Ash is Purest White, directed by Jia Zhangke, was released nationwide yesterday. This film, starring Liao Fan and Zhao Tao, tells the story of the entanglement between Jianghu's eldest brother Binbin and his girl Qiaoqiao that spans more than ten years, and outlines the social changes and vicissitudes of personnel since the new millennium.
On the 14th, at a screening meeting in Beijing, a reporter who was suspected of mixing into the audience asked the director passionately: You invited Fan Moumou to be an image ambassador for the first Pingyao International Film Festival, and Feng Moumou's "Youth" As the opening film, there are so many things happening in the film and television industry today, and the scenes of Feng Moumou in your film have also been cut. How do you feel in the face of these changes? I heard that you are not very involved in circles, but this film is about Jianghu. Where is your own Jianghu, is it in Pingyao Film Palace, or in a studio in Beijing?
After the fierce applause, Jia Dao said: "It's hard to say a word, and the five flavors are mixed.
Movies and reality have always had an amazing interaction. Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. The biggest feature of the rivers and lakes is the agitation. After you sing, I will appear. Time is an unstoppable torrent, everything is passing and changing. New things come in and old things fade away.
There is a scene in "Children of Jianghu" where Liao Fan takes his younger brothers to watch a video of a Hong Kong film. Everyone sits upright, while the elder brother smokes a cigarette and is thoughtful. Brother Er Yong, who quit the arena, was stabbed by the little boy, and the eldest brother was beaten by the boy. He gradually realized that "people like us will be killed sooner or later". The elder brother and Qiaoqiao went for a walk in front of the volcano. Qiaoqiao asked him to throw the gun away. He told her, "You are not from the rivers and lakes, you don't understand."
Years later, the eldest brother who returned to his hometown was taken in by Qiaoqiao, and asked her if she hated herself, Qiaoqiao said, if she is ruthless, she will not hate her anymore, but she still has righteousness. She also guarded the original Jianghu for her eldest brother. She said, "You are no longer from the Jianghu, you don't understand."
But this river and lake is no longer the original river and lake.
As for where Jia Zhangke's rivers and lakes are, he said that the rivers and lakes are in his heart. However, he is not the so-called people on the rivers and lakes. In the eyes of floating clouds, there is only one movie world in his heart, a nostalgic and compassionate "earth rivers and lakes", a mature and self-consistent Jia Xiang (&imaginary&hometown) universe in terms of video style and dramatic concept.
Earth arena is the real arena. "Children of Jianghu" talks about gangs, but it does not have the strong sense of ritual of gangsters in Hong Kong films. The gangs in the film are just brothers who gather together based on geography and kinship. There is no entanglement of interests. They don't fight and fight for territory, they just play mahjong together. Liao Fan, the eldest brother, is very capable of fighting, but not the most ruthless one. His existence is more to maintain a kind of order and justice. At the beginning of the film, the two younger brothers were arrogant because of their debts, so he asked the second master to go out, and those who didn't recognize the debts let go. Later, Xiaomaotou beat him and let him go. Other things he did include: eradicating gossip and scandals, condolences to the family of the deceased, dancing disco, and driving his girlfriend to Inner Mongolia to eat shaomai. This eldest brother speaks Shanxi dialect, uses a porcelain washbasin to serve wine, and only brings one or two younger brothers when he goes out. He has never seen a cigar. He has to wrap a towel around his hand when fighting, and he has a gun but has never fired it. Very uncool Foreign style.
Big brother's site is also very soil. In the hall of his mahjong hall, the traditional entertainment project of iron teeth holding bicycles is often staged, and the villagers here are bursting with applause. His future father-in-law still lives in a collective dormitory in a coal mine where mosquitoes are flying around. The mine is dead, and the world is changing. Everyone has nothing to do and starts dancing square. Brother Er Yong took the lead in developing real estate, and he fell in love with the national standard, but in the end he held a super traditional funeral. It was because of the "earth" that the big brother on the street in the town suddenly encountered a blockade. A group of little hairy children forced him out of the car, punched his flesh and splattered blood on the spot. The crowd stood and watched, and the scene was extremely real. This "Jianghu" is the appearance of the world not far away in the past, familiar and unfamiliar.
