"Lola" is the final installment of Fassbender's "West Germany trilogy", based on "The Blue Angels" directed by Josef von Sternberg. The story told in the film is very classical and stylized - the hero, Bohm, is a traditional, conservative doer who was hired as a building commissioner to a small town in West Germany, at the time of the first Federal Republic of Germany. During the tenure of Prime Minister Adenauer, behind the post-war situation where everything was waiting to be rebuilt and the economy recovered rapidly, there were a series of social phenomena such as corruption, inflation, and class differentiation; The power of the time, the most playful thing; the heroine Lola is the singer of the place, and because of a bet with her lover (and regular customer) "Foreman" Schuckert, she took the initiative to meet the man. Lord, shatter the cup of Humeer, which contains seduction, love, betrayal, shame, and depravity.
Compared with the obscure and difficult political demands of Rocha, Godard, Yoshida Yoshige and others, director Fassbender did not deliberately express his personal ideological inclination in the film; ) The humanist Esslin (Esslin) betrayed the ideal and was willing to become a new powerful and powerful episode, but it was only a superficial manifestation of the fragmented and chaotic political situation under the impact of various ideological trends at that time. Therefore, rather than calling "Lola" a political film, it may be more appropriate to call it a noir film about love being disillusioned by the desire for power and materialism.
Maybe it's to show off her own charm, or maybe it's for her kind of person ("He's just not the man for Someone like you"). Heckon kisses her hand in old-fashioned manner, and Schuckter will offer ten bottles of champagne as an apology. Obedient to Bohe's humanity, Laura still maintains a turbulent relationship with him after winning the bet. She ends up weary as she wanders between Burch and Schuckett. In front of Boch, she is a mysterious lady who loves East Asian art (indirectly), she is bright and poised; in front of Schuckter, she is an alcoholic and noisy prostitute. After multiple conflicting stories, Lola drank the bitter wine that her dual identity brought her, and the return of dignity and love made her unable to bear to deceive Bohe again. After sending the farewell letter "Every song has an end", Lola made an almost crazy solo in Fengyue Field. She tore off her jacket, and the film also ushered in its first climax.
However, the lack of tension between paragraphs and the escape of narrative rhythm (of course, this is very common in Fassbender's films), make the ending slightly abrupt. At the end of the story, the "Old-fashioned" Boch chose to follow the trend of the times for Lola's sake, and gave up exposing the many scandals related to power and money transactions in the post-war reconstruction project. Like Islin, he betrayed his ideal of eliminating the elite class. (Because Lola's habitat is a product of the class), chooses to cooperate with Schuckett; Lola is redeemed from the wind and moon field by Bohe, and the former patrons hold a solemn funeral for them. wedding. Lola, who has regained her reputation, has not stopped moving forward, and still maintains a secret lover relationship with Shuckert. According to the lines, she is now a "A rather expensive mistress". As a reward for Lola's nostalgia and support, Shuckert gave her a wedding gift - he bought the Fengyuechang. Of course, now it should be called "Salon".
Although the end of the film seems to be caught in a "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" obsession, the point of this nonsense is not the turning and handling of these story conflicts. If you only talk about the plot, it is really blaspheming Fassbender's genius. As a director with a very dramatic style, Fassbender did not use the nearly perfect interior scene scheduling in "Beware of the Prostitutes", the complicated sports scenes in "The World's Eve" or "China Wheel". The maddened line processing in "Disc" instead refers to the concept of "stage" or "stage fantasy" in drama. The entire film revolves around only three scenes—Fengyuechang, the municipal office, and Bohe’s rented house. effect.
Compared with the simple scenes and the switching between scenes, Fassbender did his best in the scenery and lighting, and carried out complex and even gorgeous art settings: extensive use and matching of red, yellow and blue primary colors, The separation and connection between color images, and the significant visual differences brought about by light and shade and angle processing all replace, metaphorically, and sublimate the textual attributes of the story to a certain extent. Below I will briefly analyze how Fassbender completes the plot through art design from several aspects:
Primary Colors - Constant Independent Relationships and Color Imagery
“A man has many faces. His everyday face, his Sunday face. Today I don't want to look everyday.”
Here's a line from Boch in the movie. In the process of connecting with society, people will show different social attributes according to their environment, contact with people and functions, that is, the "face" in the text. Bohe was meticulous in his work, and he acted quickly and resolutely. While never being late, he would scold the elderly female secretary and make her arrive at the office one minute earlier than him every day; however, he was modest in life and would talk to his children. An old joke without a joke. Islin is a "little clerk in the city planning department" by day, but at night is a member of an anti-war organization and a drummer in Fengyuechang. The differences between the different faces of Lola are even more obvious. Here, the director uses the original three colors that are completely independent of each other to distinguish the differences of the above-mentioned "faces", and through the elegant lighting, secretly induces the audience to produce corresponding psychological feelings.
It should be emphasized that color imagery is a highly subjective psychological feeling, and the interpretation of the above picture is just my personal opinion and humble opinion. I am extremely unwelcome to "reading comprehension-style" movie reviews (it's okay to entertain oneself as nitpicking as I am~~( ﹁ ﹁ ) ~~~), and even less welcome the "follow-the-fly" style convergence of other people's opinions. The world framed by the film is extremely open, and what it needs is always only the eyes and hearts of the audience, not the so-called comments.
Three primary colors - noble harmony between contrast and connection
Color, as a filling and lining element after two-dimensional art (and movies) relaying lines, light and shadow (both responsible for establishing space and establishing shape), can directly stimulate people's perception. In the less than 70 years since the creation of color film, there are not many masters who can use color reasonably and properly.
Different from Almodovar, Jarman, Shinoda Masahiro, Greenaway and other directors who use stacking, splicing, fragmentation, geometry and other processing methods to apply color to filters, sets, installations and costumes, Fassbender In "Lola", most of the contrast and depth transitions in the lighting are used to combine the independent color blocks with established attributes in a freehand manner, so as to achieve a simple and heavy beauty.
Primary Colors - Transition and End
In addition to the large number of three primary colors, Fassbender also mixed the use of secondary colors in some scenes, such as the violet + lavender (blue + red) used for the set when Tubohe chose clothes. The picture below is outside the office window. Green light source (blue+yellow). Is it intentional, using basic color grading principles to render the plot and the psychological activities of characters; or is it just for artistic needs, this is probably only the director himself can answer (ーー゛).
At some important turning points, Fassbender used a completely different color scheme from the previous tone, which enriched the details of the characters and also provided hints for the development of the subsequent plot. For this loosely narrated "Lola", these tiny footage of the director himself captured may help us better clarify the logical core of the story.
From these two details, I can feel that the director's attitude towards Lola's love (or kindness) is positive. Sadly, I don't find her motivation to change again at the end. The only clue is Laura's own words "I only have one problem, and that is that they never really let me in (in this immoral, sinful, depraved and corrupt world)". However, when Lola faced the painful Bohe, she was surprised to say "you really love me".
The same is true, the former is too pale.
Perhaps Fassbender hated the current situation in West Germany too much. In any case, at the end of the film, Lola is flirting with Shuckert in the wedding room (and there is a smoky red in the frame again). And Bohe was in a trance in the wooden house next to the church, which is where he and Lola made their love, and Islin on one side asked him how he felt——
"Everything is fine," Bohe replied.
The little Mary in the background looks like an angel. After all, the red, yellow, and blue add up to the highest black, just like the sofa that Shuckert is sitting on.
Just for this crap, a tribute to the great Rainer Werner Fassbender and his homage to Alexander Kruger!
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