The cinema in 2020 is extremely bleak. Affected by the epidemic, February, when there was a gathering of good films, was also silent. Fortunately, outside the theater, there are still many good word-of-mouth works constantly appearing. Some time ago, this movie launched on Netflix is the most worth watching Chinese movie in the near future——
The sun shines
A Sun
Director: Zhong Menghong Screenplay: Zhang Yaosheng/ Zhong Menghong Starring: Chen Yiwen/ Ke Shuqin/ Wu Jianhe/ Liu Guanting/ Xu Guanghan Premiere: 2019-11-01 (Taiwan, China) Duration: 155 minutes
It is no exaggeration to describe this movie as "must see of the year" . At last year's Golden Horse Awards, "Sunshine" won 12 nominations and won numerous acclaims. In the end, it won 5 awards including Best Feature Feature Film, Best Director, Best Actor , and became the biggest winner of this year's Golden Horse.
Director Zhong Menghong , friends who are familiar with Taiwanese movies will certainly not be unfamiliar. He regards Yang Dechang as an idol, and in the eyes of most Taiwanese film critics, his works do have Yang Dechang's legacy. As the successor of the "Taiwanese Social Scalpel", Zhong Menghong's works are known for their delicate and sensitive narrative language. Show and expose the problems and scars of the entire society through the texture of the bottom-level figures and families. From the debut "Doctor", to the later "Fourth Painting", and the black comedy "A Good Trip" and so on.
Of course, the works more familiar to mainland audiences should be "Big Buddha Plus" by Zhong Menghong . He used the pseudonym Nakajima Nagao to shoot this film, and his unique heterochromatic photography gave this film the best way of expression. In the end, he also won the Golden Horse's "Best Photography Award" for this film .
Coincidentally, Lin Shengxiang, who played the soundtrack for "Big Buddha Plus" , also collaborated with Zhong Menghong again in "Sunshine". It's just that behind this warm-sounding film title, it tells a suffocating story.
At the beginning of the movie, accompanied by soothing light music, there was a scene with the most sensory stimulation. Turnips (Liu Guanting ornaments) in order to help brothers A and (witch construction and decoration) revenge, put a knife door on a rainy night. As the hand lifted the knife and fell, the entire right palm of the enemy Black Wheel ( played by Zhang Lidong) was completely chopped off, and blood spurted.
Heilun has since become a disabled person, but Ahe and Caitou's life is not easy. Both were sent to jail for the charge of intentional injury. Using this bloody and rude case as a guide, the movie opened a hole in the audience and led us into the family of the protagonist, Ah He.
As shown in the movie poster, Ah He was born and grew up in an ordinary family of four. My father is a driving school instructor and the "person in power" and "talker" of this family. My mother works as a makeup artist in Fengyue Place and plays the role of a mother and "harmonizer" at home.
The two brothers in the family can be said to be completely different. The younger brother Ahe has poor grades, no ability, and always fights to get into trouble. The older brother Ahao (Xu Guanghan) looks good and has excellent grades. Whether in the hearts of relatives, friends or classmates, he is almost perfect.
Especially after his younger brother Qiandang went to jail, Ahao became the family's greatest expectation. However, on an ordinary night, the family has undergone tremendous changes . Unexpectedly, Ahao chose to commit suicide by jumping off the building, ending his young life.
This sudden tragedy plunged the family, which was originally surrounded by gloom, into a deeper level of chaos. How can parents face the grief of "losing" two sons in succession? Where will Ah He go after he is released from prison? The next plot is not too much spoiler here, you can go to the movie to feel it.
Such a bleak and depressing tragic story has a vibrant title. As for the four words "Sunny", I believe everyone has different interpretations. Chen Yiwen, who plays the role of his father, understands that fatherly love is like sunshine and shadow, two sides of the same body. Where there is sunlight, it must be accompanied by shadows caused by the inability of sunlight to penetrate. In the film, the opposing relationship between sunlight and shadow is placed on two brothers who are in sharp contrast.
Just like the homophonic "A Son" of the English translation of the movie "A Sun", the father only acknowledged the existence of the eldest son Ahao in his heart, and neither cared nor talked about him. An interesting setting is that the two brothers have never been in the same frame in the film in the form of face. The only conversation in the prison was in the form of a front and a back. After Ah He was released from prison, his brother A Hao has also passed away, which highlights the antagonistic relationship between the two. And under this deformed brotherly opposition, it reflects the deep-rooted ills in this family full of patriarchal ideology.
