Free Kill Matt | "Kill Matt I Love You" Film Review

There has never been a documentary that touched me so much as "Kill Matt, I Love You" , so that when I saw the middle, I unconsciously picked up my phone and took notes desperately, for fear of missing each of the powerful parts of Kill Matt. Expressions, those philosophical expressions of life about freedom, about pleasure, about oppression. What I have written down here is just a collection of keywords that I can write down on the spot for a short period of time, and the life philosophy of Kill Matt in the film is still far from being fully expressed, and it is worth recalling many times. The director's interview said, "At least this film is not about killing Matt history, but about killing Matt people to tell their own personal history", which is a contemporary Chinese worker history.

I reflected on what moved me so much, two very important points. One is to kill Matt's independent subject expression. What exactly is the worker's independent expression? This rather politically correct thing that we don't understand at all - it's an expression of self-respect, freedom, and joy. The self-confidence in the eyebrows of each of the slaughtering workers in the documentary is moving. The strength of the workers does not come from sympathy and attention, and the charm of Killing Matt does not come from the non-mainstream displayed by him and the others, but the self-esteem and self-confidence (dignity) formed by the inherent discipline of "resisting/avoiding" formed under the community. It's what I've been looking for and looking forward to, some kind of charismatic presence from growing up working-class self-empowerment.

Another point is that every worker is a born philosopher. A decade of labor participation has convinced me of this, but I'm more convinced than ever. Mainstream society has always been depriving, marginalizing, and even stigmatizing the lower-class workers, evaluating and "arranging" the lives of the lower-class workers from the perspective of intellectuals and the wealthy class, we (yes, We) can't understand the history of their lives - laborers only participate in the development of society as a supporting role, and can only be a supporting role forever. Killing Matt understands this, and his and their life experiences—a recurring tale of oppression and freedom, hunger and happiness, even less prominent than his hairstyle, bear the price of social change. Killing Matt's life is revealing the most absurd marginal reality of this era: the excluded non-mainstream and the crucified marginalized people.

Killing Matt is free, joyful, and oppressive.

Freedom and Joy Expressed with Kill Matt

"Come out, there's only one option — go into the factory. If you don't have another option, it's boring, so give yourself other options. Hair is another option."

It's killing Matt's freedom.

Luo Fuxing, founder of SMART (SMART), wrote on his official account and Douyin that "the freedom of aesthetics is the starting point of all freedom." Of course, SMART's freedom is not aesthetically simple, but it is enough to reveal the desire for freedom. Humble, it is the starting point, but it is also the last piece of private space that has been eroded - hair (but it has not been preserved).

A very important message is pointed out in the film. All the culture we know and hear about killing Matt comes from migrant workers in the rural areas of the central and western regions. This group has been in the Pearl River Delta since the age of twelve, three or four. The people who work in the area are not only the biggest builders of the city, but also "non-mainstream people". In Luo Fuxing's words in the film, "I rarely look up at a building when I walk on the road." How tall and good looking is it?

The city does not give them any sense of security. There is no freedom in the factory, and the childish body is prematurely controlled by the capitalist production machinery. No matter whether it is a large factory or a small factory, there is a piece-based rush game, a busy hand on the assembly line, and a twelve-hour or even longer working hour. The wheel is turning, and life has long been out of control. Making money turns out to be just that, a disproportionate exchange with no room for withdrawal. The only freedom is how to schedule the one to four days of respite that may only be available each month. It's not a sense of security, it's a sense of loss of control.

One of the most frequently used words in the documentary is "freedom". This "freedom" has too many meanings. They want to get attention and resist the loneliness in their hearts. No one ever noticed his presence, and the hair made him and them feel at least like human beings, not walking dead on the production line and on the edge of the city. They hope to have more courage and self-confidence to "fit into (habit)" the unsafe world. "After playing Kill Matt for a while, I dared (do) many things." The unique Kill Matt non-mainstream style and the stereotyped "bad guy" image make it possible for Kill Matt to escape the shackles of the original discipline Sex, can regain a new "different self", a feeling of regaining control over oneself - "freedom". In the film, the co-worker said, "I was afraid (coming to the city), but killing Matt is a very bad trait. If it is a bad person, no one will dare to bully him." "I feel that my whole body is different, I feel trembling and happy. "When I played Kill Matt, I didn't even recognize myself." Kill Matt allowed him and the others to regain the confidence that had been extinguished in factories and urban life.

