Movie Master

With lines outstripping supply, critics' comments being delayed, and screenings of Hard Candy still shrouded in mystery, people outside the New York area are eager to know: How is the movie? Even if you can't see it, you can at least see some clues from the comments of film critics, but now you can't even see the comments of film critics. Compared with the comments on the Internet that have finished watching the movie, it is even more itchy.

This situation was broken until 11:00 noon on Friday, when the first professional film critics' comments were officially released.

Unexpectedly, and logically, the first professional review was not from The New York Times, which apparently was not privileged amidst the frenzy, the first review was by The New Yorker Presented by veteran film critic Lawrence Topman.

In nature, the biological chain of the weak and the strong is a very wonderful link. Every creature can become a hunter, and every creature can also become a prey. In the process of changing the roles of hunter and prey, people always habitually Sympathize with the weak, but think that this is the law of nature and cannot be broken, just like we can't let the lion give up hunting the antelope. But what about the same biological chain in human society?

In terms of morality and emotion, we will always examine and criticize the blood and cruelty of the hunter from the perspective of the prey; but in terms of laws and regulations, we must examine and judge the right and wrong of the hunter and the prey from an objective and fair perspective. At the end of the day, we try to be fair, but we are always protecting the interests of our own group, just like in nature, lions protect the interests of lions, antelopes protect the interests of antelopes, and the distinction between hunter and prey does not matter. So, white people discriminate against black people, straight people discriminate against gay people, men discriminate against women. We are all hunters, and we are all prey, but what exactly determines our attributes?

'Hard Candy' explores this deep and complex issue with a short and concise story. Throughout the story, there are five characters in total, but there are only two core characters, 33-year-old Jeff and 14-year-old Hayley. This tells the story of a fetish/pedophilia.

Jeff is the hunter, and Hayley is the prey. This is the tone of the story, but as the story progresses, we suddenly discover that the naive and ignorant fourteen-year-old girl is the hunter, while the mature and sophisticated 33-year-old lover/children / Obsession becomes prey, and the story starts to get interesting. In order not to affect the fun of watching the movie, I will give up further elaboration on the plot in this review, but I can tell every audience that the roles of hunter and prey are still changing, so that we begin to feel confused: Who is the hunter, who is the prey, and who is the real root of evil?

This is precisely the reflection left by the movie.

For Hailey, Jeff's fetish/pedophilia is a crime. She represents thousands of victimized girls, launched a counterattack, and fought against her own destiny with both hands; for Jeff, Hailey Trying to play the judge for a private trial, he was sentenced to death without any evidence, Hailey is the embodiment of evil, he must fight in order to survive; but deeper, why Hailey did not choose to resort to law ? Why did Jeff form the habit of pedophilia? For Hayley and Jeff, they have come to the present with a heavy past on their backs. They used to be prey, but now they have become hunters, and those hunters hidden in the past represent the sins of the past.

Even the other three characters appearing in the movie represent the hunter and the prey respectively, forming a huge biological chain.

It's like a vicious circle.

In the crime trilogy, Lancelot explored a very profound and realistic topic, what makes crime? In Hard Candy, Lancelot discussed another very serious and heavy topic, what made people give up the formal means of legal justice and choose crime?

These are two very similar topics, but lead to two very different consequences. 'Hard Candy' reveals a cruel and bloody answer: what if the means of legal justice fail to achieve the purpose of punishment?

Why do countless criminals choose to commit another or third offense after they get out of prison? Even after many criminals are sentenced to life imprisonment, there is still no way to get rid of the habit of crime? In the crime trilogy, Lancelot expounded his point of view that people are inherently good, and the root cause of crime is the indifference of society and the influence of the environment; but in Hard Candy, Lancelot A bold hypothesis is put forward, what if people are inherently evil? So what should we do?

Breaking the vicious cycle between hunter and prey, like breaking nature's law of the jungle and survival of the fittest, may seem like an impossible task. Killing is the instinct of lions. Between good and evil, what is the instinct of human beings? If there is no essential difference between humans and animals, how should killing and crime be stopped?

