万福玛丽亚

如果她老老实实在当地体面的花工企业工作，怀着孩子与不爱的三无男人凑合结婚。生儿育女，在那个村子里过完自己的一生。那该多悲惨。

村子里，产业单一（花），贫穷，闭塞，一眼望透自己接下来几十年的生活了，她的姐姐和妈妈就是写照。她17岁啊，都是做梦青春年华的时候，却要做着富士康一样的活，分担家庭无谓的重担，和不爱的人结婚生子，挤在小小的房间。

她的脸上确没有屈从的表情。

契机来了，因为和上司不合愤然辞职。这里注意，她的姐姐和妈妈知道后立马呵斥抱怨她，赶紧回去请求原谅跪舔上司恳请重返工作。而不考虑她是不是被上司欺负，她愿不愿意在那工作灯。总之一句话，我把你养大，现在不管死活，赚钱回来。
贫穷，贫穷让一个人没有了尊严，让人的价值判断都是功利的。甚至这个人是自己的孩子，亲人。

另一方面，她怀孕了。胆怯、平庸的男人和她想法不一致，分开了。注意，玛利亚很勇敢，她追求真爱，而不是随随便便找个人嫁了（像极了红楼梦的鸳鸯，贾赦娶妾），不爱就不爱，不爱就分开，就算孩子要自己抚养。这里的后果她很清楚。

贩毒，这是有着风险的犯罪，来钱快。为了钱，当然也为了孩子，她需要搏一搏。更让她感兴趣是看看外面的世界，高楼大厦眼花缭乱的国际大都市纽约啊。

准备就绪后，她坐上前往美国纽约的飞机，这里展现四个女人，或者说四种类型的玛利亚的面貌。老手一个，熟手一个，玛利亚一个，树墩子一个。结果，老手落网了，熟手意外事故剖肠子了。剩下玛利亚和树墩子了。

这里玛利亚为何看到熟手被杀后，带着毒品跑走呢？难道不知道这美国她人生地不熟的，她还带着毒品，语言不通，贩毒黑社会全国找她们吗？毕竟，毒品犯罪是很严肃的事情，掉链子没好下场的。

这里的过度，还没法理解。。。。

接下来出现的女人深深影响她，可能是一生。怀孕的姐姐，告诉她，她留在美国，不是不想家，而是留在这肚子里的孩子有更多的机会。一个贫穷山区出来的未婚母亲，不得不考虑她肚子里孩子。

她没有防备，相信胖子不会报警，她真心仁爱，出资送友归故里，她不忍，隐瞒实情真痛心。这里看到人性的闪光，这是一个农村出来的女人，我很敬佩。这里树墩子是一个对比，当然也不是说树墩子做错了什么，而是人的选择很重要。

她选择留在美国，而树墩子回哥伦比亚，她没有选择继续贩毒，而是一个人打拼。

我在想，时常我们在城市里碰到的外地人，非本地人，都有自己带来的故事。我想去和他们聊聊天，听听他们的故事。

This is the harrowing story of a (not quite) typical mule: Maria Alvarez (Moreno), an intelligent and fiercely independent 17-year-old girl from Colombia who agrees to smuggle a half-kilo of heroin into the United States.

Walking out of the theatre, I found myself at a loss of words.

What struck me the most about the story was how un-exaggerate everything was. Let it be Maria’s job, her village, or her family. They were portrayed with moderation and care. The result was impressively real and honest. Maria’s job was not uncommon for a third world country’s village girl of 17. I’ve read far worse treatment and horror stories of factory workers in ShenZheng, China. The real evil was in the lack of a choice. All Maria had was the job in the flower factory. It was the only economic opportunity presented to Maria. It was what her family, even her entire village depended on. Sounds familiar? I thought of that British mining town in Billy Elliot.

Like all country girls who rebelled against their fate, Maria made a choice, the same choice all country girls in her shoes made, to go to the city. On her way, she was tempted away from the possibility of becoming a rich family’s maid; instead, she was offered an adventure. Traveling, America, and American dollars added together proven to be too big a temptation to turn down for a rebellious country girl. Was there really a huge difference for her, between pulling thorns off roses and swallowing cocaine pellets and carried them to America? Both were rich people’s merchandises, both were beyond her reach. She was one little link in the economy chain. The latter sounded a lot more exciting than the former, and it would take her beyond the depressing village outside of Bogota. She was, finally, presented a choice.

The subsequent story made me admire Maria’s intelligence and coolness. But it also chilled me to the bone to see how cruel and brutal the drug world was (is).

Would legalizing drugs clean up all these brutality? Would legalizing drugs prevent Maria and her fellow Columbian women from participating in this dark and ugly trade?

If so, then why wouldn’t any country take that step?

“Because drugs are evil and hurt people who use them. How could you legalize something so damaging to our very selves? How could any government give out any signal that drug abuse is ‘legal’, therefore, ‘ok’?”

