In "modern times", it was the era when capitalism went to monopoly in the 1930s. The machinery industry developed rapidly and the capital was concentrated in the hands of a few monopoly consortia. With the arrival of this torrent of industrial social change, a large number of proletarians have become vassals of machine industrial civilization, confused by the vortex of technological revolution, and then become screws on the production line of this machine society, which is insignificant and can be ruthlessly abandoned at any time. In Modern Times, Chaplin was involved in a huge machine, lost in the face of the power of the machine, sliding in the dazzling array of goods in the mall, soaked with bitter jokes, which became a true portrayal of that era.

After nearly 70 years, similar scenes and bitter memories have been put into watercolor-style cartoons, which let us relive the bitterness of small people, the overwhelming commercial power and the passion of industrial revolution under the drastic social changes. This is the Beautiful City Trio, a modernist fable with almost no lines.

The Trio of this Beautiful City was originally a singing group composed of three beautiful women, accompanied by a family of boys who grew up watching TV across the ocean. There are three members in this family, a boy riding a bicycle, a grandmother and a dog barking at the train when it passes by the window. In a bicycle race in a small city, the boy and two other drivers were robbed by a mysterious man in black to this beautiful city. They became victims of the racing gambling industry-the loser must be executed on the spot. Grandma chased the dog by boat to the beautiful city, but she was homeless in the street because she had no money. She met the old this beautiful city trio. Now they are out of date, living in cheap hotels and eating fried frogs. The technology they rely on to make a living is no longer a beautiful singing voice, but newspapers, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners, which are not "artistic". Through a series of efforts, the boy was finally saved, and five people left the land of sin and desire in this beautiful city with dogs on bicycles.

If we have to investigate where the fictional this beautiful city should be, the film has clearly indicated that it is new york. In that skyscraper, the logo is even bigger than the building. In this city full of fat women's desires, a statue of "freedom" was erected, and the torch in hand became ice cream. Seeing these huge hamburgers and ice cream belonging to American "culture" and thinking of the super fat people who eat a lot in ice cream shops, why don't you think that these ice cream shops represent American "evil" desire culture? This beautiful city actually embodies the evil interests of the whole fetishism world. A fat body is the result of indulgence of appetite and laziness. The snobbish waiter bowed to the tycoon 180 degrees. Casino owners kill people on the spot in order to stimulate the game, regardless of human life. Those who take part in gambling are short people with rich material and poor spirit, as if they were cloned from the same mold and lost their individual characteristics. Elegant art has been replaced by the collapse of "postmodern" ready-made products. These social cancers accompanied by the big machine industry are turning the whole beautiful city into an ugly hell, or it can even be said that Modern Times and Sex and the City are all from the evil interests of human beings, so it is impossible to choose between them.

Chaplin is a master in the silent film era. The masters of his time witnessed the appearance of sound films, but they became opponents of sound films one after another, because at that time, people liked to drown out films with sound, and films once again became the record of stage performances, which almost ruined all the efforts of silent movie master to make films an independent art form. In fact, until now, there are still many people who think that the silent film era is the real golden age of movies, and it is gone forever. This film tries to return to the era when the power of images was brought into full play. After all the lines were abandoned, exaggerated movements and hints of props successfully constructed a ups and downs story. Every plot and every item that seems to appear inadvertently in the lens provides clues for the next plot development. Because of the nature of comics, there will never be any useless items in the lens, and there will never be props that were not explained in the last section at the critical moment, which will make the story more cohesive.

The biggest difference between humor and funny lies in whether there are tears behind the smile. Chaplin's greatness lies in that he saw the modern pain, but turned it into a self-deprecating joke with enthusiasm. The audience can sympathize with the poor little people in laughter and awaken their conscience in tears. This is the case with Modern Times, and so is the this beautiful city Trio. It turns out that laughter originally came from bitterness, but I am still full of energy under great oppression. At this time, any Hollywood-style lines and sensational music have highlighted their affectation and meanness, which turned out to be the sincerity and kindness pursued by the masters in the silent film era. Recalling "Beautiful Life", which made me laugh first and then cry, my father joked with white lies, and laughter and tears became diametrically opposed. What moved us was not a joke, but my father's love. This movie is also a road of black humor. Terror itself is a joke, which finally makes you laugh and cry. We saw grandma chasing a distant grandson with a dog as a tire, a wandering grandmother picking up a broken bicycle tire under the bridge and knocking out the signature song of "This Beautiful City Trio", and they successfully fended off the bullet of the casino owner with an iron pot, all of which made people feel infinite sadness.

So, where is the ideal location for this movie? At the end of the movie, a group of winners left the beautiful city forever, left the evil under the neon lights, and the bicycles entered the desolate countryside and left the automobile civilization, as if they were far away from the evil there. Actually, it is not. This story has no happy ending. In front of the bicycle that three people ride together is a movie screen showing the road at the competition site, which is still a symbol of the civilization of the machine industry. This illusory competition and virtual victory accompanied them to a new life. In fact, they can't escape from the modern palm. The joy of victory is accompanied by disillusionment and desolation. It turns out that Wen Mingzhen is already in no way back, and he can only go to the abyss of extinction.

Pen watercolor painting casts a beautiful romantic atmosphere on the film, and bright colors and unrestrained style outline a dreamy and bright world in the ease of art. Grandma's town is simple, with natural scenery as the mainstay. The wind and sunshine on the sea contrast with the stormy waves. The strangeness of this beautiful city focuses on the colorful street colors and the cold atmosphere around low-rise hotels. These pure and emotional colors are no longer Disney-style simulated reality, but really set off the feelings of the story and are very infectious. The film uses a lot of close-ups of details, and then imitates the feeling of large zoom, showing a big scene with great contrast. We constantly explore the details, guess the setting of the whole scene, and cause visual ups and downs.

It is beyond reproach that this film has won unanimous praise from the American media. The Dallas Morning Post said that "every frame of it is full of amazing superb art and imagination". The Los Angeles Times commented that this is "a truly humorous cartoon, the most bizarre visual masterpiece of the year, which has brought us into an indescribable world, a place different from any other place we have seen", and news daily called it "a complicated one".