This is not only a core idea of ​​a movie, but also a philosophical proposition. Lancelot has conducted in-depth discussions on such a grand and huge theme in terms of human nature. The details in the movie are very thought-provoking.

Hailey once had the chance to escape, but she chose to stay; Jeff had the opportunity to call the police, but he chose to give up; the coffee shop clerk once had the opportunity to see through the danger, but he chose to make fun of it; , but she chose to remain silent; Genelle had a chance to end the crime, but she chose to leave without saying goodbye.

Everyone has a choice. To be precise, everyone has the right to choose when facing good and evil. This is also the biggest difference between humans and animals. The ability to think and do things makes us so-called 'advanced animals' , but the irony is here, everyone will make a similar choice-the one that is beneficial to them.

In the crime trilogy, Lancelot defines this behavior as 'social indifference', which can be understood as selfishness or self-preservation; This kind of behavior is defined as the root of natural evil. When selfishness becomes an excuse to protect ourselves, when cowardice becomes a safe haven to avoid harm, and when fear becomes a reason to give up confrontation, we have committed crimes in this way, as if The butterfly effect is general and deeply affects everyone.

This pessimistic to desperate mood runs through the entire film, and it also becomes the fundamental source of the work's humanity. It is worth noting that every choice Hayley made in the movie has a profound meaning, which is also a means for Lancelot to conduct self-reflection, self-analysis, and self-condemnation. I believe that every audience can learn from Hayley's Different meanings are tasted in the choice, and this difference is precisely the difference between nature is good and nature is evil, or in other words, this is also the difference in how we define ourselves.

After watching Hard Candy, the excitement of this movie has just begun. Everyone will have their own answers, which is also the most beautiful part of Lancelot's works.

After dedicating the critically acclaimed and critically acclaimed crime trilogy, Lancelot has yet again to surprise. Especially the script with a small layout fully demonstrates Lancelot's talent. Every character has his own mission and metaphor, every plot is full of aftertaste of reflection, every line has a corresponding meaning, and even Even every picture has exuberant vitality. In the seemingly unremarkable small pattern, there burst out the brilliance of humanity that overshadowed most of the works.

It is hard to imagine that this talented director, screenwriter and actor once again contributed an absolute masterpiece worthy of being recorded in the annals of history!

Lawrence's film review is eloquent and mighty. On the premise of avoiding spoilers, he conducted a deep and thorough analysis of the whole movie. It can be seen that Lawrence's evaluation of Hard Candy even surpassed Lance's The crime trilogy, which is truly astounding.

At the same time, Lawrence gave a perfect evaluation of 100 points, which directly supported his point of view, which immediately caused an uproar on the Internet.

So far, people don't have any reference object-you can only believe one-third of the comments from netizens, and the rest is nonsense. People need an authoritative object to lay the foundation. Whether it is The New Yorker or Lawrence, it is already authoritative enough, and this authoritative source not only gave the highest praise, but also gave it a perfect score of 100, which is like a spark falling into a gasoline tank. Boom directly detonated everyone's enthusiasm.

The popularity of online discussions has risen to a higher level, and the situation has almost spread throughout North America in a state of sweeping away thousands of troops. Especially at the end of the comment, Lawrence taunted Good night, good luck overtly and secretly. The two works are also small-format works, and both have excellent scripts, but under the lens of different directors, they bloomed. Different textures and depths.

Good night, good luck pays too much attention to the sense of the times and the sense of the camera. George Clooney injected an elegant and gentlemanly temperament into the film, but he fell behind in terms of resurgence of thoughts and deep digging; Hard Fruit Candy It seems more mature and complete. Lance injects a cold and horrifying atmosphere into the film, but he always adjusts the relationship between the hunter and the prey from the perspective of the third party, and then completes the theme through the role of Hayley. sublimation.

From this point of view, the two scripts written by Lance, and the finished products filmed are different in Lawrence's eyes.

This sneak comment made the enthusiasm of netizens reach an unprecedented high. What is even more itchy is that it is only the second day of screening of Hard Candy and there are still only two landmark theaters in New York. You can see this work. Therefore, netizens can only get a glimpse of the style of this work through eager discussions and comments from film critics who sneak away.

Immediately afterwards, Roger Ebert's commentary debuted!