This article is the exclusive special manuscript of the Headline Entertainment Jun X Headline Film Critics X Hainan Film Festival
The Hainan Island International Film Festival is in full swing, and the enthusiasm of film fans continues to rise.
On this beautiful southern island, the way of watching movies is also different, the film festival adopts the open air way to show movies, and the beautiful beach has become a natural place for people to watch movies.
Think of such a picture, under the shadow of the coconut grove trees, people blowing the sea breeze and drinking coconut water, stepping on the soft sand, staring at the open air light and shadow, such a scene is pleasant to think!
It is understood that in the screening unit of this Hainan Island Film Festival, a number of classic films will meet with fans again in the form of picture quality upgrades, and people will relive the classics in the form of open-air movies after many years.
This includes the thriller film starring Nicole Kidman in 2001:
Island Horror
Directed by Spanish thriller director Alessandro Amenavar, the film was nominated for Best Picture at the Venice Film Festival and won eight awards at the Goya Awards in 2002, known as Spain's "Oscars".
Hollywood actress Nicole Kidman served as the lead actress of the film, and she was nominated for Best Actress at the 58th Golden Globe Awards for this film.
Two years later, Nicole Kidman's career took it a step further, and she was named an Oscar winner for her wonderful performance in "All the Time".
While Nicole Kidman proved herself not to be a vase with this film, she proved that her actor's path can go further. But from a personal point of view, this movie is actually her "heartbreak work".
The film was led by Atango, before filming, Nicole and he were still husband and wife, the production company they jointly owned and Miramax invested in "Isle of Horrors", starring Nicole Kidman, and Atango was the producer.
At that time, the two were still the envy of global film fans, sweet and sweet. But after the movie is completed, the two have become strangers, which is really sad.
The only thing to be thankful for is that the state of their relationship did not affect this "heartbreak work" to become a thriller classic.
19 years later, we saw the film again on the beach on China's Hainan Island. With the gentle sea breeze, the thrill of the film directly makes the audience sweat upright.
Set in 1945 on a small island called Jersey, the single mother Grace (Nicole Kidman) lives with two children, and she owns a mansion and advertises herself to recruit maids for her family.
An old man and a mute woman knocked on the door of Grace's house, and Grace hired three people as servants after confessing the request that the child was afraid of light and could not open the curtains.
Then strange things happened around the mansion, and Grace found that there were constant strange noises in the house, and the sound of other people talking drifted in the empty mansion, and this uneasy factor that could not be seen but heard frightened her.
As more and more strange events occur in the house, Grace begins to suspect that ghosts are at work.
Under constant stimulation, Grace's emotions gradually spiraled out of control, and she became suspicious and irritable, constantly angry at her daughter and suspicious of the three servants.
The frightening drama of "man and ghost" in the mansion continues to be staged, and Grace and her family gradually discover that things do not seem to be what she imagined, and the truth that she once dared not face has also surfaced...
To this day, this classic psychological horror film of 19 years ago still has a high score of 8.2 points on Douban, and many fans regard it as the benchmark of psychological horror films.
So why did this movie get such high praise? In the editor's opinion, "Island Horror" has many highlights that deserve our "key points and knock on the blackboard".
First, the high-pressure horror film mode: do not rely on the picture, rely on the atmosphere alone can be scary
Unlike other horror films that are scary through visual effects, "Isle of Horror" does not focus on various horror visuals, but creates a sense of horror through psychological atmosphere.
The whole film does not have too many horror pictures in the traditional sense, but it still scares people enough, which is also the conventional mode of this type of psychological horror film - from the psychological level, touching people's deep fear of the unknown.
"Isle of Horror" brings people a sense of fear from both audio-visual and audio-visual measures. The first is the horror of sound, the film begins with Nicole Kidman's terrible screams, accompanied by the heroine waking up from the nightmare, the film sets the tone of horror in a gray atmosphere.
And there are more than one scene of Nicole Kidman screaming in the film, and her whole scream is accompanied by the sublimation of each horror atmosphere, bringing people a sense of inner impact. In addition, the various gloomy background sounds of the film also strengthen the atmosphere of the whole film, and the director can say that he has worked the sound.
The second is the horror on the screen, but here is not a direct picture shock horror, but a more advanced horror method to scare people, bringing people a feeling of careful thinking and extreme fear.
For example, this set of highly creative lens language, the continuous switching of far and near angle scenes, and a pair of oil paintings can be played by the director in a terrifying trick.
Another example is this shot, the heroine looks around in the fog, in the white background, you don't know whether it is a person or a ghost coming from the fog...
The most classic shot is undoubtedly the strange picture of Grace's daughter wearing a white veil, the camera turns, the daughter's hand becomes an old hand, and the face under the white veil also becomes an old man's face, which adds a bit of a sense of gloom to the picture.
Second, reverse and reverse! The ending is not guessed until the end
Another feature of this film is the extremely brilliant ending, throughout the film, the audience has been following Nicole Kidman's perspective to "find ghosts", but in the last few minutes of the film, the answer to "who is the ghost" changes.
