intensification during the court trial.

At this time, the lower part of the viewing seat is black and white, and the upper part is colored. They are evenly matched, but we know that the chromatic school, which has been growing strongly, has not yet reached its peak.

When David gradually disintegrated the black and white front of his father and even the mayor, the color had changed from the weak to the new power.

In the end, the mayor fled in a hurry, and the colors occupied everyone, the entire town, and everything.

This whole process is full of mapping of history and reality:

People's exclusion due to different colors, conflicts between the two camps, violence and destruction caused by different values, the suppression of new things by traditional powers, the narrow and radicalism of either oneself or the enemy...

What will happen after color triumphs over black and white, new triumphs over old, and everyone is happy?

Just like the last dialogue in the movie, you don't know, I don't know.

View more about Pleasantville reviews

Extended Reading
  • Orpha 2022-04-21 09:01:48

    The story concept is full of artistic philosophy Only people who have been to utopia don't want utopia Also Reese is so disgusting that I want to smash the TV! Bitch!

  • Ford 2022-04-23 07:01:44

    The rhythm is easy and lively, and the plot is extremely ironic (although in fact gary ross must just want to reverse the utopia in the general sense, it is really difficult for us tc netizens to see it not correspond to the 1960s, black and white and blue, blue and gray uniforms are exactly matched). The line between the male protagonist and the mother is quite well laid out, especially complete. Role in old Toby's comfort zone: troubled nerdy teenager...

Pleasantville quotes

  • Jennifer: You can pin me anytime, Skip. Or maybe I should just pin you.

    Skip: [laughs] That's silly, Mary Sue. How could you possibly pin me?

  • Skip: Mary Sue, I think I should go home now.

    Jennifer: Why what's wrong?

    Skip: I think I might be

    [looking down]

    Skip: ... ill. Somethings happening to me.

    Jennifer: [looking with him] That's supposed to happen.

    Skip: It is?

    Jennifer: Yeah, trust me.