's currently being screened " silently kills " can be said to be the first shot of the summer movie season. As a low-cost genre film, its box office performance is not bad. However, along with the rapid improvement in box office performance, controversy also followed. The shooting techniques of horror films to create a thrilling effect, close-ups of victims that cause physical discomfort, etc. have all become the focus of criticism from netizens. Does the improper handling of parts reflect the deviation of the overall creative concept? If the creators regard various elements of suspense dramas as semi-finished "material packages" to satisfy curiosity and increase the sense of excitement, and stew them in a pot to stimulate the box office, I am afraid that this type of theme creation will be narrowed and the value of punishing evil and promoting good will be narrowed. Advocacy becomes a castle in the air.
Objectively speaking, as a commercial film and a work by a new director, "Silence" is remarkable in terms of creative completion. The film revolves around a campus murder that occurred somewhere in Southeast Asia. The overall narrative is smooth, the information density is high, and the characters are vivid. From a conceptual point of view, the theme of "the silence of standing by and helping tragedy happen" is also thought-provoking.
As a Malaysian Chinese director, Ke Wenli actually started preparing for the filming of the first version of "Silence" as early as 2018, and this is also his first feature film. Before the film was actually completed, the open film and television industry in mainland China was the first to open its arms to him. He has directed the remake of the movie "Manslaughter" and the web drama "Detective Chinatown ", which enabled him to accumulate creative experience and receive good commercial feedback. And this also laid a good audience base for his remake of "Silent Kill". At the beginning of its release, the hot search on social platforms for "I enjoyed watching "Silence"" clearly illustrates his ability to control commercial films.
However, as the audience continues to expand, the "fun movie" logic of "Silent Kill" has also exposed some problems. The first is that the concentration of suspense crime elements is too high. The entire story involves elements such as school violence, domestic violence, candid photography, juvenile delinquency, education corruption, serial murders, etc., all staged in a welfare school. The level of romance is high, but authenticity is completely sacrificed to create a A "vacuum Gotham" where evil is concocted for the sake of presenting evil. Secondly, in the scenes of school violence and murder, the film focuses on the victims of abuse, and there are many painful and ferocious facial close-ups. Furthermore, in order to create a tense atmosphere, the director turned to the jump scare technique commonly used in horror films. Although it worked, it more or less eliminated the seriousness of the subject matter during the movie viewing.
In response to this, the director responded in the interview that he hopes to use a broad perspective to collect all living beings in society as much as possible, and believes that "if you feel pain in the movie, it means that we have succeeded." "If "Silent Kill" makes You see a lot of evil and feel a lot of pain, which actually reminds you not to be silent anymore.”
We recognize the director’s intention to advocate helping the weak, but we also have to ask – does criticizing evil necessarily only involve reproducing evil and feeling the pain? In fact, the intuitive expression of bloody and violent scenes will certainly bring immediate pain and emotion, triggering strong sympathy for the weak and hatred for the perpetrators. However, this only satisfies the simplest view of good and evil. For a series of societies, The analysis of the issue is superficial, and ignores the nuances and complexity of human nature, and ignores the examination of the soil and environment where evil breeds. What's more, for the recipient, it is still unknown whether witnessing violent scenes inspires imitation of violence or alerts people to the recurrence of real-life tragedies. At present, many stage and film and television creators are actually aware of this problem. Therefore, in the presentation of the same theme, they avoid directly displaying violence and instead use more obscure and indirect audio-visual methods such as symbolic imagery, which can still gain the audience's attention. The reader’s empathy leads to reflection.
Good works should be heard in silence. Literary and artistic works intended for the general public should also pursue this goal.
text/Wenhui Po reporter Huang Qizhe
editor/Cui Wei
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