At the end of the film, the heroine's family finds a tombstone with the servant's name printed on it, and they know that the three servants are ghosts.
As the ghosts of the servants approached the heroine's family in a gloomy appearance, the atmosphere was pushed to a climax under the horizontal contrast between the three ghosts outside the window and the terrified heroine in the house.
At this point in the story, many fans may feel that the three servants are the final villains, but if it ends with such an ending, the film is doomed to fall into the cliché.
So here the director turned the sword and turned the camera to the inside of the house, at this time there was a group of uninvited guests sitting around a table in the room to attract ghosts.
Borrowing the mouth of the witch, the heroine's family learned that they and the child had long been dead, but at this time the heroine did not believe it, so she took the paper on the table and tore it, but the camera given by the director at this time explained all the answers...
Whether it's the three servants or the Nicole Kidman family, they're dead ghosts. The so-called spiritual sounds heard by the heroine are the sounds of living people.
Under this super reversal, the maid's initial sentence "People and ghosts should get along well" is also quite meaningful, they are exhorting the heroine to recognize the reality.
I have to say that under this wonderful ending, the pattern of the film has gone up to another level.
Third, is the ghost scary or the person scary? The director's novel brain hole brings people to think
In addition, "Isle of Horror" in the film setting is quite reflective of the director and screenwriter Amenavar's exquisite conception, different from the traditional thriller in the ghost scary mode, this film finally let the audience wake up, this is actually a person scary ah!
In the film setting, the ghosts of this world cannot see people, people can not see ghosts, and the two sides are "alive" in their own parallel worlds, but at a certain point in time, the two sides will "collide", which also produces a dramatic effect.
The horror of the ghost lies in its mystery and unknownness, but in retrospect, from the perspective of the heroine's family played by Nicole Kidman, the living human beings are also mysterious and unknown to them, and the "ghost" in the eyes of the ghost is a person, and this awkward setting makes people cry and laugh.
Therefore, what really scares a person may be the deep fear of the unknown.
In addition, the discussion of life and death in the film is also quite philosophical, in this illusory worldview assumed by the director, death does not mean that a person is permanently annihilated, and a person will live in this world in another form.
In addition to not dying, these ghosts do not have superpowers, and in essence, they are also "people" in another new world who are unknown to everything, and such a setting seems quite meaningful.
Fourth, Nicole Kidman has excellent acting skills, and the little girl adds materials for horror films
The success of "Isle of Horrors" is also inseparable from the wonderful interpretation of the heroine Nicole Kidman, as the protagonist of the film, Nicole Kidman dedicated superb acting skills in the film.
In the film, Nicole Kidman's performance is full of tension. The lady of the mansion she plays is forced to be suspicious by the strange noise of the whole house, and her eyes are full of helpless fear.
Unable to explain the supernatural phenomenon, she was even more angry with others, angry at her daughter, and constantly suspicious in the face of the servant's advice, showing a nervous and paranoid image.
At the end of the film, when she learned that the child was suffocated by herself and chose to commit suicide, she could not bear to accept the truth, and she held two children and showed remorse.
In more than an hour of film, Nicole Deman presents us with the character's paranoia, fear, paranoia, irritation and finally the remorseful side of the child, and Nicole Kidman's performance here can be described as quite outstanding.
At the age of 34, Nicole Kidman also showed a good face and a beautiful figure in the film, at this time she can be described as a magnificent style, in the tense atmosphere of the film, fans can also appreciate the peak of the face of The Sister Man.
In addition, the little girl image of Arakina Mann, who plays Nicole Kidman's daughter, in the film adds to the horror of the film.
In the film, the little girl is the first in the family to discover the existence of "ghosts", and under her calm warning to her mother, with a tragic white face, it makes this film seem quite suspenseful and weird.
The use of little girl elements in horror thriller movies is not uncommon, and the poignant appearance of the little female ghost played by Emily Browning in "Ghost Ship" is impressive.
The evil thoughts hidden under the harmless appearance of Isabella Fuhrman in "Orphans' Grudge" are even more creepy.
Overall, under the stacking of various horror elements, "Island Horror" presents the audience with a horror film with a main psychological orientation.
The whole film brings people the deepest sense of horror in the way of creating a horror atmosphere rather than a horror scene, and the twists and turns of the plot that are reversed and reversed are even more addictive to fans, and in the thriller, they can bring the audience to think about life and death. Even in today's thriller market, "Isles of Horror" is quite capable.
According to previous reports, the remake plan of "Isle of Horrors" has been launched, and this psychological horror film is expected to meet us with a new look 20 years after its release.
At present, when the Hainan Island Film Festival is re-appearing on "Small Island Horror", we may wish to "take the time machine" in our leisure time to reminisce about this classic thriller in film history.
Did this horror film, which can be seen in new ways every time you look back, scare you at the beginning?
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