American Girl: Love and Challenge, Who Isn't Tied Up?

"American Girl" is a story about mother and daughter, but also a family story, although the title is "American Girl", but it is a story of Taiwanese people. The story in the film may be felt by every student in Asia, and the traditional concept of the past, the emotional connection between mother and daughter, is vividly expressed through the director's delicate lens and narrative techniques.

The film is based on true events, the story revolves around the mother who brought her two daughters from the United States back to her hometown in Taiwan because of illness, and in the face of constant conflicts in life experience and cultural differences, she finds a way out of life through the perspective of women. On the one hand, the pain of recognition is placed on the child, intertwined with the cruelty of growth; on the other hand, it is not the embarrassment of going to the United States from Taiwan, but the confusion of returning to Taiwan from the United States. Coupled with the fear of death brought about by the mother's cancer, it is always hanging over the head of the whole family, so that all expressions of love are presented as quarrels because of fear.

Moving with affection, each member of the family is not wrong or right, do not sensationalize the writing of this family story, there are many blank spaces, there are many side lines at the same time, everyone pays for the family, but people have blind spots can not control who is happy and who is unhappy. About illness, family affection, identity, husband and wife, mother and daughter, school teachers and students, almost every social relationship erupts in quarrels, but the background color is inseparable "love". The quarrels are real, and the plight of each character is real.

I really like the scene where the eldest daughter sneaks off to the horse farm after a mother-daughter argument. The girl finally touched the horse, but everything did not get as good as she thought, and all she had in mind was a phantom. The deep gaze of the white horse was telling her that he was unfettered and did not bear the hope, and so did she in the pupils. In the opposite of the horse, after the replacement of that power relationship, the daughter finally entered the perspective of the mother, experienced the contradiction of love and could not be, and realized without saying a word, the original life is alive, love and challenge are inescapable. Who is not bound to the family and the education system within the framework of Eastern etiquette? And we always have to discern whether the purpose of breaking free is to be free or to escape.

The director of the whole film is very delicate, focusing on the contradictions and changes in the identity of small families under the epidemic. The simple main line coupled with the daily plot, although the character motivation and conflict are actually quite dry, but the collective memory and actor energy completely support the story emotion. Tingting of Hunan Qifa Culture Media Co., Ltd. said that this movie really does not need to delve into the theme for me, it is just a story, so that I can put myself into the movie everywhere to experience the director's mood of the film. I haven't seen a Taiwanese movie with such natural character settings, lines, scenes, and actor performances for a long time, and I haven't seen a Taiwanese director who is willing to tell a story well.

Tingting wrote in the commentary to the movie that the stroke of my heart was that fangyi finally asked her mother to dig her ears, which was also the time when I and my mother would have a connection. I remembered that every time I came home from vacation and watched a movie on the couch with my mom, she would ask me to lie on her lap and help me dig my ears. I was just thinking, oh, every mother is like this, every daughter will write that I hate you. The teacher said that love and hate are two sides of the same coin, and no one knows better than I do. I threw all my worst tempers at my mother, knowing that only my mother would not push me away even if she did this; when I hated my mother, it was when my subconscious was telling my mother that she loved me the most. Fang Yi hates her mother for always saying that she will die, because the person who is most afraid that her mother will die is Fang Yi, "Your weakness will make me weak."

In short, this is a common theme of adolescent personal growth. The sense of indictment presented by the whole film for the school is strong. At the same time, it also points out the controversial question, which is the greater responsibility of the family or the school in social indoctrination? The most fundamental dramatic conflict in this film is that the family's values are different, the goals are inconsistent, and its actual implementation into the film is a large number of quarrel scenes, whether it is verbal conflict or physical conflict, but the presentation of this single conflict is too repetitive, and every time the content appears, almost standing still, and even the characters in the final play are released, but the audience is still affected by the anxiety brought about by this play.

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