In the name of poetry, the salvation of evil
Throughout Li Cangdong's many previous works, they are full of extremely repressive life situations and the darkness of reality, extremely sad and hopeless, and the film "Poetry" appears more restrained, sophisticated and profound in Li Cangdong's creative dimension. The film is developed based on the two clues of the close connection between the creation of "poems" and reality. On the one hand, the creation of poems full of introspection is a painful experience of malaria in the depths of society, culture and civilization; on the other hand, from the old man Yang Meizi A perspective to explore the blooming and redemption of the "flower of evil". The two lines are interspersed with each other. Yang Meizi also appreciates the existence of ugliness and evil in the process of searching for the beauty of "poetry". It is in the face of this contradictory and conflicting reality that "poetry" can transcend reality and achieve oneness. This kind of transcendent and condensed spiritual meaning exists, and Li Cangdong's "Poem" is also the "poem" of images.
Li Cangdong’s literary temperament is closely linked to the inherent qualities of "Poetry". Before he became a director, he was a quite successful novelist (won the Hankook Ilbo’s Literary Creation Award in 1992), and Li Cangdong highly regarded Lu Xun. And Lu Xun's sharp criticism of society and human nature and spirit of struggle can also be glimpsed in Li Cangdong's films. The characters in Li Cangdong’s movies are always marginal, small and low-level characters. They are given a certain kind of great hope, constantly struggling and courageously moving forward in front of reality, and reality is always cruel and powerful. Watch Li Cangdong’s The movie is like experiencing a life struggle that is doomed to failure. Seeing how the characters still choose to fight after being bruised and bruised, the immense powerlessness of individual lives and the sad life experience are connected to the whole social organism. This is also Li Cangdong. The reason for the strong humanistic care and social consciousness shown in the movie. And "Poem" also upholds Li Cangdong's realism tendency, and it is more internalized and abundant.
In the opening chapter of "Poetry", Li Cangdong used two unique scenes to name the birth of "Poem", and the blooming of the "flower of evil" under the sunshine of Hexi with the idyllic landscape of running water, birds singing and children playing: A foreign object floated from the upper reaches, the boy stood, looking far away, and the female body gradually came into view, occupying all of the screen, and then the movie title "Poetry" appeared. This “trembling experience” not only occurs in Benjamin’s so-called modern people’s urban life experience, but also occurs when the audience is faced with endless and weird images, and the individual is placed in a certain person who has no choice but to go quickly. To deal with the situation of constantly emerging new images, under such circumstances, the mental mechanism of the audience gradually acquires a kind of rapid reaction ability, and will naturally try to understand and interpret this “shocking” video passage, applying Benjamin’s Viewpoint, this can also be said to be the hallmark of film critics. Li Cangdong uses the innocent children playing on the beach and the female corpses floating on the gurgling water to form two distinct contrasts. Beauty and ugliness, good and evil, the most innocent and cruel images are intertwined, just like Baudelaire’s " "The flower of evil", the so-called beauty is actually inseparable from filth, ugliness, and pain. To find "beauty", you must uncover the scars of ugliness and evil, and writing poetry is exactly how Li Cangdong finds beauty.
Poetry-as a way of observation
When Miko entered the poetry lecture class for the first time, Li Cangdong spoke about his understanding of poetry through the mouth of the teacher: "If you want to write a good poem, you have to observe it. The most important thing in our lives is to see, to see, to observe. "The teacher uses the example of Apple to explain the intention of watching, "In order to truly understand what an apple is, to understand it for the sake of relationship, and to observe it because you want to talk to it, you can really see it." Here you can write poems. Seen as Li Cangdong's way of making movies, he is self-interpreting the way of creation, that is, observation. Whether it is the creation of writers, directors or poets, they cannot leave the soil of reality, and observation has become a basic way to intervene in creation.
First of all, Li Cangdong’s films have a very strong realism color, and from "Mints", he observes the struggle of the individual's fate in the environment of the times, to "Oasis", the caring for the disabled and the scrutiny of the social subject. Then come to the attitude of religious reflection in "Miyang", and the recent "Burning" reappears the spiritual plight of contemporary Korean society and the younger generation. Throughout Li Cangdong's creation, we can see that as an intellectual director, he has a strong social consciousness. He observes and expresses reality at the same time.
If Li Cangdong is a social observer, then the role projected into "The Poetry" is Yang Meizi. An old lady suffering from Alzheimer's disease, inspired by "poem", tried to re-observe, talk to, and recognize the world. We also follow Miko’s perspective to observe the world in the movie. Sun Tzu chooses to ignore and escape the crimes committed; what parents consider irrelevant to life and apology, but only money and benefits; the suffering, collapse, and weakness of the victims show The misery of the disadvantaged; the deterioration of the poet in the material society and the demise of the poem itself, etc. In the film, facing many social problems, they did not directly give answers, but followed Miko to write a line of poems as a window, providing a "writeable text" as Roland Barthes said, allowing viewers to participate In the expression of images, the purpose of suspending answers is to obtain more answers. Watching (images)/observing (society) has become a way of generating thoughts.
