自卫

Sophomoric feature film of US director/writer Riley Stearns, himself in real life is a practitioner and instructor of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE gets the jumping-off point right there.

Eisenberg is in his usual saddo form as the lonesome Casey, a 35-year-old accountant has no one but a pet dachshund for company. After being savagely mugged one night by a motorcycle gang, he balks at going out at night, and tries to buy a firearm for self protection but ends up in a dojo where karate is instructed by the upright Sensei (Nivola).

Beginning as a tabula rasa white-belt, Casey apparently makes goodly progress and soon earns his yellow-belt and gets an invitation to the night class, where the training becomes more combative, he witness Anna (Poots) mercilessly beats up fellow student Thomas (Terada) after losing a promotion to black-belt to him, and another student Henry (Zellner) has his arm viciously broken for attending the class unheralded, a sinister vibe of hierarchy and sexism rightly supersedes the hitherto more lighthearted tone, to say nothing of the wanton violence on show.

Motivated by Sensei, Casey successfully morphs from a beta male to an alpha one (even if it costs him his job), or he eagerly pretends to be. After socking an innocent lush under the insistent instruction of Sensei, he begins to have doubts (why Sensei keeps filming him with his camcorder for his assault?), and in the wake of his pet’s premature death (dachshund is deemed not masculine enough for a man), an action betrays the evil-doer’s rashness and inopportuneness, and an accident of barbaric battery that he literally clocks a plainclothes policeman to death, Casey needs to burrow into the 411 (including the belated revelation that Sensei and his co. are actually his attackers) and face a final showdown with Sensei. Only this time, he will not play by the honor-bound rules, the brainwashing needs to be put paid to, once and for all.

Bracingly, the story mines into the touch-paper issue of toxic masculinity, a ubiquitous stigma breeding on the male sex and should be answerable for a big chunk of the scourge that plays havoc among human species, but Stearns’ troubling standing on the gun control (it is such an ill-conceived decision for the clincher occurs like that in the movie), that obfuscates itself with the “guns are for the weak” message and the rising-of-an-underdog trope, takes some shine off its offbeat, effervescent veneer, and when Casey finally vouchsafes a new leadership to the sole member of the weaker sex, it is too condescending an ending to stomach, however good Stearns’ intention is, yet, that ill feeling is thankfully alleviated by Poots’ steely resolution and undimmed asperity, only if the film could allocate more room to dwell on Anna’s story, that’s why we need female filmmakers now more than ever.

Shot in an overtly frugal budget with subdued lighting, mostly interior, THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE’s most prudent movie is to assign a charismatic Nivola the role of Sensei, the amiable mentor figure who can simultaneously telegraph earnestness and dispassionateness in the same breath, despite of Sensei’s blinkered bigotry, we cannot blame Casey for knuckle under his mental indoctrination because Nivola makes him impossible to resist, even after we are fully convinced that he is the bane of any sane being’s life, on the off chance, we still wish he might have some justification up in his sleeves. Slowly evolving into one of the most versatile actors of his generation, Nivola has his brilliance seep into Sensei’s every ruthless action, manipulative ploy and assertive delivery, could he be a cult leader, devotees would be come running.

In toto, the film is a black comedy welded with a frivolous brutality that might be queasy for some to watch, but underneath everything, it is a magical realism allegory about the prototype of dichotomic masculinity, gives the lie to its poisonous core but runs away with a quirky conceitedness that needs some modulation.

referential entries: David Zellner’s KUMIKO, THE TREASURE HUNTER (2014, 6.8/10); Richard Ayoade’s THE DOUBLE (2013, 6.1/10).

红衣祖师死于猎人误杀？

新增的第十一条规则：用枪的都是弱者？

午夜课堂袭击路人？

一定要先问问对方有没有枪？

红衣祖师就是死在午夜袭击的时候吧，被带枪的路人反杀，而黑衣老师当时就是身旁的帮凶，也亲眼目睹了自己老师被反杀。

所以整个道场从根儿上就是个犯罪团伙吧。

整部影片观感不错，黑色成分并不剧烈但也让人觉得“吃饱了”。女主美丽可爱。

9张漫画风格长图带你看懂《自卫的艺术》。

这部电影漫画感极强，而且摄影非常出色，调皮了一下，利用电影剧照制作了9张长图篇幅的漫画。

对白没有完全忠实原片，但是巨对是原本对白内容的高度提炼，满满的精华。

也许你已经注意到，凯西的扮演者就是杰西·艾森伯格，《蝙蝠侠大战超人：正义黎明》中的反派莱克斯·卢瑟的扮演者。

不知道大家是否还记得2009年的《僵尸之地》，丹尼尔在其中扮演末日中幸存的计划通宅男哥伦布，正是这部不起眼的丧尸电影使得怀才不遇的杰西·艾森伯格声名大噪。

此次推荐的2019年新片《自卫的艺术》则是杰西·艾森伯格在黑色喜剧方面开拓戏路的一次大胆尝试。

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2019《小丑》现象级热度成因解析⬇️

//movie.douban.com/review/12042059/

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? -- Nietzsche, The Gay Science

The film starts with our martyr whose name is Casey. Casey has been carpentering for a company diligently for 10 long years as a sensible accountant. But since he is in a surrealistic film, his coworkers deny him of everything. He is biologically alive but devoid of being-in-this-world. Even the narrator bullies him by expose to us his most private moment of musterbation. He is a slave, living in the antithesis, the denial of his own being-aliveness. Unable to act for himself, voluntarily disavowing all of his own liveliness. He lives his life as if his alivneess itself is a sin and a torment. And which is possibly due to an ancestor or his being tricked to bite a fruit.

