Movie Review SSJ

While there is little to reveal about the film, I still strongly recommend that you finish the film before reading this review.

The main plot of “Whiplash” is very simple and common. It is the process of a novice becoming a master. But when the subtitles suddenly cut out, everyone felt lost: A full one hundred minutes passed, without support and encouragement from the beginning to the end, without the last second of full release of past grievances, without the mother of the former Boss, without the complacency after repression; Only the complicated eyes of the lonely father, the blood-spattered drum, only the half-smile of the teacher above the nose, and a little joy from the great pain of the hero. The 29-year-old director decided to finish the film neatly before the applause. It was not until this moment that I suddenly realized that, Far from being a story about ordinary people or trying to please them, this film is an attempt to reveal some truths: Ascension is very painful and often can be met but can not be sought, and the process is not as commonly described as a step by step linear rise, after the ascent, no longer share the joys and sorrows with ordinary people, so from the perspective of ordinary people, is not necessarily what is worth expecting. To sum up, ascension is not too much of a concern for you and me.

First of all, the film doesn’t give a feasible “upgrade” in the science of uniting the path, the soaring, the process of performance failure for watershed, after the accident to show before and after two different state, the former half although Andrew alone, didn’t support his family, also do not understand his lover, Fletcher means nothing, It’s dehumanizing, but at this stage the master and his sister’s motivation is exactly the same: to produce the next “one of the greats.” But after Andrew bled and messed up the game, everything fell into the worst enemy of the human heart, chaos. Andrew, Andrew’s father and Fletcher have successively done some of the most primitive destructive behaviors of human beings with absolutely no “top-level design” and no “lofty” in the way they are best at: Andrew fell down Fletcher out of revenge, Andrew’s father made Fletcher lose his job out of revenge, Fletcher set up a set to attack Andrew who had given up playing drums, and Andrew returned to the stage again out of revenge. In the process of this series, No one ever again acts for the purpose of one of the Greatest, and, still less, no one even acts out of good will. It is out of this chaos filled with negative energy that the next One of the Greatest is born, trembling in great pain, guided by his enemies.

What are the prerequisites for Andrew’s ascent? In addition to this kind of growth story has the potential of the standard of the parties, the fate of the mentor and an opportunity to play the spare tire (music), also appeared a lot of atypical configuration, the pursuit of a while don’t understand son but have been deeply in love with the son’s father, a good senior, because depression and flat tire of the bus and timing accident just good, A teacher of Jair… The prescription of the distortion problem is not put together the difficulty of low risk, but these strange raw material and no simple superposition of progressive, but in a way of absolutely unpredictable cannot reproduce perfectly uncontrolled interaction, all of the participants is blind and helpless, there is no “one happens”, not “behind”, What happens, happens.

Second, the film does not deal at all with the conventional wisdom of winning or losing. Andrew never had an opponent to defeat or A competition to win, and no one was deliberately trying to prevent Andrew from succeeding. In the music part of the film, except for master and pupil A and F, all other characters had A weak sense of existence. The other two drummers always seemed to be aloof from the world. There was not much to do except play as Fletcher asked, but Andrew would get emotional and fight each time, and the other musicians were completely in the background. The so-called eminent judges and the audience, in addition to the applause did not even a change of expression. At the end of the film, there is only one witness for Andrew to complete his ascent, that is Fletcher. Therefore, from the perspective of both of them, they both win, and the win is only established between them. Therefore, at this point, the whole story is complete, and the reaction of the third person in the world is completely irrelevant. So it is natural that there is no need for the failure of the discomfited or the full abdication of past grievances or supporters of the proud or authoritative nod of approval or enthusiastic applause from the crowd. I saw some comments that it would be more in-depth if the last paragraph of the two were not recognized by the mainstream and lost their reputations, because they really did not understand the starting point of the movie very well.

Finally, the film does not make any judgment on the participants in the process of ascension. Instead, it shows them as objectively and comprehensively as possible. In fact, there are only 4 or 5 of them, so we can’t avoid saying them one by one:

Nicole: The only female character, nothing much to say, is that normal female students, fight a ordinary workers, on a normal school, not to understand what the pursuit of ambitious little drummer, also won’t sacrifice himself for his love to support the pursuit, if break up, will find a boyfriend, as we are all familiar with.

Tanner&Connelly: Two substitute drummer, according to the general pattern will certainly is set to grow in the process of take experience value of the stuff that needs to be dry, but in fact this two people didn’t do something all the boring things, is the most common in daily life, classmates and colleagues seriously do their own things, in the face of the superior is obedient, although there is no more than iron with you, They were both good drummers, but they didn’t have the great drive to be “one of the greats.” Very typical of ordinary people like you and me.