And the free-spirited Qiaoqiao, who has gone through hardships, is more identified with the original "earth rivers and lakes", and his persistence in affection is precious and embarrassing, showing the emotion and value myth of the film. She grew up through three stages: at first, she was a kind, righteous, and clever sister-in-law. When the eldest brother was unable to fight back, he stepped forward and shot, and was jailed for the crime of possession of guns. Then he left sadly and entered the arena for the first time to seek life. After being released from prison, the eldest brother did not want to face her. She was abducted and tricked into the Three Gorges. After finally meeting, they officially broke up. On the way out, I met Xu Zheng and almost went to Xinjiang with him. Later, she returned to her hometown and became the boss of the house, running the old mahjong parlor. Maybe she sticks to this small river and lake, and it is also a time to remember the past when it was time to talk about love and righteousness. However, the mahjong hall is already dilapidated and out of tune with the surrounding streets. Is it too "earth" to stick to and focus on friendship and can only be left aside? In other words, in the changing era, what is worth sticking to? Did some people abandon their affection, or did affection abandon those people?
Director Jia Zhangke believes that from life to film, not from film to film, the sense of ritual and stylization of Hong Kong films is not what he wants. He advocates real aesthetics and insists on creating "author films". Not only "Children of Jianghu" is "earth Jianghu", most of his films have the face of a documentary, inserting a large number of recorded images of the time, and likes to capture the natural crowd in public places. Of course, these are all efforts above and below the accurate and concise narrative. As far as "Children of Jianghu" is concerned, the rhythm of the film is tight, especially a few drum beats, which appear in important passages such as Qiaoqiao shooting and escaping, which are appropriate and shocking. Under the director's consistent style, "Children of Jianghu" has strengthened the visual spectacle of the gang, and transformed the violent type of brutal growth in "Doomsday" into a film, but it still does not weaken the writing of society and the changes of the times.
"Children of Jianghu" interprets the "love" chapter in Jia Zhangke's film universe in the form of a love and crime film. His shots are always capturing the migration of small people in the context of the big era. The characters move around in the motherland, or go through a "long journey starting from their hometown and finally arriving at their hometown". The wandering art troupe in "Platform", the Three Gorges migrants in exile in "The Good Man in Three Gorges", the San'er who wandered around in "Tian Destined" and Xiaoyu who is always on the road, the Liangzi who returned to his hometown in "The Old Man of Mountains and Rivers", and the one who lost his homeland happy. Not only that, the footprints of these characters have many intertwined and intertwined, forming a big stage of mountains and rivers: from Datong/Fenyang/Taiyuan in Shanxi, to the Three Gorges, to Wuhan, to Dongguan, to the frontier, to overseas. Fenyang has Xiaowu, Cui Mingliang and Han Sanming. Datong's Binbin and Qiaoqiao have a story in "Ren Xiaoyao". Hong and Qiaoqiao who went to the Three Gorges may have boarded the same boat. Han Sanming and Binbin also may meet. Shakespeare once said that the world is a stage, and all men and women are but actors, and they all have their moments and their moments. These mysterious connections create a sense of "familiar stage, colorful characters". The more familiar the audience is with Jia Zhangke's films, the more they can identify with the movie universe in which this character has appeared one after another, just like the complicated surroundings we are in.
These characters are, after all, a speck of dust in the times. All the old ties, rules, and habits are disappearing, and no one can resist. The feelings of "Children of Jianghu" are still the same. The English name Ash is Purest White (ash is the purest white) comes from the film where Brother Bin and Qiaoqiao are walking by the volcano. Qiaoqiao said that the ash has been burned and should be the purest. These little people who will eventually disappear, like pure white volcanic ash, they have come, burned, useless. The director said that "Children of Jianghu" originally had another ending. After Brother Bin left, Qiaoqiao drank all over the world alone, but finally chose her blank figure in the monitor as the ending scene. Blurred images of garbage, all to be deleted eventually, like the fate of these little people. These two places are also one of the few symbols or metaphors in the film. Yes, the little people, whether they love it or not, are the dust of history, but Jia Zhangke recorded their joys, sorrows, love, hatred and hatred with the lens warmly and faithfully, and cast a tender and compassionate look.
The four words "Children of Jianghu" come from a film that Director Fei Mu has not finished. Although it talks about different things, it also reveals a kind of ancient meaning. It can be seen that Director Jia Zhangke not only loves Fei Mu, but also loves this kind of inheritance. long-standing humanistic sentiments.
"Earth" and full of humanistic feelings, how kind and lovely.
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