The rules of the cider house make people think that the main scene should be the cider house. However, at the beginning of the film, one-third of the space is about the story of St. Klaus orphanage. Of course, the group of "orphans" is an important role in this film, and their existence is closely related to "rules". The director also skillfully uses this group to arouse readers' voices and discussions.
St. Klaus is an orphanage. At the same time, it also helps women to have abortions. At that time, abortion was illegal in the United States, but under the rules of Dr. Raki, he was willing to do this "devil's work."
Homer, the hero, inherited Dr. Lacey's midwifery and abortion, but he didn't want to be a doctor. Instead, he chose to return to Guan Hai Orchard and work in the cider house with Katie and Wally who came to St. Klaus for abortion.
It was also in the cider house that Homer and Katie fell in love. When Wally went to the battlefield and his life and death were unknown in the war, he and Katie quietly gave birth to a son. Gorgeous who came back became disabled. Katie chose to marry Gorgeous and Gorgeous knew all the truth, but they still lived as a family, and no one exposed them.
The director described some unconventional plots without defining right or wrong, leaving it to the audience to judge and imagine. At the end of the film, Homer returned to St. Klaus and inherited the "devil's work".
The rules involved in this film are not just a page on the wall of the cider house, but about abortion, war, discrimination and so on in the American social environment at that time. The original intention of the story is not to maintain the established rules, nor to oppose them, but to make readers think through the story: whether the established rules are reasonable.
Film evaluation:
With exquisite composition and exquisite shooting techniques, the film creates a faint sense of loneliness and warm sense of belonging, and brings the audience a kind of peace of mind and inner stability.
The lens in the film uses a long lens, which makes the picture feel more intimate and warm, and it is also an extension of emotion, so that the audience can clearly understand the director's expression intention and the hero's feelings in the long lens.
This film is not built around the core conflict according to the traditional "conflict law" principle in Hollywood; Nor did it construct the film into a "stream of consciousness" style according to the tendency of "internalization" of modern European drama; Instead, it uses the decentralized life flow method to express the specific time flow, and uses dramatic events to present local conflicts, forming a European-style Hollywood movie.