He was crucified by four gangsters from Motorbike Ville. Life instinct kicks in. Resurrected on a hospital bed. He is reincarnated with the superpower of affirmation. Immediately he affirms his own life. He wants to be alive. He wants to protect himself. He doesn’t know how. The teller told him a hand-gun will do. Yes. The ultimate phallic signifier.

Affirming is, however, not easy. He bumped into a contender of his will of “to own a handgun” — it was the rule number 11 of the Karate Academy — “Guns are for the weak.” He acted like an orange peremptory bady. He stopped affirming his own life and began to affirm the reactive thought of “I am not weak.” He found himself a new passion. Yes, the Karate Academy will save him.

His protagonist sized life instinct propels him forward. After only two months of training, as a yellow belt, he defeated his brown-belt classmate. He is now ceremonially a real karate man.

But an antithesis can not exist by itself. It logically presupposes a thesis. And in our case the thesis is “Karate is for the strong” and it in turn presupposes the Karate Academy’s(the slogan giver’s) existence. His yellow belt is an amulet signifying the Academy. It empowers him. He can not affirm himself without it. He needs the academic affirmation to be a phallic-owning real man.

The Academy reels in, all of this is but the Sensei’s trap. The Sensei now demands our protagonist to serve him. Whatever Casey feels, whatever he wills, the Sensei overpowers him. He is again being bullied. Only this time with blood dripping down from his hand. He ceases to be a man, he is a tool willed by Sensei. He eventually ceases to be a human. The cost to be a real karate man is to give up his own life.

The acute memory of the Motorbike Ville woke him up. He wills again to be alive. He has learned his lesson. Using a pistol he killed the Sensei, took over the myth of the “index finger technique” which is the local phallic signifier in the academy and became the crowned king of a new dynasty.

The film ends here, and Nietzsche can only guide this far. There is no guarantee of a happily ever after. It's up to Casey to decide what to do next, and we have all seen how easy it was to fall into a trap. Our society is a web of traps weaved by those powerful but insecure people. “只能說當超人真的好難” said Jay.

Epilogue: Nietzsche the Nihilist. Nihilist, noun, “a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles.” This can not be any further from the truth. The “nihilism” of Nietzsche is a two-fold formation. At its very core it a radical affirmation of one’s own life, of one’s own vitality, and of one’s own will to create personal values and to live by those values. It is in comparison to this stronger inner will to live that the outside laws seem afloat, hence can be rejected. This film is an excellent demonstration of the destructive potential of letting a social construct to take prior position over one’s own existence(Crusade, Fascism, Isis, to name a few in real life). And because of this rejection of all outside influences, this rejection of all fundamental law that can be used to judge one’s life, one’s life is then reciprocally said to be “meaningless.” The phrase “God is dead” should be followed by “long live the gods within.”

4星，超低成本影片，但很有意思。 搞笑，悬疑，翻转，处处精彩。 前期搞笑博人同情，后面话风一转黑色幽默了，一本正经的恶搞太逗了。 影片中不乏哲理， 自卫的本质就是能够保护自己，击倒敌人，这跟软弱用不用枪没有直接关系。 而艺术就比较深刻了， 那种自卫更有艺术性，每个人的理解不同。男主的良顺， 女主的坚韧，还有教练的暗黑形成了鲜明对比。

记得小时候放学被逃课和辍学的拦在校门口要钱的时候，搜刮一遍之后还要打上两耳光或者给上一脚，当年被打被抢后懦弱的一批，和电影中杰西.艾森伯格所饰演的凯西是一样的感受，又羞又怒，不敢和大人说，就暗地里学武术，还异想天开的想去“少林寺”学武，然后行走江湖，惩恶扬善。懦弱带来的自卑感是尚武精神的的原动力。只有以暴制暴才能消除被欺凌的耻辱，才能自我认同。从这一点出发，sensi既是施暴者，又是救助者，乍一看有点像在路上洒满钉子的补胎行老板，过路的司机爆胎漏气只能去他那里，可这种操作得限定在方圆周围“只此一家”的条件里，影片中，凯西被打后，凯西第一次走进的是枪店，只是“注册要等审核”使日益恐惧的凯西有点等不及。无意间看见“道场”的授课，抱着试一试的心态，报了课，结果被“sensi”的灌输的“荣誉感，等级制，成长机制所激励”更加专注于空手道的课，甚至扔掉工作全身心投入其中，因为这令他找回自信，一步步的强大起来。可他万万没想到是是，“道场”还有另一幅面孔：为了考验学员，通过随机杀人而获得晋级行动里，凯西这才明白：sensi才是始作俑者，自己只是碰巧成了sensi考验学员成长的工具，在自己不知情的情况下又成了他继续施暴的工具。故事讲到这里，凯西似乎也确实从空手道的学习里变的强大，一枪结束了叨逼叨逼还装腔作势的sensi，脸不红，心不跳.这部小成本电影以其特有的喜剧特质呈现，是2019年比较难得一见的小成本喜剧，在如今的疫情之下，远在美国的学子们还是买把枪靠谱。