When a movie is integrated into a kind of era background, the story of the movie itself does not seem so simple. On the surface, it is telling a story, but in fact it is telling history, which is the special meaning that the background of the times gives to the film. If we just look at the story, then a lot of incomprehensible settings in the story will become an obstacle for us to understand the movie, but after integrating into the background of the times to look at the characters, and after looking at the characters, the story will take on a new look, in fact, the story is still a story, but the story after the background of the times has a certain depth, which is really interesting.
The film "Yingxiang" recommended to you today is the first Filipino film to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival, with this title, we have to look at this film from a historical perspective, and this film lives up to expectations, it uses a historical perspective to set the characters and set the story, therefore, it looks interesting.
"Yingxiang" tells the story of the difficult life of Yingxiang, a girl who lost her father in childhood. In Manila, even in the capital of the Philippines, the slums where Yingxiang is located are still hopeless. Yingxiang's boyfriend is a car mechanic, but he can't bring Yingxiang to rely on, Yingxiang's mother falls in love with a local head snake, but the ultimate goal of the head snake is Ying Xiang. When he violated Yingxiang, he said that he was seduced, and his mother did not resolutely stand on Yingxiang's side, but obeyed his lover. Ying Xiang asked her boyfriend for help and wanted to leave, but her boyfriend turned around and left after getting Ying Xiang. Yingxiang, who has no hope for the future, finally chose his own way of revenge, but does all this still make sense?
If you just look at the story, the story of this film is not very strong, because everything is predictable, but once combined with the historical background of the Philippines, this film is suddenly different. Yingxiang can be regarded as the country of the Philippines, and in the land of Asia, the Philippines is helpless, and the land snake that violently invaded Yingxiang can be regarded as a United States. In modern times, the Philippines has welcomed United States as a colonizer besides Japan. To date, United States continues to build several military bases on Philippine soil. This colonization is deep-rooted. Can the Philippines flee? Not really.
The original mother could not give Yingxiang more protection, and even scolded Yingxiang at every turn. If history goes back further, everyone will understand who the original mother was. At this time, we are talking about the era of the release of the movie, 1976, which is a year with a historical turning point, and this year is as if the young mother made peace with the local landlord. So, in Yingxiang's view, there is no hope for all this. The only one who can save himself is himself.
The son of the grocery store owner really likes Yingxiang, but he doesn't have the ability to bring Yingxiang a little sense of security, and even Yingxiang's only friend points fingers at Yingxiang. Yingxiang's reliance in this world is constantly collapsing, but the nightmare in reality has not stopped. The serpent continued his ways. And at this moment, Yingxiang also started his own counterattack. By stimulating the conflict between his mother and the snake of the ground, he will lose both.
This is a very clever move, but there is still a lot of helplessness behind this trick, and at the end of the film, Yingxiang is crying behind his mother. Although Yingxiang completed the plan to drive the tiger and devour the wolf, the final result was still not able to change his helpless status quo. We can look at the contemporary international reaction of the Philippines, and in fact it is not an exaggeration to say that the film is somewhat prescient. By constantly provoking contradictions between the big countries to relieve their own pressure, but the result can only be a lose-lose situation, the big countries conflict, the contradiction is resolved, but they have become a lonely person, and there is no change in their current situation.
At the beginning of the film, the shot is given of Yingxiang from the dilapidated slum to the future, to the future that represents hope, but when the film ends, Yingxiang's hope has not been achieved, she has not successfully completed the class jump, she is still struggling in the slum. It's just that this time, there is no one like her mother, and Yingxiang is completely helpless.
As a film that alludes to the contemporary history of the Philippines, "Yingxiang" itself is very practical, and when we look at this film from a historical perspective, we will naturally see the embarrassing situation of the Philippines and the difficulties faced in breaking this embarrassing situation. The film does not give a clear direction for Yingxiang to aspire to, but in terms of revealing reality, this film really gives the predicament of the Philippines.
Yingxiang wanted to change his current situation through external forces for a long part of the film, but every expectation ended with disappointment, and Yingxiang later realized that only he could truly change himself, so Yingxiang changed from borrowing external forces to using external forces. However, this exploitation itself contains a kind of destruction, and what does it destroy? destroyed Yingxiang's "history", because Yingxiang did this game, and in the end, she could only become a person that everyone didn't trust. It seems that this spontaneous use has helped Yingxiang relieve the existential crisis, but we don't know what kind of impact it will have in the future. The predicament of the Philippines still exists, and the impact has been released for more than half a century, but there is still no answer to this dilemma, which may be the practical significance of this film.
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