Poetry-as a form of writing
Adorno once said: "After Auschwitz, writing poetry is barbaric." He faced the viciousness of the Nazis and the absurdity of war, and pointed out the destruction of poetry under the evil of human nature, and human spiritual beliefs have also suffered. An unprecedented crisis. However, Li Cangdong chose the opposite view. The Poetry has the courage to face the cruel reality, and at the same time pursues the spiritual belonging of poetry and beauty. The film does not explain the real reason why Miko wants to write poetry, but the ridiculous "gifted to be a poet" when she calls. She doesn't know what "poem" has for an old man like her in her sixties. This kind of meaning may only be due to a thought at a certain moment, an abnormal drift in the normal life of more than sixty years.
The first poem written by Meizi was "Red Flowers Like Blood", which is a beginner's direct perception after re-watching things. The things neglected in daily life hide poetry; then, "Bird's song, what do you sing?" It’s a question from the soul. The question is to explore the world, and most people have been told the answer to life, and they only care about mediocrity. The third sentence "time is easy to pass, and the flowers wither" shows Miko's care for himself. , The withering of the flower is a metaphor for an aging body, full of self-pity emotional sadness and poetry; the last sentence "Apricot fell to the ground, willing to be trampled for rebirth" comes from the direct feeling of the scene in front of him while giving it a symbolic technique. Faced with the victim’s mother, she felt the guilt in her heart and the sacrifice she made for self-salvation. At the end of the film, Miko wrote a complete poem, but the poet was absent, and the author’s absence made the poem not only limited to the creator’s experience and thinking, but transcended the individual to become a free form of writing and expression. , Poetry is a symbol of freedom and beauty, it does not belong to anyone, but also belongs to everyone.
Similarly, Li Cangdong is also using images to write poems, a lot of white space, empty shots, natural sound, moments of silence, monologues, images, etc. (because there are too many, I will not go into details for the time being), using poetic images and "poems." Isomorphism makes the shadow like a poem and blends into one.
Poetry-Eroticology as Sensibility
When Li Cangdong talked about the source of his creative inspiration, he mentioned that the plot of "Poetry" is based on real events. A few years ago in a small city in South Korea, a group of young boys raped several middle school girls. Li Cangdong recalled, I don't know why I always think of this news. However, I have never found a way to put this matter into a movie, and I can also make it into an old-fashioned movie that can be seen everywhere. It may be more successful commercially, but that is not the way I make movies. . One day during my trip in Japan, when I turned on the TV in a hotel room while reading a book, suddenly a word popped into my mind-poetry! A channel on the TV is showing some programs for insomnia travelers. Some ordinary pictures appeared on the TV: a quiet river, birds flying, fishermen throwing fishing nets to catch fish, and soothing and quiet music in the background. . Suddenly I thought of how to deal with this brutal incident in the movie. I need to deal with it through poetry. In other words, I want to express this violent incident through "beauty" rather than "ugliness." The main character is an old lady in her 60s who started learning how to write poetry for the first time in her life. His grandson committed this violent crime. These characters make up the basic plot, and the name "poem" also appeared in my mind. (Quoted in this paragraph)
As mentioned above, the creative inspiration of "Poetry" is not so much from real events as it is from the generation of the director's sensibility, and this creative sensibility is also derived from his images and expressions. The large amount of white space, empty shots, natural sound, moments of silence, monologues, poetic imagery, etc. in the movie do not involve the plot connection of the movie, but a continuation of the emotion and atmosphere, and the purpose is to let the audience feel this. At the moment of stagnation, listen to the rustle of the leaves blowing in the wind, watch the raindrops slowly disperse on the paper, and even capture a single shot of Miko's expressionless face in deep thought. They may be pointless, just to make you feel that you have never noticed. Picture. The "poem" presented by Li Cangdong seems to me more like the "artistic eroticism" advocated by Susan Sontag (from "Against Interpretation"). Like other arts, the aesthetic experience of poetry comes from the generation of sensibility. , Rather than an interpretation of meaning, an exquisite art piece is not as shocking as witnessing it, no matter how advanced the textual explanation is. Li Cangdong knows that the rapid development of the current material society, from material to spiritual paralysis, has caused most people to lose their original sensibility, and writing poetry is a strong call for this sensibility, regaining what modern people have lost. The aesthetic pleasure that is harmless and pleasant.
The director seems to be telling us more: Don't rush to explain it, try to feel it first!
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