I remember when I was in high school, the history teacher taught us earnestly, "You are the luckiest generation now. If you don't believe me, go to China's history, how can there be such a relatively long and stable period of peace for you to study with peace of mind." I don't know the history, but the meaning of the words seems to make people take it for granted.
A while ago, my grandfather told me about his childhood. He said that he was hungry and hungry every day. I remembered asking his birthday, he was in the 1930s, which made me very curious. Of course I couldn't have known his approximate age, and I was surprised that I kept omitting his identity - he was also from the Republic of China. Some people say that China's modern history is a highly condensed history. In just a few decades, the industrialization process of the West for hundreds of years has been completed. Especially when Grandpa talks about his parents and family, the trace can even touch on the former Qing Dynasty. Compared with my grandfather's nearly 100-year span, my parents who were born in the 1960s seem to be insignificant in their "talk". Grandpa's family was hungry, and neighbors starved to death. Some went out begging for food and never came back. The Kuomintang doesn't care about people's life or death. I guess the story should be "1942". Then he spoke proudly about how he came out on top in the three major transformations, how capable he was as a team leader, and won praise from his superiors and the title of "advanced". In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a shortage of food, because he was doing food-related work, so my dad could live a more comfortable childhood. I listened to his elderly but passionate self-report "Food was important back then!", so he seemed to have a glorious past in that position. Now that? How to see how is an ordinary old man. Times have changed, and now it is no longer the world of the working class.
People have not changed, skills have not changed, but times have changed. Times have changed, and so has human destiny. I always felt that as an ordinary person, my little life had nothing to do with the times. Now I feel that the times have always affected us, but life is too small and trivial. Most of the time we are trapped in the small and trivial, and we cannot see it as complete and complete .
Times have changed, what can people do? Fugui's answer to us is "No matter what happens, we have to endure and suffer". In "Alive", I have a very unexpected place. I can't seem to remember or notice the structure of the big mansion passed down by the rich and noble ancestors and the street structure of life. The details of the film are of course excellent, but there are few special shots that constitute the relationship between people and buildings and the surrounding environment like "The Big Red Lantern" and "Autumn Chrysanthemum". And under what circumstances all the characters in the film seem to have never fought or fought, even though they have all suffered huge changes and pains. After Fugui lost his ancestral mansion, Fugui's father "understatement" came to say "gambling debt is also a debt, and there is no reason for not repaying a debt since ancient times", which is really admirable. Afterwards, the death of Fugui's parents and the death of his children were quickly skipped, and there were not many scenes to indulge in emotions.
Among them, there are not many. There are two attempts to escape from the current life. One is that Long Er cheated into Fugui's house by gambling, and became a rich man from the shadow play troupe leader, but he paid the price with his life. Second, Jiazhen decided to leave her gambling husband, but soon she returned to take the responsibility of being a good wife and mother. As for Chunsheng, who became the district mayor by driving for the People's Liberation Army, I think it's just another blessing that hasn't come back.
So in a sense, the people in "Alive" all have strong adaptability. They donated all the pots and pans at home to support the Great Leap Forward without looking into why. This seems to be the wisdom of their survival. In this sense, I seem to understand the intention of Zhang Yimou's lens. Does the era matter? Times are important, but times don't seem to matter. No matter how the times change, people always have to live. This may be why the director gave up using the composition he was good at to analyze people and the environment, and replaced the visual needs of the film with "shadow play". No matter what age, shadow puppets can be performed on white cloth. No matter what era, people's stories have to be staged.
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