"My Father and Mother" directed by Zhang Yimou tells the love story of "my" father and mother who went through all kinds of hardships and ups and downs in the 1960s, and finally came together and stayed together for a lifetime. With his father, he devoted himself to the cause of education, which is an epic dedication. It praised the most simple personality spirit in the hearts of people in the 1960s.
The director uses black and white tones to describe the reality after his father's death, and uses colorful tones to describe the beautiful love and innocence between the parents before. In the film, the mother's clothes develop from ordinary colors to bright reds, which are neither magnificent nor soul-stirring. The use of low-saturation black and white pictures to narrate the story after the death of my father gives the audience a sense of coldness and vicissitudes, while when the meeting is over, the use of brightly colored pictures gives the audience a sense of romance and happiness. The school beams were tied with red cloth woven by his mother, which was a place where his father could put his spirits in his long teaching career. Through this high-contrast color application, the film's time and space are naturally distinguished, and it is endowed with emotional color, which makes people sigh at the ingenious conception.
The director, who was born in photography, has also carefully studied the arrangement of each picture in the film, just like an oil painting. In the film, a large number of techniques such as golden section composition, s-shaped composition, diagonal composition, etc. are used, so that the audience can have a wonderful experience of watching a photography exhibition while watching the film. In the film, when my parents met for the first time, when "I" returned to the village, when my mother was waiting for my father in the wind and snow, and when hundreds of people carried the coffin for my father, they were all on this extended and tortuous S-shaped road. This composition makes forty years of wind and snow sway, the deepest love dissolves in the years, becomes the company of more than ten years of winter and spring, and settles into solid and thick soil under the feet. In the golden section composition, the beautiful appearance of the mother when she was in her first year, and the flock of sheep in the diagonal composition all lead the audience into that simple village and experience the beautiful love of that year.
Panorama, close-up, medium shot, close-up, etc. are used in the film. The beginning of the film uses the vision to explain the place, season and time of the story. The panorama and long-range shots of my father's first visit show his erudite and mysterious color from the side, making the image three-dimensional and realistic. The close-up panning shot of the parents meeting on the S-shaped road for the first time allowed us to experience the shy, heart-pounding nervous feeling that we like about our lover. The end uses the long shot, the panorama, to the close-up of the mother and the see-off. It depicts his father's high reputation and a teacher's praises from all over the world. It is a high praise for his father's 40-year education career, and also expresses the director's admiration for teachers' dedication to life.
Yimou is worthy of being an "artistic" strategy. Any artistic strategy can be built on the basis of true feelings and can be freely expressed. "My Father and Mother", in the style of lyrical prose poetry, lifts up a heart-pounding "pure" word lightly. It can be said that the film was made by people with rich emotions, so that my hearts, which had been dusty for a long time, were suddenly opened, and I was shocked by the excitement. It is also an attack against the current materialistic world, which makes us have to reflect on what the current love and pursuit are for. A film that gives our hearts a chance to redeem itself, makes us think, makes us look directly at the desires of the dirty and ugly modern man. When life is the most confusing and uncertain, you might as well take a look at the innocence at that time and look for the original dream.
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