After watching "The Sunshine", I believe everyone will compare it with the other two Chinese films. The first is "Everlasting", which won the best screenwriter and nominated for the best feature film at the Golden Rooster Awards last year. Both take the lost child as a clue and tell the tragedy of the Chinese family in the sad story. But the difference lies in the grand perspective of "Long Earth and Sky Long", which aims to present the crux of the entire era under that special background and special policies. The "Sunshine" is delicate and subtle. It wants to explore the root of the tragedy of traditional Chinese families under the authoritarian structure of the patriarchal ideology.
In fact, it is not just the antagonistic relationship between the two brothers. The four members of this family have never appeared in the same frame in the entire movie. The two parties with the greatest contradiction are undoubtedly the father and the second son Ahe. The details in the film can be seen-when Ah He commits an offence and his wife calls for help, the father only hopes to keep the son "detained until he is old and dead". In the courtroom, my father even took the initiative to apply: "I hope the judge will sentence a few more years and let him learn more from the prison."
He frankly said that he has nothing to say with Ah He, although he is a father and son, he is a stranger. The communication and dialogue between the two should be realized through the connection of other family members. The first half of the film is the mother who is a "glue", and the second half is Ahao who "to dream" his father. Such naked irony exposes the essence of indifference and alienation among family members, and attacks the distorted intergenerational relationship under the patriarchal ideology. Tracing back to the source, the stubborn and grumpy character of my father was already the fuse that caused all these tragedies.
The second movie that will be used as an analogy is the "Big Buddha Plus" just mentioned. There is a classic line in "Big Buddha": "Although it is the space age, human beings have long been able to go to the moon by spacecraft, but they will never be able to explore the inner universe of others."
Coincidentally, the director also said when referring to the original intention of "The Sunshine": "We can never see the heart of a person. Even if we are close to our parents, we can't fully understand the child." The best proof is Ahao. Sudden suicide. No one would think he would commit suicide, and no one knew the reason. As Ahao's parents, the doubts in their minds are ten thousand times more than those of outsiders. In fact, in the first half of the movie, some foreshadowings have been laid for this turning point. When Ahao went to the park for a date with his favorite girl, he once said that the fairest thing in the world is the sun.
The fairest thing in this world is that the sun, regardless of its dimensionality, has half the time of day and darkness in every place throughout the year.
However, it was the fairest sun that made him unable to find the shadow and breathe. He wrote in the last text message during his lifetime:
(I) can’t find a place with shadows to hide. There is no dark place, only the sun. 24 hours a day, always bright and warm. The sun shines.
He was born in a family that is not peaceful, and from childhood to adulthood, everyone expects him the most. However, it was precisely these expectations that gradually piled up over the years and became the straw that crushed him. He is like a never-ending person, bringing a bright and warm sun to those around him. But the people around him ignored it, he was actually burning himself all the time. Just like Sima Guang who was trapped in the tank in the story he described. Choosing to smash the tank and choose to end your life is another way to truly make yourself salvation.
There is also an obvious metaphor in the film, which is the car. Throughout the lives of these major characters, they are all inextricably related to the car. His father was a driving school instructor; Ah He worked as a car wash after he was released from prison; and Ah He and his mother went out on bicycles and so on.
Regarding the metaphor of the car to life, it is not uncommon in previous movies. At the end of "Seventeen-year-old Bicycle", Agui, a rural teenager, picked up a deformed bicycle and walked alone in a crowd of people. At the end of "A Thousand Arrows Through the Heart", Li Baoli kicked the broken down car, cursed an swear word, and then continued to push the car forward.
Similarly, at the end of "The Sunshine", there are two mothers and children who have exchanged identities of "driver" and "passenger", riding the same bicycle through the streets. The sun shines through the gaps between the leaves, sparsely shining on the mother's face, and also on the dilapidated bicycle. Isn't this like our life? Even if it is dilapidated, the day has to be pushed forward. When passing through the shadows, the sun will eventually shine.
*Author of this article: Zhang Bucai
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