Original title: "Breathe": A warning fable of emotional suspension
Recently, the French film "Breathe" was registered in domestic theaters. Watching again, still marveling at the director's foresight. The imagery of the work of viral smog suddenly flooding Paris is not only reminiscent of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in the world. But due to the suspension of emotion, it is just like an imperfect warning fable.
narrative novel warning fable
"breath" is an anti-type disaster movie. As a standard genre film, disaster movies should often follow the narrative structure of "life is normal-disaster occurs-escape and mutual rescue-life is restored to peace", accompanied by shocking scenes such as tsunamis and earthquakes, indirectly showing the good and evil of human nature. "Breathe" basically follows this narrative structure, but has been fine-tuned one by one to distinguish it from ordinary disaster movies.
At the beginning of the movie, the director used eight minutes to show the abnormal family situation before the disaster: the husband and wife were in a divorced state; the daughter had been suffering from septicaemia for twelve years and could only live in a sterile oxygen chamber; whether the couple went to Canada or not Arguing over the treatment of her daughter. Then, disaster happened. First there was an earthquake, and then virus smoke from the ground, but the disaster scene was not destructive. On the contrary, there was the spectacular beauty of the smoke surrounding Paris, and people's escape performance was also mediocre.
In the "Escape and Mutual Rescue" part, the film completely discards the images of escaped beings, and only presents the scene of corpses everywhere, and a little hint from the perspective-fireworks caused by riots or other reasons. When the couple escaped upstairs and rescued downstairs, their opponents except for a dog and a policeman were virus smoke that was calm but could cause death at any time. This kind of setting has subtracted many traditional drama conflicts and moral dilemmas, and increased the plot of going up and down repeatedly, which is a great test of the actors' acting skills. At the end of the movie, life has not returned to peace, it is actually a repeated beginning: from the previous father saving the daughter to the daughter saving the father. This broke the previous happy ending. In addition to the novel narrative structure, the setting of the aseptic oxygen chamber is also quite clever. It is not only a place for people with depravity, but also a kind of warning metaphor. On the surface, it is just a high-tech product, but when it is placed in the scientific and technological environment of the film, it is connected with the scientific belief that the mother and daughter in the story believed when they discussed the smoke. The question of humans has invented sterile oxygen chambers, digital glasses, electricity and batteries. These inventions that were originally convenient for humans have made humans rely more and more on them, and they cannot avoid the threat of virus smoke. In fact, the sterile oxygen chamber that can only temporarily guarantee safety is a metaphor for human beings in a disaster threat, and also a metaphor for the surface of the normal but riddled earth. As the German scholar Ulrich Baker put it, human beings are in a "risk society".
The emotional suspension brought about by the weak theme
From the current context of the new crown virus, "Breathe" is undoubtedly a very prophetic work, but also a warning fable. But from the perspective of video art, this still cannot be called an excellent work. The film has meticulous drama, superb acting skills, and novel narrative, but it has suspended the audience's emotions due to the weak theme. The
film script is meticulous. For example, at the beginning of the story, the actor’s dream scene is a metaphor for the illness behind; the oxygen-inhaling elderly’s complaint about “it’s very hot today and it’s cold yesterday” also paved the way for the “earthquake and smoke” disaster. However, due to the abandonment of the disaster scene and the escaped sentient beings, the plot has become thinner, resulting in a narrow theme. The director set the theme as the salvation of love: in the face of disaster, divorced couples choose to save their children without hesitation. The theme itself is not problematic, but it ignores the psychological display, lacks the setting of moral dilemma, and avoids the entanglement of human nature. In the end, the theme is weak and profound, unable to arouse the empathy of the audience.
In addition, improper use of tones, thin fieldScenery settings and missing story history are also the reasons for this result. In terms of color, the golden dreams at the beginning and the end of the hero are warm colors. The intention is to hope for the good, but lacks a sense of power. This dream has already been shown in films such as "Foot Fighter" and "The Tree of Life". Not fresh; the color of the smoke in the middle is reddish, without a sense of depression. In the setting of
, the most in the movie is the smoke covering Paris, and the protagonist crawls to the eaves and uses the telescope to show the audience many times. But the effect of this display is counterproductive: instead of rendering a depressed atmosphere and effectively tightening the rhythm of the movie, it gives people a feeling of laziness and relaxation. This dislocation lies in the choice of static smoke. The scenes in the disaster movie should be vigorous and powerful. For example, sudden earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, etc., only in this way can arouse the audience's fear and lofty emotions.
Finally, in the prehistory of the story, the movie did not point out the origin of the virus smoke. It only learned through the mouth of the characters that it was not war gas, but smoke emerging from the ground. This kind of situation may exist in the real world, but if the movie is vague, the audience will lose the emotional foundation, which will lead to disappointment.
Generally speaking, "Breathe" connects images and reality, and is a prophetic fable movie. Its reflection on science and technology, its keen observation of "risk society", its display of the concept of human life and death, and its metaphor for the human situation are all worthy of recognition. However, the emotional suspension caused by the weak narrative theme should attract the attention of domestic film creators. (Author: Wang left for the Department of School of Literature and Journalism, Jishou University lecturer)
