中外紀錄片的風格真是差別不少。

中國的獨立紀錄片像一個冷靜的旁觀者，盡量置身事外，用毫無矯飾的鏡頭語言去真實記錄；外國紀錄片的畫面和節(jié)奏明顯更精致，導演和拍攝者像一個孤膽英雄，帶領(lǐng)你走近事實的真相。

看完這部紀錄片，讓人細思極恐。不怕你是一個聰明人，也不怕你是一個有錢人，就怕你是一個聰明的有錢人。

這個聰明的有錢人如果有一些怪癖，那他可以輕易地利用人性的弱點把普通人玩弄于股掌之中。

所謂法律不就是一個虛無的框架，對想突破法律束縛的人來說，它簡直形同虛設(shè)。

游戲?qū)映霾桓F，誰知道下一個開啟者是誰，下一個受害者又是誰……

前面很懸疑很吊胃口，后面結(jié)束得太憋屈了。

我們通常說，流氓不可怕，就怕流氓有文化，在電影里要再加上一句，還有錢。他躲在現(xiàn)代網(wǎng)絡(luò)背后，法律的灰色地帶，不用本人現(xiàn)身，像控制牽線木偶一樣控制這個“無傷大雅”的玩笑。將活生生的人看成自己買的玩偶，用金錢控制他們，肆意欺虐，滿足自己的癖好。又像個不知饜足的熊孩子，有人違逆自己就破口大罵，砸東西撒潑。看到這里就很顯然了，跟小時候的經(jīng)歷有關(guān)，片子最后有不痛不癢的一段敘述，但沒有深挖，估計像這類型的畸形人格已經(jīng)見得多了，無非是小時候曾遭受同伴的凌虐欺辱，長大后有能力欺負別人了，為什么不呢。這個世上不止這一個david，放在以前，這些畸形人格只在小范圍內(nèi)構(gòu)成危害，而今飛速發(fā)展的網(wǎng)絡(luò)，只要他想，這危害可以波及到幾個國家的人民。那些躲在陰暗角落通過物質(zhì)精神操控他人的畸形人格很多，他們總能找到一個弱勢群體，誘惑，掌控，毀滅。而這個社會不乏這樣的人群，為了欲望或生存出賣自尊甚至沒有想到的生命。這個情況不會好轉(zhuǎn)，只會愈演愈烈。想到這里有點憂傷。

A priori, any documentary makers should adopt impartiality towards their subjects, but for New Zealander TV reporter David Farrier and producer Dylan Reeve, they have their own skin in the game. The germ of TICKLED is when Farrier, whose bent is on “quirky and odd stories”, is tickled by the online videos of “competitive tickling endurance” and starts blogging it, after met with unexpected homophobic responses and legal threats from the videos’ production company Jane O’Brien Media, Farrier and Reeve are undeterred, if anything, they are further intrigued to beat the bush of this undermined phenomenon and fly to USA to continue their guerrilla probe.

What initially appears as a reportage on the fetish of “erotic tickling”, all the participants of the videos are athletic, teenage or early-twenty-something boys, intriguingly swerves into a conspiracy theory exposé, when the pair obtain more information about the said production company and an 90’s personage called Terri DiSisto, who allegedly spearheaded the video production, through various interviewees, including former participants, reporters and local recruiters, what they piece together is a one-man empire of David D’Amato, the only son of a wealthy Wall Street banker, who invents fake identities to register companies and disburses expense of running them and shooting the videos, all because the guy is minted.

Real life is stranger than fiction, Farrier and Reeve’s investigative modality is nothing special, pedestrian talking heads, voice-only recording sub rosa, occasionally punctuating the narrative with scenic shots, and the key to their triumph can be encapsulated in three operative words “resources, stakeout and chutzpah”, and what is really both unsettling and edifying is to see the deleterious effects of the pandemic bully culture, David is such a fruition, a sadistic tormenter who revels in ruling the roost, and will not have no for an answer, anyone who dares to defy his command is met with inconceivable discrediting retaliation, but how did he do that? Is himself a savvy internet hacker who can disable a university’s computer system (an act of vengeance on a participant who wants out, for which he served a six-month prison sentence) or he outsources the job to someone else, that leaves a question mark, what we can infer is that when one is well-oiled like him, nothing seems to be impossible.

Finally, when most of the lowdown is divulged, TICKLED ends with more reverberations when Farrier calls David’s last relative alive, his stepmother, and we are apprised that David is not a bully in his childhood, instead, allegedly he is a bully victim, that, for this reviewer, is the manna from heaven, while most of us may concern about what damage those bullies can wreak when they grow up, the film intelligently reminds us that the same attention should also be applied to the victims, how their mentality can be forever impaired by the pernicious act and in turn, they comes off as a new bully when they are equipped with the wherewithals, that is food for thought from one side of the story.

referential entries: Tim Wardle’s THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS (2018, 6.6/10); Sandi Tan’s SHIRKERS (2018, 7.4/10).

人性被扭曲成了什么樣。我想本片很好的介紹了那些邊緣化人物的現(xiàn)狀。片中出現(xiàn)了兩種或更多種邊緣化人物，其一是發(fā)掘“撓癢癢”這件事的導演及其制作團隊。他們是得以讓真相大白于天的人。然而歸結(jié)到底，發(fā)現(xiàn)竟然是一個人所為，在吃驚之余我也非常同情第二種邊緣人，那就是“加害者”，本片中出錢讓別人“撓癢癢”的人。我覺得很大程度上還是因為他個人成長原因，導致了本片中我們所看到的狀況。第三種邊緣人物，我想就是那些自愿成為“撓癢癢”的“被害人們”了。他們竟然是如此眾多，整件事情實在讓人匪夷所思，就像《聚焦》中的內(nèi)容那樣讓人大跌眼鏡。它們的共通點在于都制造了被害者，并且讓他們集體失聲。

當我接觸到這部紀錄片的時候，是耐著性子慢慢看完的，因為我也很想知道，到底那些錢是從哪來的，這樣一個跨國的組織竟然一直都處于隱匿狀態(tài)。實在吃驚。而后得到的真相太過分了，不過還是比《聚焦》中的宗教性有組織的掩蓋真相感受好一些。《聚焦》簡直顛覆了三觀，整個人都不好了，讓我更加對宗教看低。

如果對《聚焦》有興趣的話，可以看一下這篇影評：隱藏在神性背后的獸性