Because not legalizing it made it worse? Because the huge profit margin is driving the drug trade into a frenzy, and it is killing poor people like Maria left and right? Cigarette is legal, isn’t it? It is harmful to people’s health, too. Why is that okay to endorse but not drugs? Since when human being became such innocent creatures?

“If you legalize drugs, then more people will become drug addicts. That would be disastrous and self-destructive.”

Okay. People have self-destructive tendencies. There are evils in these world, too many. People always have the choice of whether to become drug addicts, just like people have the choice of whether to smoke a cigarette. Are you saying that government has the right to make the choice for its citizens that the government knows what is best? What about education? What about the fittest survive? It is not like I don’t get drug offered when I walk down Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, it is not like high school kids don’t get drug offers in parties, at playground, on their way to school, anyways. It is happening right now. How much worse could it get? Besides, once it became legal, it could take away the “adventurous lure” it has right now to the rebellious type. Couldn’t it?

Drug abuse is part of modern societies already. We have to deal with it. But if legalizing it could take away the huge profit for the drug lord, then it could reduce their incentive to produce them. It could dry up so many money sources for terrorist groups and anti-government organizations. It could save Maria and girls like her the fate of dying on ruptured cocaine pellets that they carry in their stomach. It could save them from being treated like animals (”mule”), whose stomach was cut open so their cargo could be retrieved. Mule’s life was of no consequence. The dehumanization of Maria and her fellow mules was not caused by drug’s own evil-ness directly. It was made possible by the huge profit of drug trade, and its huge profit came from their illegal status. It was made possible because of human being’s own greed.

If government wants to do good to the society, then it could place the choice into everyone’s own hand. Take away the possibility to make people even more greedy than they already are. Don’t tempt them. Trust them.

In Chinese modern history, there was a much revered national hero, General Lin Zexu. Who initiate the fight against the British in 1840’s. He burned all the opium he could gather in a huge public display. His angry words are still recited in today’s Chinese elementary school classrooms, “Opium is evil, it weakened our people, our soldier, our country…” But the fact was, Chinese society was weakened from inside before opium even appeared. The closed society has been quietly rotten away from top to bottom for centuries. There was little outlet for real talent of the society. There wasn’t much progress happeneing for the society as a whole. Corruptions were prevalent. Opium provided an escape. A dying plant happened upon a killer disease. It was easy to blame the disease. Even though General Lin Zexu won his opium war, the final treaty between the British and the Qin Dynasty turned out to be the first of many humiliating treaties to come in China’s Modern History. Burning Opium didn’t help General Lin’s cause. Burning the entire country might. That was exactly what Chairman Mao tried over a century later.

There is a little analogy in gardening. When a flower attracted diseases, it was often because the plant itself was weak and unhealthy, either from lack of water, light, or too much water, etcetera. To prevent disease from happening, you either make the plant strong and healthy, or you try to shut down all disease sources. The latter has proven to be a harder path. Shutting down flow of air would usually cause more problems to the plant. Exposing the plant to the natural elements was usually more healthy for the plant. As long as the plant was healthy, often it could fight off many diseases using its own strength.

影片的最后，玛丽亚转身走向赎罪的道路，眼神坚定，表情平静，美丽的锁骨上方是神圣的十字架挂坠

我相信，的玛丽亚已经找到了内心真正的倚靠和归属，在辗转于堕落的深渊之后，她心中的神，会眷顾这个有着坚毅品格的善良少女。

片名叫万福玛丽亚，如同女主角的名字玛丽亚，在影片中，宗教虽然没有被公开地谈及，但是却总是由始至终地贯穿在整部影片的背景中。就像我们的人生一样，神明不是总是需要被时时提及和想起，但是在你需要帮助，在你感受到召唤的时候，它就会出现，在你身边，给你力量。

人生陷入困境是常事，在《万福玛丽亚》中，我们看不见哥伦比亚浓郁的民族风情，听不见那大海温柔的叹息，唯一得知 便是生活在那种穷困环境中的人们。《万福玛丽亚》是导演乔舒华·玛斯顿的电影处女作，有过拍摄连续剧《法律与秩序》的经验，《万福玛丽亚》这样的电影也自然是驾轻就熟。平实流畅的叙事，客观冷静的记录，将每一位观众都引入一个罪恶的魔窟之中。当一个十七岁的小女孩怀着身孕决定运送毒品补贴家用的时候，那种感觉就好像是上帝死了。

