At the end of the movie, the most heroic male protagonist killed a man or even accidentally killed his own son is not an accident. Because the theme of the movie is not to tell a thriller (there are too many of them) but to reflect (similar to “No Country for Old Men”) on the self-deprecation of human beings: we are actually ignorant, and what we do not know can scare us out of our humanity. On the surface, the hero seems braver, calmer and wiser than everyone else. But in fact he is not fundamentally different from those who are obviously flawed. He starts counting the bullets when he runs out of gasoline, and kills shortly afterwards. Why so quickly? Even if they do have only one way to die, why not wait until they are too hungry to support or when the beast attacks and then do it, so that even if they will still die, at least you can live a little longer ah? More a little more hope, this is not exactly the hope they ran out after all the hardships to pursue it? But he still did it, others died in his crisis of faith.
Between people, the difference is not so big, but we believe in different things. The characters in the play can be divided into two categories, those who believe in themselves and those who believe in others (this others include all forces other than their own). In general, we all believe in ourselves, especially in a country like the United States, which emphasizes the self. So when a disaster falls from the sky, people’s initial reaction is to rely on their own power to find out what is going on, so the hero’s black neighbor took a group of people out to die. But when death came one after another, people’s self-confidence shattered, part of the people began to put their hopes on others, listening to others for their own lives to do. The madwoman seized just such an opportunity to establish her own cult. As that mighty grandfather said, “You just have to scare people to a certain point and let them do whatever they want, and they will defect to anyone or anything that can give a solution.” The most typical example of this is the blue-collar worker, who at first was confident and condescending when arguing with the hero about whether he should go out and fix the exhaust fan. After being scared half to death immediately to the hero obedient, not only because he was wrong, but also because he thought the hero may be the savior. He would have hated to beat up the crazy lady, and after going to the drugstore and being scared to death, he became her most loyal lapdog. He thus went from obeying his own will to obeying the hero, and finally to obeying the crazy lady who seemed to be able to save him. (ps: I think the bugs do not bite her because even the bugs dislike her) and as opposed to him, the hero always believes in all of himself, although the challenges are overwhelming, the cloud of death is hard to dispel, but he is always proactive in doing something, whether it is in rescuing others, discussing plans, placating the weak or dealing with the crazy lady, he is always doing, and as long as he is doing something, especially when a part of the masses support and believe in him He develops a vague sense of security that he is not without control over his fate and that he is not powerless against disaster. This sense of security gives him a sense of potential hope, and it gives the audience a sense of potential hope, so we place our bets on him to be the hero who wins in the end.
Unfortunately, this faith of his is also parochial. If faith in others is considered weak, and faith in God is considered hysterical, then faith in oneself may not be so wise either. The people who believe in the crazy lady and the people who believe in God, whether they are weak or hysterical, lose their last resort when the crazy lady is shot (fast and furious), and they look at the car fading away in the mist except for dumbfounded or dazed. And faith in their own heroes in the food out of ammunition when ushered in a real crisis of faith, no problem for him to solve, no one for him to rescue, no monsters for him to fight, he has been used to fight fear and despair of that little bit of security and think they have control disappeared, he as the other four people rely on, the first collapse, but even so, he is still very gentlemanly to let people use the bullets, from this little thing Also see the control and the American character can not be removed from the heroic color. But unfortunately, the United States in the past two years, the movie satirizes the national character of egocentrism, since 9/11 Americans began to reflect on the reflection of a large number of films to combat heroism. It is because Americans have always been self-centered, love to fill the hero, self-righteousness, to invite trouble before being bombed lair, how can he not suspect that he has a problem. This film’s fight is the human self-righteousness, you think human knowledge, right? I’ll show you what you haven’t seen. You think you can control everything, right? I let you can’t even control yourself. You think you’re highly civilized, right? I’ll show you how barbaric you are. You think you’re technologically advanced, right? I’ll let the scientists build a hell out of it! Everything that Americans are proud of is trampled on. So naturally, the hero becomes the most miserable of all. His despair and remorse exceeded everyone. Alas! What a good picture of the American mood at the moment!
And why did the mother who risked her life for her child get away with it? Monsters are interested in middle-aged women? No, because the director wants to say: faith in others, faith in God, faith in themselves are very stupid, are facing the instinct of fear, not much higher than the animals. Only those who believe in love and have disappeared in love are the most advanced among human beings and deserve to enjoy miracles.
PS: This is my first review on Douban, and I am very grateful for the support I received from so many people on this first article. In fact, after a long time to look at it again feel quite arbitrary (although also because it is easier to push to the extreme to make an argument). So I would like to add what I have thought of, and share it with you, so that it is not in vain to support my humble opinion.
Lacan said that human beings are “knowledge paranoid”. That is to say, we have an almost hysterical obsession with knowledge. From the blood-drinking apes to the highly intelligent creatures of the steel forest, from fragile and powerless infants (the infancy of animals is much shorter than that of humans) to adults and even geniuses with the ability to think abstractly, in order to be strong enough to achieve maximum control over our own destiny, our brain has evolved in such a way that it not only has the function of acquiring, storing and processing knowledge, but it also has the requirement to perform this function. So while over-intensive mental work can damage the brain, a completely thoughtless life is more likely to invite dementia. Since the time of the Enlightenment, when the banner of reason was raised, no, earlier, since Socrates said that an unexamined life is not worth living, we have been thinking, thinking that separates us from the animals. Everything in human history and life has encouraged thinking and wisdom, and we have impatiently built many grand structures to sort out and store the details of knowledge in all its grandeur. Of course that is the spiritual wealth of mankind, and at the same time we seldom earn and discard intellectual waste. Acquiring knowledge has changed from a necessary survival skill to a spiritual necessity. Modern man has evolved to such a degree that we are used to having information, making plans, and anticipating the outcome, so once something is not in the plan, there will be some anxiety, like in “The Mist” where people are played like ants. The reflection and correction of the paranoia of human knowledge is the main aspect of postmodern thinking. Based on this, I think that the survival of that mother is just a coincidence, just to show our lack of control and inability to know the future. This is, of course, a mockery of human cognitive fetishism and cognitive ability. In this respect, the film is similar to The Matrix and Vanilla Sky, but in short, things are not what they seem to be.