Remembering History

When Levi was still filming his movie in China, he didn't know that on the other side of the ocean, the release of another movie had shocked the entire United States.

In December this year, many good movies were released. Whether it's The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, they are very heartwarming movies.

However, if we want to say which movie attracts the most attention this winter, then we still have to recommend a foreign language film first: Director Zhang's Rabe's Diary is the most sensational movie this winter.

This movie, starring Kevin Spacey and shot entirely in China, aroused an extremely strong response once released in North America. Since its release, its box office numbers have been soaring, and it is even considered likely to surpass Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the record holder for the highest-grossing foreign language film.

And the reason why this movie can have such momentum is indeed inseparable from the level of this movie. Both in terms of shooting and performance, this is a Hollywood-level movie.

There is a reason to say this. First of all, the character setting in this movie can be said to be very 'mainstream.'

In the movie, John Rabe, played by Kevin Spacey, was a very staunch Nazi at the beginning. 

He firmly believed that the German nation was the greatest nation, was dissatisfied with the Jews, worshiped the Führer, and believed that the war launched by his country was revenge and an act of justice. 

In the beginning, he was completely the image of a German who had been tortured by the defeat in World War I.

But what happened next gradually changed his mind. The brutal massacre by the Japanese began to make him feel uneasy, and he believed that allying with such a country was a shame for the German nation. 

He began to write letters to the head of state. He hoped the Führer would pay attention to all this.

But no one paid attention to these things, let alone his head of state, even the governments of other countries that were enemies of Japan. Politics is politics; in a world war, who would influence the strategic deployment of their own country for the sake of the life and death of the people of a weak country?

These circumstances finally caused Rabe to collapse. He once thought that he was a member of the most outstanding nation, but the cruelty of the war told him that everyone is the same and there is no distinction between high and low in human life. 

No matter how humble a person seems, they are worthy of mercy. In the face of life and death, it is impossible for people to remain indifferent.

Therefore, such scenes began to make him more active in trying to rescue refugees. Under his Nazi identity, he began to save people.

When facing the Japanese, Rabe unfurled the swastika flag above his house. The camera first went to the perspective of the Japanese soldiers, and what they saw was a right-hand swastika. Then, the camera showed the eyes of the fleeing civilians. The flag was shot from the back. Through the sunlight, the camera turned into a left-hand swastika.

The same flag, once a symbol used by the Nazis to do evil, has become a symbol of Buddhist auspiciousness.

His kind heart allowed Rabe to start his own redemption, and his actions were successful. A Nazi from the very beginning, later, he became known as the Bodhisattva among the people. He did everything he could in this catastrophe.

This kind of character transformation is a favorite pattern in Hollywood movies, and Kevin Spacey's outstanding performance makes this character extremely vivid. 

It also allowed people to see a great soul in another corner of World War II from this point of view. It was also extremely successful. And the fact that the story revolves around him makes the story itself very mainstream.

But this kind of story is not what makes this movie great. The bigger reason the movie caused a sensation was the content of the film.

In the movie, the massacre scenes are reproduced almost realistically, which makes many people feel frightened. The movie truly shows the crazy atrocities committed by the Japanese army after they entered the city, and the completely unconcealed post-war atrocities made all viewers shudder.

Mountains of human heads, soldiers killing at will, invaders engaged in a killing contest, sergeants raping wantonly in the safe zone, indifferent upper-level Japanese troops, people from third countries fleeing with fear in the massacre... 

In a scene of more than ten minutes, these things were being filmed all over the city, making everyone who saw these scenes feel chills from the inside out.

Hollywood audiences are used to seeing all kinds of big scenes but rarely see scenes like this. They have seen too many war movies that depict one or two dozen people, but it is rare to see a film that depicts a large group of people.

Director Zhang's film did not depict the hidden glory of the humanity of the Japanese - he took Levi's advice very well: an essential aspect of this film is anti-war, and he did not need to say that the Japanese have the brilliance of humanity because war itself is something that destroys humanity.

The Japanese may be considered human beings, but in the brutal war, they have been turned into terrors. Long-term militaristic education, repeated brainwashing teaching methods, the pressure of war, and the collapse of morality, no matter how glorious human nature is, will be desensitized by the distortion and cruelty of war. 

