Shortlisted in the main competition unit of the 71st Cannes International Film Festival but had no harvest, "Children of the Rivers and Lakes" actually attracted the most attention at the beginning of its release, not at the box office, but after "The Old Man of the Mountains and Rivers" (2015). how far to go. Beginning with "The Hill Comes Home" (1995), Jia Zhangke has focused his camera on the youth of the small town and the culture of the county. It took more than 20 years for one shot to build a unique Shanxi in the story of "Love Fenyang, Love Zhao Tao" movie world. The "Children of the Rivers and Lakes", which is about to end, is more fluent than the syllogism of "The Old Man of the Mountains and Rivers", but it is still "'realism' plus a little 'Zhao Tao'" as netizens said. A new question arises, is Jia Zhangke really stuck in self-repetition?
Interestingly, the question itself is more important here than the answer. For the audience, the Shanxi film stories told repeatedly have moved toward "self-repetition" in the homogeneity of "Old Man in Mountains and Rivers" and "Children of Rivers and Lakes"; for Jia Zhangke, it triggered his motivation to make movies and his constant pursuit over the years. But it is to record the "change of the times": so there is a kind of contradiction here, as if it is the pursuit of "change" that has contributed to a kind of "stagnation". Therefore, rather than "whether Jia Zhangke is caught in self-repetition", the more important question should be, when we feel that Jia Zhangke is repeating, what is the repetition.
A repetition or a shift?
Compared with the directors of the same generation, Jia Zhangke has a characteristic, that is, he often mentions "documentation" in interviews. Documents have two meanings here: one refers to methods, such as the repeated retelling of national discourse by media such as loudspeakers, radio, and television in the hometown trilogy, and the use of documentary-like audio-visual language to provide documentary significance for the times. Sexual records; the second refers to value, such as the profile of the Three Gorges Reservoir construction in "The Good Man in the Three Gorges" (2006), and the attention to social violence and the plight of contemporary young people's life in "Tian Destined" (2013), taking the film itself as the source of the changing times. A bibliographic slice. Compared with the two layers of meanings that point to the outside world, the documentary nature of "Jianghu Children" has another layer of endogeneity, that is, a spontaneous documentary system is constructed within the work.
In this 2018 film, not only the scenes of "Public Places" (2001) and "Ren Xiaoyao" (2002) appear, but also the combination of Binbin and Qiaoqiao is again borrowed, and the scene where Qiaoqiao rides the Three Gorges by boat It also seems to be returning to "The Good Man of the Three Gorges" again. In this sense, "Children of Jianghu" is like a literature review of Jia Zhangke's films, thus linking past works into a "Jia Zhangke Cinematic Universe" like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The difference is that, for Marvel, the richer the connections between different works, the more meaningful the virtual world can grow, while for Jia Zhangke, when we try to connect all works to a world of meaning, it is not. Instead, it triggers a crisis of interpretation: when the audience perceives more internal relevance than external meaning, does it mean the end of real meaning?
It is not unique to take the initiative to establish the relationship between personal works. Throughout the history of world film, many directors are willing to leave their own special signatures in their works. Fans are of course very familiar with Jia's signature. For example, Xiao Wu appeared in "Ren Xiaoyao" and asked Binbin, who sold pirated discs, if he had "Xiao Wu" and "Platform". What is even more interesting is that Jia Zhangke not only emphasized this connection, but even mentioned in an interview about "Tian Destiny", "If one day I replay my movies, I think the order is "Platform", "Xiao Wu", "Ren Xiaoyao", "The World", "The Good Man in the Three Gorges", "The Destiny of Heaven", I can cut him into the same movie and put it in a nine-hour movie? It's called "Les Miserables"!"[2]174 Here The two works born after this interview are "The Old Man of the Mountains and Rivers" and "Children of the Rivers and Lakes", which have fallen into homogeneity in everyone's eyes. Although they are both regarded as summaries of Shanxi stories, they are obviously not the nine-hour version. "Les Miserables". The interesting part is also here. Just when Jia Zhangke realized that his past works seemed to constitute a "Les Miserables", the "Les Miserables" in the movie ended.
Although "Les Miserables" is just an accidental joke, it inadvertently revealed the core secret of Jia Zhangke's films - the sadness of a small person is the sharp dagger that pierces the veil of the times. From "The Hill Comes Home" to "The Destiny of Heaven", Jia Zhangke's lens has always focused on the traumatic subjects in social changes. They cannot integrate into the torrent of the times as they should be, and they fail all the way, so ordinary that they are not worth mentioning, but they are precisely the This incongruity has shaken the stable narrative of economic development and social progress, presenting a unique "event aesthetics". Whether it is Xiaoshan, Xiaowu, Xiaoji or Sanming and Shen Hong, they are all living in a clumsy and inefficient way. This deviating from economic supremacy and benefit priority makes them a kind of epochal deviation, that is, What Žižek called "results beyond the cause"[3]4, it was this deviation that allowed Jia Zhangke to find the best position to record the era.
