But in the same way, every work of art has an openness to be appreciated and criticized, and some criticisms of "Youth Pi" also keep appearing as the popularity of the movie increases, but personally, Ang Lee's gorgeous show The dream within a dream, with its unique and profound perspective, is enough to shock me, and I think there is room for discussion on some of the main criticisms of the film.
1. Criticisms that the visual effects of the film are not dreamy enough.
Although "Little" has presented a beautiful visual feast, it still cannot meet the needs of some film lovers. I personally think that the fantasy journey constructed by Ang Lee is actually not that unreasonable, because telling the first story needs to take into account that the audience cannot have enough arguments to question its authenticity before the ending. , so all the content in the fantasy journey is generally not surreal, which determines that the vision of "Little" is based on the extension of the real scene, and naturally cannot be compared with the surreal magic such as "Avatar" or "The Lord of the Rings". The themes are comparable. In addition, as an oriental Ang Lee, the dream-in-a-dream he shows is also limited by his introverted character (which determines his long-term movie style), which is bound to exist in the visual feast of mainstream Hollywood. Difference.
2. Criticisms that the film has insufficient dramatic conflict and is too flat
There is no need to say much about this point. If you expect Ang Lee's films to have strong dramatic conflicts, then there will be no "Pushing Hands", "Wedding Banquet", "Eating Men and Women", "Crouching Tiger Tibet" in film history. Dragon", "Brokeback Mountain", "Lust••Caution" exist. Throughout the history of film directors, there are very few people who can interpret every type of film very well. The most famous of them is Stanley Kubrick, whose extraordinary black magic makes his fans Crazy about it (I am the most fanatical one), and Ang Lee is also among them. His genres are not even under Kubrick. His unique film language full of oriental charm and restraint is also fascinating. drunk. In my opinion, the core of "Short" is the philosophical thinking of Bergman, and the dramatic conflict of the fantasy journey is not so important under such a core.
3. To be honest, I still agree with the criticism of the film's plot meanings that are obscure and difficult to understand
. "Little" is more like a story containing a fable. If you want to deeply understand what it expresses, you need to pass Keep thinking about the fable (i.e. the first story) to get it. So in a sense, the storytelling structure of "Shao" is somewhat like "Big Fish" (so I didn't feel any surprise at the end, just a lot of doubts), but the process of understanding it requires Like watching Mulholland Drive. David Lynch created the great "Mulholland Drive" from Freud's "The Interpretation of Dreams" to show the real story through dreams, and this is precisely the way of "Little", so the entire first A story is more like a dream derived from reality, and this dream is contained in the dreamland of the fantasy journey of "Shao" constructed by Ang Lee. The second story only shows half, and if we want to understand the second half, we must analyze the first story, which makes us have to refocus on Ang Lee's dream after watching the movie. In fact, in my opinion, what Ang Lee wanted to express with the help of this dream is not as straightforward as "firm faith". I will talk about my understanding below.
From the structure of the film, we can easily divide it into four parts, the first part is the story of Pi in India, the second and third parts are dreams within a dream, the split point is in the tiger, and the fourth part It is the story after the tiger leaves.
Many people questioned that the first part is somewhat lengthy and meaningless, but in my opinion, the first part actually shows Pi's inner doubts and remaining problems, and these are precisely the important basis for understanding the following story. First of all, Pi encountered embarrassment at a very young age, that is, the problem of name, and it was "π" that finally helped him resolve this embarrassment, and this can be understood as general science, that is, Pi found that science (non-religious belief) can help He solves the problem, in addition, in the dinner part of the film, the parent's conversation pits religion and science against each other for the first time (the first set of contradictions), which also makes Pi even more puzzled. In addition, Pi has a lot of religious beliefs since he was a child, but he cannot understand the essence of these religions, and asks "why does a perfect God create imperfect human beings", which can be understood as Pi's closeness to religion but doubts in his heart Attitude. This is also concentrated in the tiger incident. Pi, who was influenced by religion, originally thought that tigers were not scary, as long as we could treat it with the attitude of God to people, but the fact made him aggravate his concern for religion, or more accurately God's questioning.
Next, we move on to the second part, which is the one that needs the least interpretation, because story 1 and story 2 can be understood as long as they are simply compared. The story is just a dream created by Pi's imagination about story 2. And if we are careful, we can find that this is actually the most conflicting and powerful part of the story, but it occupies very little space in the movie. It can be seen that this is not the core of the movie. Ang Lee did not want to show the sadness of human nature through a tragedy, but It is to explore an ultimate philosophical proposition through the growth of young Pi, whether God (or God) exists.