These distortions and cruelty are what make a war-themed movie something to pay attention to.

Forcibly praising the humanity of massacrers in a war movie simply ignores the cruelty of war.

In the movie, Director Zhang did not fail to mention the Japanese culture, but his shots were quite ironic.

Just after filming these, Director Zhang's camera turned to filming the Japanese's grand victory ceremony and the music of the soul-calling drum - but this sad music was incompatible with the Japanese generals who were extremely indifferent to the massacre. 

On the one hand, there are solemn rituals; on the other hand, there are crazy soldiers. When these two are presented together, what people can see is just the twisted soul under the solemn ritual and the ridiculousness of the so-called cultural tradition.

It would be childish to hope that the sound of drums could evoke humanity in a war with countless casualties.

And these things also caused a sensation in the film industry.

It is not that there were no movies in the past that reflected the cruelty of World War II. However, the filming of these wars in European and American countries was limited by the size of the movie. 

Otherwise, it would be like Saving Private Ryan, which could only shoot one war scene, or it would be like Schindler's List. There are very few films on the list that capture life in concentration camps and reflect postwar life on a large scale.

Some movies that want to depict civilians are too short. At most, they can only select one or two people to describe the misery of war, such as the Malèna. 

Like this movie, a killing contest of hundreds of people, the rape of thousands of people, the death of tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people, has never been seen in a movie.

Europeans and Americans have such tragic stories - many French women were raped during World War II. In Paris, under Nazi occupation, 2 million people were thrown into concentration camps, and 100,000 women became prostitutes. Life was also very miserable. 

However, the scale of European and American movies cannot reflect such a tragic life. The amount of investment in European and American films determines that their movies are destined only to reflect the harm of war superficially.

But this movie is different. The scenes and scale in this movie are amazing. It vividly exposes the harm caused by war to civilians.

Compared with it, the movie The Pianist, which was released in the same year, is much worse. It is also a World War II movie, and it also uses a calm tone, but it is still a movie that uses personal destiny to reflect the whole drama. 

Whether it is the shooting technique or the shocking power of the movie, it is much different.

Life and death are the most shocking things. Compared with life and death, other things are not worth mentioning. If there is still doubt about this issue in the lives of one or two people, then in front of the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, everything else seems insignificant.

It can be said that the scenes of this movie make it great.

"This is absolutely the best movie this year."

After the movie was released, many media have already made such comments. Although everyone knows a Chinese film cannot be the best movie, people still admire it.

Hollywood has its reasons for making such comments.

For Hollywood, anti-war, anti-Nazi, these things are basic manifestations of political correctness. In this movie, the depiction of scenes after the war made people more resistant to the war than ever before, which naturally caused an unprecedented response. 

The anti-Nazi aspect can be said to be caused by the large number of Jews in Hollywood. In this movie, the process of John Rabe, a Nazi, gradually despising the Nazi party's creed can be said to be very satisfying to the Jews, and they naturally praised it.

It has unique shooting techniques, conforms to mainstream ideas, and the story and actors' performances are impeccable. This is certainly a good movie.

And this is actually a bit surprising: How do Chinese-made movies have such a good grasp of the mainstream thinking in the United States?

"Nick came to me and asked me to star. He was very familiar with the script, and it was obvious that he had put a lot of effort into it. I asked him why he didn't film it in this case, but he said that such a movie is to remember Rabe. If Americans Shoot this movie, it will be just a story, but when the Chinese do it, it is to remember a period of history..."

Spacey's words explained people's doubts. Levi's background was in making political films. It is normal for him to be accomplished in this area. However, this also makes people feel slightly regretful. Maybe it would be better if Levi shot this movie, right?

It's just a pity that he didn't film this one. People don't quite understand Levi's commitment to remembering history. They just lament that the movie could be better.

However, what makes people happy is that at least they know that even if Levi does not have a movie this year, he has not exhausted his talents. He is still thinking and creating.

So, is the movie he is shooting in China worth looking forward to? Will this movie be another surprising new peak?

*****

Thanks and kudos for my patreons 

Marcelo Maia

Britanna

Mandy G

Scott DePaepe

Danny York

MMMCMXCIX, or 3,999

You can read advanced chapters on my Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.