Andrew’s father: In my opinion, I created a very successful character, who is also a very typical and natural character. He did not promote his son’s musical pursuit by fanatical irrationality, and even had some vague worries (about the discussion of musician suicide), but he did not get in the way. After all, it is very expensive to attend music college. There is no additional income such as scholarship or part-time job for Andrew in the film, so it can be thought that his father quietly supports his study. Andrew has been firmly supported throughout the whole story, from the beginning of the school, to being expelled from college, to being undercut by Fletcher. His father has never been absent, which I think is also the true image of parents that we are familiar with. But, as a human being, he has an essential difference between and above a few, that is, in fact, he is in the case of don’t even know it soared this process involved in Andrew, so finally his son into crazy into the magic on the stage of soaring in the day time, specially has a feature, it is a lonely and struggle with awe and strange expression, At that moment he should have known in his heart that the son he had known was gone forever, and that he had a part in the process. The scene reminded me of the super body Lucy has just started in the female brain function rapid ascension, sadly call mother farewell scene, a person after ascending to a level, and the emotion composition will be a huge difference from ordinary people, this difference may even bigger than the difference between adults and children, basically can be understood as unable to communicate. You could say that once your relative has completed the ascent, it’s basically the equivalent of the person you knew disappearing.

The above four are ordinary people we are familiar with in ways we are familiar with and understand. The following two are other beings in another dimension that most of us will never really get a glimpse of, let alone understand and be familiar with.

Andrew: A good seed with a rising bone. She’s a rather shy person outside of music who always tries to avoid eye contact and has a rather weak presence but is actually quite peaceful, and I think Nicole’s character is basically there to show that to the audience. But as soon as he enters the realm of music, he becomes a beast with infinite energy, fierce, aggressive and unfettered. What separates Andrew from the other two drummers, and what Fletcher sees as his inner beast, is the beast with infinite hunger and thirst. When the beast is fully awakened, That’s when Andrew’s Ascension is complete, and of course during this awakening, the beast is engulfing his host with all sorts of huge emotional upheavals that can only come from the ups and downs of life, which is why Ascension is so painful. However, after the flight is completed, the pain understood by ordinary people before becomes a mirage, leaving only the full joy, which is Andrew’s smile near the end of the film.

Fletcher: Speaking of the Don, for many people, including me, the first time I saw the film, he was a very vague character, but after a lot of thinking and thinking, I think I can understand him very well. The reason why Fletcher’s behavioral logic is extremely complex compared with Andrew’s is that Andrew has basically given up all other social roles except for the music practitioner, while Fletcher needs to constantly switch between the two roles, and his behavioral logic is so different that it finally becomes blurred. First of all, he is an ordinary social person. In this role, Fletcher acts as a teacher with normal feelings. Before the incident of losing music score, the film specially shows the most “normal” side of Fletcher. Then a musician, in this state there will be different in different occasions, when he is likely to be the next “one of the greatest musicians,” he would be the demon mentor this state, the concept about when he was in this state, he and Andrew in a small bar that readme has elaborated quite clear, it is no longer further here, Only want to emphasize is that Fletcher in this role, give yourself responsibility is to discover and promote gave birth to a “one of the greatest”, in order to achieve this goal by hook or by crook, but definitely not what educators, so a lot of people mentioned what not agree with the education concept of what Fletcher, the somebody else is not in good education, Education is like mass production, whose goal is to produce “Good jobs” with reasonable efficiency, while Fletcher is like a top craftsman who only works with very few works until he has access to Good materials. When he is not with the musicians he believes have potential, he will enter a state of pure appreciation of music. He has been in this position three times, first by referring to the dead student, then by playing himself in the bar, and finally by playing Caravan at the end of the credits.

Then, I sort out Fletcher’s role transition from playing the piano in a bar after he was fired. At first, he seemed calm and intoxicated while playing, obviously enjoying the music. But when he saw Andrew, unlike many people’s feelings, he actually returned to the role of a normal social person. Fletcher as a social person, of course, have the general ability of dealing with people, but is itself a canthus coasts shall be submitted to the ferocious, this setting is no exaggeration first, more importantly, such a character set as a musician with him as “evil tutor” this situation is consistent, but as a social person, This tendency will be suppressed to a large extent, but after entering the field of music will be more prominent. From a chance encounter in a bar to the middle of Caravan’s performance at the end of the credits, Fletcher operates as a social man with only one purpose: to get back at Andrew, because at this stage Fletcher has decided that Andrew is not the next “one of the Greatest”. All that’s left is a happy feud. The final sign of this phase is Fletcher coming over to Andrew and threatening him and saying I’m going to rip your eyes out. After that, Fletcher was attracted by Andrew’s music and transferred from being a social person to being a musician again, and spent the whole performance in a state of pure appreciation. Here I think it is necessary to point out that Andrew completely ignored Fletcher’s conductor and forced the whole band to play the whole piece by drumming. Fletcher was completely a bystander in the whole process. The film specially arranged that Fletcher had expressed before, Jazz orchestra conductor if we can only make a racket and doesn’t lead the whole play has no existence value, and Andrew is hang him in such a position, but as a musician, appreciation of good music is the most important, the film is very accurate and clearly stated the Fletcher transformation process from being forced to enjoy it, For musicians, music is the biggest thing, and everything else is dispensable. After Caravan finished, Andrew continued his Solo, at which point Fletcher rushed over in a very concerned manner and asked, “I’ll cue you.”, Fletcher quickly entered the state of the “devil mentor”, and then successfully guided Andrew to break the limit by first relaxing and then nervous. At the last moment of soaring, Fletcher felt the joy of giving birth to “one of the greatest” by himself for the first time, and they smiled at each other.