生活大概远比电影要残酷。

每次看欣赏第三世界国家电影的时候总要做一番挣扎，在这些国家中，有很多你想象不到的真实故事在上演，大多数故事都是关于绝望和死亡的。导演在《万福玛丽亚》这部电影中，并没有刻意去强调环境的艰苦，而是通过人物的生活，以及他们的对话和行为来展现哥伦比亚底层百姓的情困潦倒。在电影中，玛丽亚一方面受到残忍毒枭的欺压，另一方面受到美国海关警察的冷库对待，对于十七岁的女孩来说，这样的世界，除了残酷，没有更多的形容。女主角玛丽亚的视角和经历是整部电影的主线，观众只能跟随着玛丽亚来了解那个残酷的世界。从叙述手法上看，乔舒华·玛斯顿并没有可以的炫耀自己的拍摄技巧，反而用一种最真实简单的方式来讲述这个故事，平铺直叙，运用剧情本身的张力来推动电影的继续，用演员的真实情感来充实整部电影。值得一提的是，这部电影最大的特色就是配乐。以往，人们在看电影的时候，配乐会成为烘托情绪的一种手段，而在本片中，所有的情绪和张力依靠的都是电影本身的剧情。

十七岁少女的人生挣扎是绝望和悲伤。

在任何一个国家，穷苦的人们想要出人头地，唯一能依靠的就是自己。十七岁的玛丽亚不仅要撑起家庭的经济负担，还要尽量帮助姐姐来养活她的孩子。面对这样的困境，玛丽亚投射出来的是一种不符合年龄的坚韧。虽然导演一直将镜头放在玛丽亚身上，但是，纵观全篇，导演依然将哥伦比亚这个国家中的人民，为了生存而需要担负的代价表现的淋漓尽致。在遥远的第三世界国家，玛丽亚这样的任务比比皆是，年轻气盛的性格和低三下四的工作处境相互冲击着。他们拼尽全力想要得到自己渴望的成功。导演在本片中并没有过分夸大哥伦比亚的经济问题和民生问题，而是用写实的手法，旁敲侧击的让观众了解到哥伦比亚的绝望和悲伤。

整部电影除了玛丽亚的选择和坚持之外，更重要的问题则是所谓的美国梦。在美国式资本主义商业机器的压榨中，他们都认为美国便是掘金圣地。当他们冒着危险来到美国的时候，得到的是冷漠的海关，怀疑的态度。哥伦比亚的毒枭将她们作为运送毒品的工具，而美国司法机构却将她们视为危险的所在，到最后，她们拥有的只是被人宰割和永无止尽的折磨。
    

     上课的时候，老师放了无字幕版的前半部分，我回来又在优酷看了有字幕的后半部分————————
      
      就像传言和我们纷乱的印象和感知一样，哥伦比亚是个充满毒品走私，战乱和存在巨大贫富差距的国家。就算是要去留学，也要三思。影片开始就用镜头平实的记录那些脏乱的街巷，晃荡的无业游民，贫乏的物质生活和严苛单调的乡村工作。
       17岁的Maria，在献花加工厂收到老板的辱骂，愤然辞职。跟男朋友沟通未果，不想因为怀孕就草率结婚。带着对经济状况的不满和对爱的怀疑，她搭贩毒小喽啰顺风车去了波哥大。举目无亲的她，被人体贩毒的巨大收入吸引，于是铤而走险。
       她被带到药店，走进暗房，吞下了50颗包好海洛因的塑胶丸。当她坐上飞机的时候，才发现同行的有4个。其中，教过她的Lucy在机上开始难受。当Maria难受至极，想要排泄的时候，竟然想到毒枭对自己的威胁，有不得不吞了回去。入境检查，Maria被强势逼问，但是由于自己是孕妇，最终得以幸运入境。另外的一位就没那么好运了。
     杯具的是，Lucy在接头的旅馆死掉了。带着疑虑和困惑，她携毒逃到纽约，借住在Lucy姐姐家中。一直的好朋友Blanca也被拉入伙。她们相互讥讽，埋怨。在帮助非法移民的Fernando面前，露出了马脚。Fernando帮忙找到了Lucy的尸体，并且要求筹措2500美元送尸体回哥伦比亚。Lucy的姐姐在知道真相之后也将她们赶出家门。二人无奈的找回组织，拿到应得的酬劳。Maria几乎用尽全部的钱，送Lucy最后一程。然后在机场，为了自己的孩子，她选择留在美国。虽然孤独寂寞，但是一样的卑微，至少在这里可以延续自己的希望。
     多金跟生死的游戏相关。贫苦却换得内心安宁。
     其实每个人的命运都是随机选择的，自己决定好坏的几率还是很大的。如果Maria不被丰厚的酬金诱惑，断然不会铤而走险。但是说到底，如果她这样的天生丽质，出生在殷实的家境，就不会被逼到社会的边缘。但是，万幸的是，我们在结局看到了一个天性善良，体会过个中滋味的少女，母性驱使，留在这片外人梦寐以求的土地上，去追寻可能得幸福。
      腹中的生命，是她的庇护神。他们都将迎接新生。