The director created such an isolated environment in this film, carefully maintaining its internal balance, the source of all contradictions is the director deliberately had to open a hole to reality in this small environment. This seems to be a common element in urgent films.
An important feature of this film is the diversity of subjective values that the director can express in the film. This leads to the fact that this film does not have the general film's rough determination of right and wrong, and does not even carry any author's value judgment on the question of whether it is correct or not. It is merely describing a fact. This kind of technique is not an outlier today when the subject and form of the movie are becoming more individualized and diversified, but it is rare to do this thoroughly like "Bow". Especially after young men from the real world enter this world isolated from reality, the value contradiction between each role becomes more acute. For the description of the old man, there are many details in the film. For example, the old man is getting more and more manic and even impatient to draw day by day to the date on the calendar; for example, the old man rudely takes the girl away from the boy, completely ignoring the girl’s thoughts. ; For example, the old man also drove the boy off the boat; the old man went out to bring back his dowry, etc., but at the same time, the director also described the loneliness of the old man in an instant. The old man played a sad tune with his bow in the bow; the old man repaired alone The machine on board vents the disappointment in the heart and the loss of the original grasp on the machine, which is tantamount to an extremely helpless self-harm. The same is true for the description of girls, narrating the girl’s character from many aspects, and not focusing on one aspect of it. The tranquility and harmony of living in my own small world before, after the balance was broken, the old man became more and more extreme in his incompatibility and yearning for the outside world, and his attachment to the boy. In the future, the director only describes the process during the whole process, and does not see any value tendency. You can see that the old man chose to live at the last moment of his life, but when he realizes the details of the girl hiding the dagger after returning, you can also see the girl's behavior in expressing her arbitrary resistance to the old man and taking the initiative to embrace the guests. , All these descriptions point directly to one point-human nature. Instead of staying at the old routine of intercepting a certain aspect of a character's personality to embody and promote the contradiction of a certain plot, this is also the uniqueness and boldness of Kim Kidd. Human nature is emphatically embodied in this film as the concept of neutrality. There is no right or wrong, only the subject. Everyone has his own stand and thoughts, and everybody has his own desires and demands. The contradictions surrounding the interests and requirements of each person make this film the driving force to describe and promote the plot. In a narrow and conceptual environment, such contradictions are prominent and targeted, and it is easier for people to experience it deeply. And feel. After the whole story is over, you will not have your own value judgments. You will not say that you have a happy or disgusting attitude towards a certain character, but it is a kind of compassion from the soul. A kind of pity for the same sickness as oneself. This is the director's brilliance. What you really see in the film is human nature, what you see is the nature of humans, and you will even see your own emptiness and loneliness in it. An excellent film should do this.
The shaping of the independent environment is a continuous feature of the director in his films. Whether in "Spring Come Winter", "Empty Room" or this "Bow", the story takes place in an environment far away from the human world. Let's think of it as a virtual world created by the director for the plot. The sea is a barrier in the film, a barrier that separates this virtual world from the real world. Similarly, in "Spring Comes and Winter", the tranquil lake and the gate beside the lake are a barrier, a barrier separating the temple from the outside world. All contradictions come from outside the barrier, and all disharmony comes from outside the barrier. In the eyes of the director, it seems that this barrier has filtered out all the impetuous noisy and disharmony of modern society, leaving only simple harmony in this small virtual world. This embodies the director's basic attitude towards modern industrial and commercial society: neglecting and obliterating the essence of human nature. Therefore, design a world that is simple and almost primitive, and all emotions are not disguised. The contradiction between modernity and tradition, or harmony and disharmony, is manifested in the form of limited contact between inside and outside through the barrier. The small world has its own independent rules of survival and is not affected and controlled by the real world. In the director's shaping process, this is equivalent to a glass of crystal clear water. No matter the bow, the scriptures, or the wooden fish, everything is free and harmonious. They are unified to form a complete system, protected by barriers. This is not only the rational background of the film, but also the key to the artistic and profound manifestation of the film. It is from this point that it shows the contradiction between reality and tradition, the author's thoughts and the real environment.
As a Korean director, Kim Ki-duk obviously has a strong interest in the traditional oriental culture, which is very obvious in his films.
First of all-painting, the artistic conception in his works all reflects the obvious breath of ink painting, whether it is mountain, water or people, all overflowing to the oriental classical and quiet temperament, I think this is the most obvious manifestation of the movie "Spring Comes" Winter is gone. Away from the secular mountains, a pool of mirror lake surrounded by the mountains, an ancient temple floating in the quiet deep lake. These intentions are born together, and the mood has long been infected by the clouds and mist in the mountains, and the quiet breath of the water vapor on the surface of the lake. This seems to be a random but not without deep intention. The extraction of Eastern traditional culture is also one of the important reasons why Kim Kidd’s films are known as artistic and commercial success (King Kidd once claimed that his films are aimed at European audiences. At this point, they use the mysterious fantasy of European audiences about the Eastern world and its culture. .)
Secondly-death, Jin Ji De’s works also reveal the admiration of Eastern religions, especially in the attitude to life in religion and the cognition of death. These views are integrated into the description and shaping of the task in his works. "Spring Come Winter" is a kind of truth presented when Zen returns to life itself, it is goodness and reincarnation, and from one aspect it shows that goodness and reality can be unified to a certain extent. In "Bow", the last jump of the old man reflects a direct vision of death. In fact, I don’t think that old people and girls get married for fun, but for spiritual loneliness in a more sense. The grand ceremony in loneliness at the end of the film is a kind of memorial to oneself. , Is a primitive pilgrimage. In this process, the old man fulfilled his long-standing wish of a culture that made him deserve it, and he also knew that the end of the ritual meant the end of life. What he had to accomplish was only a spiritual union, an ancient ritual. Death is a relief, the beginning of a journey at the other end. Death is the inevitability of the cycle of life. The old monk's self-knowing departure and the old man's jumping into the sea are both an open-minded expression of life in this sense.
Once again-Xuan, the author's admiration and even fanatical enthusiasm for Eastern culture can be seen through the description of Eastern mysticism in his works. In "Bow", the woman's divine friendship with the old man after his death, and even an arrow symbolizes that she has become a woman, and the description of fortune-telling several times; in "The Spring Comes and Winter", the old monk will not walk in the boat, It stays; in "Empty Room" the individual senses are extended through the eyes of the hand through practice. Both are descriptions of the mystification of Eastern culture. Eastern culture is a culture of introverted self-knowledge. It focuses on the cultivation of individual spirit and the improvement of self-cultivation. It is a philosophy related to the individual spirit. The rendering of Buddhism and Taoism in Jin Jide’s works and the mystification of the entire Eastern culture are both It is the author's description of the realm of oriental traditional consciousness, and it is also the expression of the author's understanding of his own culture after the artisticization.
The repressive cool style, the generalization of the film's style and emotional tone, also continues the director's preference for alternative emotions.
First draft 05.11.24. in Hangzhou
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