Algorithmic Life: "Reverse" is the A side of a refreshing article, and "Again" is the B side of reflection
2024-08-26
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Author: Liancheng
"Another Day Full of Hope" (hereinafter referred to as "Another Day") is a movie that is almost identical to "Reverse Life" (hereinafter referred to as "Reverse") in terms of characters, plot, and concept. Both films involve the "three pieces of unemployment" (high mortgage, full-time lover, sick parents) of middle-aged elite men and their lives controlled by algorithms. However, the popularity and discussion of "Reverse" on the Internet are ridiculously high, while "Another Day" "flopped" silently. The gap in the fame of the main creators and actors is actually reflected in the box office and reputation of the two films. Although the audience's choice is impeccable, this may mean that a truly realistic film will be missed.
The author boldly says that when looking at the topic of "life trapped in algorithms", "Again" is extremely sharp and courageous, and the intensity of its reflection and criticism has surpassed "Retrograde".
The arrogance of the elite
"Again" and "Reverse" introduce the identity fall incident through the layoffs of a programmer ("Reverse") and a product director ("Again"), which implicates them in the fate of food delivery riders, and ultimately brings out a hot topic that the whole society is anxious about: the collapse and reconstruction of the lives of urban elites.
Before the layoffs, the male protagonists of the two films were urban elites, complete winners in life. Gao Zhilei, played by Xu Zheng in "Reverse", is a senior employee (P7) of a large company with a monthly salary of 50,000 yuan, so he dared to take over the big house at a high position. His wife is a full-time housewife at home, and his daughter plans to go to an international school. In "Again", Wei Li, played by Song Ningfeng, is also very proud. He is the domineering product director, and his full-time wife takes care of the housework. His high school daughter is working hard to get into Tsinghua University and Peking University. The couple is also planning to buy a luxury car and have a second child. Everything seems perfect.
Both films use unexpected events to show the fragility and collapse of the lives of urban elites: Gao Zhilei in "Reverse" was laid off due to job optimization, his investment went bankrupt, his mortgage was defaulted, he was cheated by the agent when looking for a job, and his old father became ill and was admitted to the ICU... He fell from a white-collar worker in the city to a food delivery rider overnight (the fear and nightmare of all white-collar workers in the city). Wei Li in "Again" suffered a double blow: an unexpected car accident, followed by layoffs, which made his exquisite life as fragile as paper and collapsed.
"Reverse" is an inspirational film. Gao Zhilei's life has a dramatic reversal of falling to the bottom and rebounding: in the first half of the film, he is almost covered with suffering buffs. In addition to the decline in economy and status, he also has conflicts with his family; in the second half, he becomes a food delivery rider, and his family eliminates their grudges and shows warmth and understanding. He also develops the "Lulutong" APP. The ending of the film may imply that he will eventually change his fate with knowledge. But it must be said that this narrative of changing fate is somewhat suspended and out of place.
While depicting the life and status decline of the elite, "Again" also reflects the hypocrisy, arrogance and selfishness of some urban elites. Wei Li buried himself in work and pushed all the housework and children's education to his wife, but when he learned that his daughter's grades were poor, he immediately vented his anger on his wife, and failed to see her sacrifice and hard work for the family. At the same time, the film raises the perspective, connecting the urban elites with the lower-class civilians through a car accident, revealing their sophisticated egoism: the algorithm formulated by Wei Li to shorten the delivery time of the takeaway riders was the root cause of the takeaway riders running red lights in order to save time and colliding with his car. However, he was dissatisfied with the judgment that he had to bear the second responsibility, tried to evade the compensation liability, and had no sympathy for the takeaway rider's helpless cleaning wife.
If Gao Zhilei in "Again" represents the positive and clean-looking urban elite, then "Again" shows the essence of some urban elites from the perspective of group differences in a more critical and reflective way: selfishness with a lack of social responsibility.
Fortunately, Wei Li finally reflected on his arrogance and selfishness in the negotiation with the family of the takeaway rider, and also felt the survival dilemma of others. The positive significance of "Again" lies in that the director allows the audience to connect the two topics of the identity fall of the urban elite and the plight of the lower-class civilians, and reflect on whether there is a "system" that traps both parties at the same time in the plight of the two. If so, how to get rid of it?
The algorithmic prison
Obviously, the inspiration for the creation of "Reverse" and "Again" is the popular article "Food Delivery Riders, Trapped in the System". "Reverse" restores the observations of the article almost frame by frame. For example, the behavior of food delivery riders competing to become the "order king" in the film reflects the "points level system" of the food delivery platform: "The more orders (riders) run, the higher the punctuality rate, and the better the customer evaluation, the higher the points the riders will get. The higher the points, the higher the level, and the more reward income... Riders of different levels have different titles, which are from low to high: ordinary, bronze, silver, gold, diamond, and king."
Dahei, the food delivery rider in "Reverse", exploited himself by doing extreme behaviors such as not eating on time, taking shortcuts, and running red lights, and became the "order king" who gets more bonuses every month than others. However, the data of food delivery riders will be uploaded to the platform cloud data, which will automatically trigger the algorithm logic. "When the algorithm finds that everyone is getting faster and faster, it will speed up again." Dahei's competition for the "order king" has made himself successful, but it has also made other riders and his future self suffer. As other riders complained, "the income that used to be 12 hours, now has to be 14 hours to make."
Gao Zhilei accumulated road experience in practice and developed the "Lulutong" APP. The end of the movie implies that he may return to a high-paying job and regain his original exquisite life. However, the APP he developed is very likely to further increase the difficulty of "Single King" to an ultra-difficult mode, forcing riders to be "rolled" into a new algorithm at the hell level and unable to escape. The idea of escaping the system algorithm in "Reverse" is "join if you can't escape", which also reflects the thinking of many people in today's society, "join the crazy internal volume, and win when you roll to the extreme". "Reverse" does not reflect on the essence and structural factors of algorithmic logic, but seamlessly connects the "personal struggle" of chicken soup inspirational films with the rules of "internal volume is king".
"Again" did not succumb to this algorithmic logic, but raised more explicit questions and reflections on it. Wei Li slowly realized that it was the "algorithm for optimizing routes and the reward and punishment system" he formulated in the company that led to the tragic fate of the food delivery riders. In the final analysis, it was the algorithm that treated people as big data rather than living people. The lawyer who sued the food delivery riders decided to take the platform to court because he saw the structural defects behind the algorithm. Although the movie lightly told the audience in the form of a "subtitle bar" at the end that the lawyer won the lawsuit, the family of the food delivery rider received compensation, and Wei Li found a new job, all the contradictions seemed to be resolved. However, the film also tells us that before this, because he could no longer borrow money and the food delivery rider's life had been irreversibly exhausted, his wife had to choose to unplug her husband's tubes...
The seemingly happy ending of "Again" does not bring the audience the optimism brought by the ending of "Retrograde". It reminds us with melancholy: the whole society should reflect on the life trapped in the algorithm. (Liancheng)
Source: Beijing Youth Daily