They are also eager to find fellow travelers who sympathize with each other, a sense of belonging that they have never had in the alienated capital production. The public space of the ice skating rink and Shek Pai Park carries everything they have about happiness and freedom. Even if they work late and are very tired, they still want to go to the park when they are resting. "We are (the same) kind of people. Others think we are abnormal, but we can persist, and we are like a family." Character, like kind, pulls together. Thinking about Sunday every week, every day (going out and playing with the family)”. In the factory life, he and the others have experienced grief, pain, and even despair and self-mutilation, but the sense of belonging brought by the self-organization of the Kill Matt family may be the hope of their lives.

In the eyes of the outside world, they are so non-mainstream. But in fact, even if they don't follow the style of killing Matt, they have been strictly excluded from the entire mainstream society. In the mainstream cultural/value practice, the most paradox is that while excluding and marginalizing migrant workers in terms of economic and political status, they still arbitrarily force them to conform to the mainstream cultural symbols. The freedom in the soul of Killing Matt is not so much a challenge to mainstream aesthetics as a cultural resistance to the oppression of disciplinary social production, and it is also a liberating practice for migrant workers.

The oppression behind Kill Matt - Kill Matt who was forced to cut

"Money and happiness, for workers like us, there is only one choice; those who kill Matt may only pursue killing Matt, but not other houses or cars."

Does killing Matt have a choice? In fact, there is no choice. The choice is not their right, just like they do not have the right to freedom.

Capital society has never been stingy with depriving workers of any possibility of freedom. Class mobility is a false story, and maintaining the efficient and repeated operation of the bottom layer is the ultimate goal. "I have worked in the factory for more than ten years. I have always been a general worker, and I have no chance to rise. But playing Kill Matt, I at least have a chance to rise. For example, Kill Matt Noble, at least it can make me happy." On the contrary, Te became a rebel under the capital culture, implicitly mocking and passively resisting the fixed uneven distribution.

However, the workers who play Kill Matt eventually have to face a question, "Do you want to keep your hair or enter the factory to make money?" Shipai in Dongguan and Chenghai in Shantou have become the gathering places for many killers. The core reason is that most of the manufacturing industries in the two places exist in the form of small workshops/factories; such factories do not have high requirements on the appearance of workers, and they rush out during peak seasons. No one will be rejected, and the Shamat family will be given a certain living space. However, they still have to face a choice after all—discipline, as the core secret of capital production, will not give up easily.

In order to retain his only "freedom", he could not find a factory that he was willing to accept. Killing Matt could only turn to a labor dispatch company, or accept lower treatment. The original small workshop/factory is quite informal, and it may be normal to not sign a contract or pay five insurances and one housing fund, and not calculate overtime pay according to law; but in the face of possible "free" choices, they have to accept more. Low worse treatment, or even living on the streets. "The ten steamed buns (begged) were divided between the two, and it took five days." What should I do if I want to kill Matt again and have no money? Then hold on for a few more days...

"The first time I cut my long hair off, I felt very bitter, I felt I lost my dignity; it was very painful, I felt that (killing Matt) had become part of my body." In the eyes of the factory owner, killing Matt is not a Obedient employees; in the eyes of society, killing Matt is not a good person; but in the eyes of killing Matt, it is dignity and being yourself, but unfortunately, killing Matt who enters the factory has no choice.

The craze for killing Matt fell into silence after 2013, and he didn't even dare to appear in public anymore. This all stems from the blackening and attacks on the Shamate culture that have continued since then. The internal attack on Shamate’s post bars and QQ groups has completely disintegrated the Shamate community. However, going back today, the non-mainstream culture of killing Matt born from the boring and devalued factory community is not a single cyber violence, but the entire neoliberal cultural hegemony behind it— - As mentioned before, workers are only allowed to be marginalized and crucified marginalized people. The self-organizing community and the philosophy of freedom behind the killing-matt culture are challenging the established hegemony of factory production and questioning the truth that efficiency is paramount. Even if this resistance is humble and passive, the spirit is noble, not a vulgar clown.

"Sometimes it's a clown, but it's good to be happy in our hearts." Killing Matt isn't, real Jokers have convinced us to agree with the "mainstream position" they set.

Attached: The interview with director Li Yifan is very moving and sincere. Thank you for these touches. Recommended details: "Interview with Li Yifan: Kill Matt, I Love You"