When the tiger rushes out, the film enters the third stage, and the second set of contradictions in the film appear: the boy Pi who has experienced religious baptism (before the tragedy) and the boy Pi with the primitive impulse of human nature (after the tragedy). Due to the incident in the second stage, the juvenile Pi changed from one to two, which is why I compare "Youth" to "Mulholland Drive". The two juvenile Pi just formed Freud's "Id and Ego" "In "id (including all instinctive driving forces that require immediate gratification, often unconscious)" and "ego (between the id and the superego, representing reason and wit)", the former corresponds to the post-tragedies. Pi (hereafter referred to as Tiger), the latter corresponds to Pi before the tragedy (hereafter referred to as π), these contradictions also constitute the core of the film, and the guidance, education and influence of religion and human society on the young Pi constitute π The tiger's original desires and impulses clashed violently with it.
So we saw the confrontation between the tiger and π. However, in the process of confrontation, π found that if he wanted to survive in the end, it was not enough to rely on the power of faith alone. In the process of drifting, he had to rely on science (how to build a small raft). , how to fish, etc.), in order to survive it has to go against belief (eating fish, etc.), and all of this has caused π’s heart to question belief again, and two things that are opposed to belief (science and primitive desire) have played a role The role of helping him survive, so π has inadvertently changed - he has changed from fighting the tiger to getting along with the tiger, and the deep meaning of such a relationship is that he no longer opposes science, primitive desire and belief. Instead, fuse them together, so that Pi's mind is at peace, Pi and Tiger are no longer opposed, but become complementary to each other.
At this time, the storm came, and Pi shouted out the question he had suppressed for a long time, "Why does God allow so many misfortunes to happen to human beings", and the display of the wonders of the sky made Pi deeply shocked. He suddenly realized that only faith can make him face pain and misfortune, and faith can make him accept all of this safely, so the storm ended, π and the tiger depended on each other, and for the first time he hoped to die peacefully, and such a state of mind is precisely the reason for faith. given. Faith finally acts as a sanctuary at a time when neither science (the raft collapses) nor the primal drive of desire (the tiger sinks) can do anything about it, which must have dispelled his childhood doubts about it.
At this moment, the important scene of the film - the island appeared. And this island, I think, represents a sanctuary of faith. In the sanctuary, everything is good (food, beauty, leisure), but this sanctuary is cannibalistic at night. This magical island just shows the two sides of faith. On the one hand, it immerses people in a beautiful and peaceful state of mind. On the one hand, people lose their human attributes and disappear into a refuge (ie die peacefully). This is also why the tiger, who represents the primitive impulse and desire, only goes to the island during the day to satisfy his desire, but flees at night (against the primitive desire to survive). The appearance of the island made π truly understand the nature of faith, and he finally understood everything that had troubled him for a long time. So at the end, Pi said that he would like to thank the island, because without the island he may have died in the storm because of fear, but at the same time he has to leave the island, because he does not want to disappear into the sanctuary of faith, and he has to return to human beings society.
At the end of the third stage, π returned to the mainland, and at this time, after experiencing the struggle between the id and the ego, he finally understood how to deal with their relationship with each other, and finally understood that neither faith, science nor desire are opposites. Finally understand that life is not just suffering and avoiding it, its meaning is far from it. At this moment, he finally grows up, and will return to the society from then on, to the process of superego.
"But if there is no Tiger, I can't come back here alive." When Pi changed back to Pi, he also had to say goodbye to Tiger. It’s like we keep growing and become more satisfied with ourselves. At the same time, we have to say goodbye to who we used to be. Although he is not perfect, how can there be me without him?
So that line that was repeatedly mentioned appeared, in my opinion it is not the core of the film, so I will not be lyrical here.
Entering the fourth stage of the film, Ang Lee here not only guides us to look back and think about dreams in dreams, but also gives the answer to the ultimate proposition.
Does God (or God) exist?
Pi, who has understood the nature of faith and life, has really found his way forward through this journey (when he was a child at dinner, his father said he had no direction yet), so does he still believe in God?
When Pi told the story of this dream in a dream, I finally understood that what Ang Lee wanted to tell us in this gorgeous dream in a dream is not whether God exists, but whether God exists or not, I am willing to believe It, because it can strengthen my belief, we believe in it not to seek refuge, but to live better.
At the end of the film, Pi is still a vegetarian and has formed a family. Faith makes the tragedy not destroy a teenager, but turns it into a fantastic journey, a dream that is not unpretentious but gorgeous enough.
And that dreamer is really moving towards the ranks of the great directors in film history.
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