Zizek pointed out in the analysis of event theory, "Not anything that happens in this world can be regarded as an event, on the contrary, an event involves a change in the structure by which we view and intervene in the world"[3]13, that is, The charm of an event is that it "is something new that happens in an unexpected way, and its appearance destroys any existing stable structure"[3]6. Through this theory, we find that in Jia Zhangke's film world, it is these little people who have failed in social progress and economic development to expose the fantasy nature of life: identity comes from capital, meaning comes from rules, and the world of capital Madness is regarded as "rationality" in line with social development, while resistance to "rationality" is regarded as "madness". Once the subject is classified as an alien, what awaits him will be exclusion or even revocation in hierarchical society. More importantly, it is only in this moment of dislocation of "rationality" and "madness" that the illusion can be manifested and the meaning can be reflected. Only at this misplaced moment did Jia Zhangke capture the "reality" he wanted.
But now, the continuation of Binbin and Qiaoqiao in "Children of Jianghu" has deviated from the original position of the eventual subject. Whether it is Binbin's cowardice and retreat, or Qiaoqiao's affection and persistence, Jianghu itself cannot be shaken. The existence or death of the rules will no longer question the rules themselves. At this point, perhaps we can say that the reason why the audience feels that Jia Zhangke is stagnant is precisely because he moved the cinematographic lens from outside the order to inside the order, and the subject in the order no longer has the ability to shake the narrative structure no matter how he rewrites his destiny. ability. And the real paradox is here. When we feel that Jia Zhangke has fallen into self-repetition, it is precisely because he no longer repeats the past strategy of "event aesthetics".
Here we might as well go back to "The Destiny of Heaven". From the perspective of character changes, "Tian Destiny" can be seen as a watershed in Jia Zhangke's works. Before that, the protagonists in the movie were absolute little people (Xiaoshan, Xiaowu, Sanming, etc.), after which the protagonist was replaced by the coal boss (Zhang Jinsheng) and the gang eldest brother (Bin Bin), Shen Tao and Qiao Qiao played by Zhao Tao are all disappointed because they entrusted their feelings to the wrong person. But the same failure, the two are not the same. If Jia Zhangke in the past tried his best to capture the "changes" of the times through small characters, now he seems to be more willing to show the "remains" of the times when things were right and wrong: the wasteland and roadside outside Qiaoqiao's father's house The station is almost the same as "Ren Xiaoyao"; Qiaoqiao went to Fengjie to look for people, and the "How Much Love Can Come Again" sitting in the audience was a performance 12 years ago. The time was staggered, and the theater was still there. It's hard to say what is the inevitable connection between the changes in characters and the director's perception of the changing times, but this change does make how to grasp the moment a new problem. The present is no longer the same discourse field. Jia Zhangke, who once relied on his unique "event aesthetics" to record the transformation of China, is now facing the dilemma of "de-eventing". No matter how twists and turns the story of the rivers and lakes is, it can no longer reveal that precious "misplaced" moment.
Two love that doesn't exist
In addition to the sense of stagnation brought about by "de-eventing", the repetition felt by the audience in "Children of Jianghu" is another important factor, that is, the rising "waves" of Jia's realism. Although Zhao Tao has become the only heroine in Jia Zhangke's dramas since "Platform", it was not until "Children of Jianghu" that she completed the transformation of the "big heroine". Why Zhao Tao is a question in the minds of many people. On the surface, it seems logical that a girl from Shanxi will play the Shanxi story, but Zhao Tao's significance to Jia Zhangke is not just a selected actor. Zhao Tao's daily sense, stubborn personality and detachment from life in the film are the boundaries of Jia Zhangke's film universe.
Although the movie is always "the sound of the waves", the role played by Zhao Tao has never obtained a full sense of love. Whether it is Shen Hong, Shen Tao or Qiaoqiao, they are always wandering on the road of search and loss. If the standard way of telling a love story is to describe a process of constant gain, the love stories in Jia Zhangke's films are just the opposite, always losing. In this sense, the boundary symbolized by Zhao Tao is eternal farewell and loss. In other words, when the audience sighed "it's Zhao Tao again", what they actually sighed was "it's Zhao Tao who is telling this failed love story again".
To be more precise, what Jia Zhangke wants to tell is actually "love that doesn't exist". A seemingly smooth love story will always end unexpectedly in an accidental incident: After Mei Mei just finished talking to Xiao Wu, I will be by your side, Soon he met the real big money and left quietly; the entanglement between Qiaoqiao and Qiao San was not over yet, and Qiao San died in a traffic accident; when Zhao Xiaotao decided to entrust himself to Cheng Taisheng, he accidentally He discovered his derailment, and the story ended in the gas poisoning of the two; Binbin and Qiaoqiao's sweet life ended unexpectedly in an accidental beating. According to Žižek, "If an event (accidentally) happens, it creates a chain that goes back and makes its own occurrence seem unavoidable"[3]176, then Jia Zhangke's purpose in setting up an accidental event Perhaps it is to tell everyone that there is no accident, love never ends because of accident, love does not exist from the beginning, "The fall (to love) never happens at a certain moment, because it always - has happened" [3] 171.
According to the previous narrative mode, Qiao Qiao's new story should probably end in Bin Bin's wheelchair. The car crosses a fork in the road, and the street scene remains the same. However, "Children of Jianghu" is different from before. It continues the accidental events, just like at the end of "World", Zhao Xiaotao and Cheng Taisheng wake up from gas poisoning and return to their daily life. After that shot, Binbin not only lost his status in the arena and his hometown, but even lost his own body. He came back in a wheelchair and became completely "empty", while Qiaoqiao was established in the past. A new river and lake has emerged, and behind the transformation of the status of Binbin and Qiaoqiao is a change of subjectivity that has never appeared in Jia Zhangke's films. The reason why "Children of Jianghu" is jokingly called a "big heroine" movie is also here. Only by focusing on Qiaoqiao can we get a complete Jianghu story.
It is worth noting that "Children of Jianghu" is actually different from any Jianghu movie we have seen. The second brother's death is over, and Binbin's injured leg ends with a lecture. There is neither opponent nor Jianghu here. As for any details of the situation, the moment Binbin really took action as the boss was the moment when he lost his status in the arena. What's more interesting is that the reason why Qiaoqiao took out a gun at a critical moment was precisely because Binbin insisted on teaching her to use a gun and pushed her into the arena. It seems that Binbin has been prepared for this gunshot from the beginning - only when Qiaoqiao learns to use guns, and only after using guns will all this end, only when the rivers and lakes are over will he leave, only he Only when Qiaoqiao is gone will a new river and lake be established. If Zhang Ailing's story in "Love in a Fallen City" is about overthrowing a city to complete a love, then "Children of Jianghu" is just the opposite, and a love can only be ended by tearing down a Jianghu.
It is this transformation of the subject that allows us to see Jia Zhangke's rewriting of the rivers and lakes. Men's rivers and lakes only have money and power, while women's rivers and lakes have affection. After ignoring the usual fights in all corners of the world, what is left is Qiao Qiao's remedy for life, such as committing crimes, going to jail, finding someone, taking an adventure, returning home, and being reborn. Binbin, who was watching "Blood Two Heroes" with his brothers and drinking from all over the world, saw only the illusion of the rivers and lakes. He thought that there must be a heart and soul behind the prosperity, but the fact is that there is nothing behind the rivers and lakes. And Qiaoqiao, who only has affection in his heart, has arrived at the truth of Jianghu in ordinary life. Jianghu is an accidental trust that will be exploited by thieves. A sincerity that has not been erased.
At the place where Binbin ended, Qiaoqiao started again and spent the second half of his life responding to a gunshot. This change in subjectivity may be the way out for Jia Zhangke's "de-eventing" predicament. From the pain of the "little people" unable to integrate in the social transformation, to the sigh that the "big people" are unable to grasp in the transformation of the rivers and lakes, Jia Zhangke has found his own answer. Only affection is the spiritual pillar to resolve the sense of helplessness and loneliness. It is precisely because of the rapid economic development that we "enlarged the proportion of economic life in human activities, but reduced the size and weight of emotional life"[2]201, so we need to find a root for the floating heart of contemporary people. In the story of "Children", affection is useless, but affection is also priceless. Non-existent love and eternal affection are the emotional boundaries that Jia Zhangke has drawn for us.
Going back to "Children of Jianghu", I remember Martin Scorsese's solemn exhortation to Jia Zhangke when he first met Jia Zhangke, "keep low costs"[5]226. Presumably Lao Ma immediately realized the significance of the eventual subject to Jia Zhangke after watching "Xiao Wu". Perhaps only by keeping low costs and keeping an eye on the little people, can we force our life to show the "change of the times" and "the current atmosphere" that we want. ".
In Jia Zhangke's famous work "Xiao Wu", the most eye-catching scene is the spectator lens, "With Xiao Wu being handcuffed and squatting on the street in public - this marks his death, and his city is also in the process of the new economic revolution. In the pursuit of high-rise buildings, he entered the throes of destruction and demolition.”[6]62. In "Children of Jianghu", the spectator lens has been replaced by the aerial view of God. Between the aerial photography at the beginning of the film and the aerial photography after Binbin's return, the vigorous urban transformation is almost completed. At this time, only the mobile phone can guide the direction. Live updated map on . Where exactly we are in history has become an unanswered question.
Watching Qiaoqiao standing against the wall and falling into contemplation after Binbin left, I can't help but wonder, is Qiaoqiao at that moment angry or relieved?
Notes
[2] Jia Zhangke: "Jia Xiang II - Jia Zhangke's Film Notes 2008-2016", Taihai Publishing House, 2008.
[3] [Slovenia] Slavoj Žižek: "Event", translated by Wang Shi, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 2016.
[4] For related content, please refer to Liang Wendao's talk show "Eight Points" No. 35, Jia Zhangke's "Children of Jianghu": We are all cannon fodder innocently involved in the times.
[5] Jia Zhangke: "Jia Xiang II - Jia Zhangke's Film Notes 2008-2016", Taihai Publishing House, 2008.
[6] [America] Bai Ruiwen: "Where is the Township", translated by Lian Cheng, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2010.
"Why Jia Zhangke Repeats: Starting from the "De-Eventing" of
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