The successor to the "Taiwanese Social Scalpel" is what many people think of him.
He is Zhong Menghong who has inherited Yang Dechang's mantle to some extent. His works often focus on the family and show social abnormalities through family conflicts in movies.
In 2010, Zhong Menghong won the Golden Horse Award for Best Director for his "Fourth Painting". He used the experience and confusion that Xiaoxiang encountered in his family to show the current state of life of people in society.
This time, he still focuses his attention on family issues, and reflects the sick family relationship in this society through the family disharmony and family indifference in the film "Sunshine".
Although the name of the movie "Sunshine" gives people the warmth of the sun shining on the earth, the content of the movie is not. The narrative of the movie is cold, there is a sense of alienation between people, and it gives people the feeling of desertedness and loneliness.
Home is supposed to be a haven for rest, but whether it's for older brother Ahao, younger brother Ahe, or father Awen, home has never been a warm place.
Disqualified father, abnormal family, out-of-control life, everyone wants to be friendly on the surface, but can't avoid the dark waves.
Disqualified father
At the driving school, the man received a call and rushed to the other end of the phone and said, "I hope he is locked up until he is old and locked up to death."
The other end of the phone call was not the enemy, but the man’s wife. She called her husband, hoping that the man would help her son plead, but she only got the man’s indifferent answer.
This indifferent man is Awen, the protagonist in the film "Sunshine". He has a family of four. The eldest son, Ahao, is a gifted student who can give him a face when talking about it. The younger son, Ahe, is a troublesome gangster. His presence makes Awen feel embarrassed.
When someone asks Awen, how many children do you have, he will say one, and he will talk about his eldest son Ahao, but he will not mention Ahe.
If it is said that Awen ignores Ahe and always talks about Ahao with others, then he should be more concerned about his eldest son, but this is not the case. If so, he would not be an unqualified father.
In addition to his father's identity, Awen is also a coach in a driving school, chanting the slogan "Master the direction, grasp the time" to the trainees every day. He thinks that life will not go wrong in this way, but he does not know whether the road of life can go well has nothing to do with the slogan. , Life is changeable and full of accidents.
Even though he often chanted slogans to his son, he could not prevent the misfortune in life from happening, and he never realized that he was an unqualified father.
Awen is proud of his eldest son, but he never cared about knowing Ahao seriously, and never asked what his son's inner needs were. He went to school to send Ahao tuition fees and gave him a book of "grasp the time and control the direction". The famous name is to encourage Ahao, but Ahao has never used this book.
The younger son Ahe is about to go to jail for hurting others. He just listened and watched coldly. The judge asked the parents for their opinions. He also said coldly: "I hope you will be sent in and be disciplined."
It seems that the person who made the mistake was not his son, but a stranger.
Awen has the characteristics of a typical Chinese father. He is not good at expression, strict, does not allow children to make mistakes, loves face, and likes to show off a good son.
But whether he has taken on the responsibility of his father, whether it is Ahao or Ahe, Awen basically never took the initiative to talk to them, and there is no description of Awen taking the initiative to care about his family in the film. It is his wife Mei every time. The sister told him, what's wrong.
For this reason, Sister Mei cared about the family but couldn't make up his mind. Awen cared little about the family, but he needed him to make decisions everywhere. On the surface, everything seemed to be okay for this family, but in fact it had long since fallen apart.
The father was disqualified, the mother was powerless, the family lacked communication, and the family was indifferent, and built a seemingly intact home that was about to collapse.
Dysfunctional family
If the estrangement in the previous decades was the thunder planted by this family, then Ah He’s imprisonment was the fuse that blew up the family, and A Hao’s suicide was the sound of awakening Awen and Mei. ring.
On a gloomy rainy day, two men drove quickly to a store on a motorcycle. The next shot was the man lying on the ground crying and crying, his hand dropped into the cooked hot pot, his fingers curled slightly a bit.
In the next second, Ah He ran out of the hot pot restaurant in a panic and fear.
Naturally, it didn't take long for Ah He to go to prison.
There must be a reason for a person to do such a thing. In Ah He's opinion, they just want to avenge the black wheel, but they didn't expect to make such a big mess.
If it is said that Ah He was young and impulsive, hasn't he been discovered that he has done bad things before?
His parents knew it, but they just couldn't manage.
The movie didn't explain why Ah He became a gangster, and his parents didn't know why he went bad. When Sister Mei recalled, she just said: He was very good when he was a child, and I don't know when he learned to fight.
Awen only remembers that the youngest son was not up for good, fighting and making troubles every day, and even being sentenced for hurting others, but why did Ahe be like this?
This is related to his being ignored. The older brother Ahao is too good. He is something worth showing off in the eyes of his parents. No one puts his eyes on him, so he deliberately turned bad to attract the attention of his family, but he never thought it was just to make his family ignore him even more.
Ah He lives in the shadow of A Ha, and is not valued or seen. Then Ah Ha who lives in the sun should be happy, right?
Actually, it's not.
Ahao is a person who lives in the expectations of his parents and others. In their hearts, Ahao should be good and sensible. He does not allow a trace of badness. He must shine on others like the sun and suppress himself.
But people are not saints, and people have imperfections, but it is not good for Ah Hao not to be allowed. He shines on others every day of his life, so he gets tired and uses death to seek relief.
In his opinion, death is just choosing a place to rest, like ordinary people hiding in the shadows to rest. However, he tried his best to avoid causing trouble to others even when he died. On the night of suicide, he folded the quilt and cleaned the house, as if going out a far door.
Ahao's death was unexpected and everyone did not understand why, but what he said to his female classmate before his death explained why he was like this.
He said: "We went to the zoo a few days ago. The sun was so big that all the animals couldn't bear it. They all managed to find a shade to hide. I wish I were like these animals, but I didn't have a water tank. , There is no dark place, only sunlight. 24 hours a day, always bright and warm, and the sun is shining."
A Hao's death awakened his father's attention to the family, and he had to pay attention to A He. A Hao sacrificed himself in exchange for his younger brother the opportunity to no longer live in the shadows.
When others asked Awen again: "Coach, how many children do you have?" He still can only say "one". Even if this son disappoints him, he only has this one son left. He must protect the one. The lost son again.
It can be said that the relatives in this family are just strangers with blood relationship. They have a cold relationship and do not communicate or communicate. Everyone is doing their own things, and they think it is for the good of others.
They are a family, living under the same roof, but they don't have a picture in the same frame. Until the end of the movie, the four members of this family have the only big picture together.
Out of control life
When a person's family is warm and happy, he will have a normal life, otherwise his life will be out of control due to family influence.
A Hao was kidnapped by an excellent person and his life was out of control. He had no right to choose himself. He was accustomed to behave like others expected, unable to express his thoughts and control his life.
Ah He lives in the shadow of Ahao, longing to be valued but not getting it. He doesn’t know how to control his life, so he indulges himself in sinking. After the death of his elder brother, he has experienced the lessons of prison and found himself slowly. Life.
Arvin always yelled the driving school slogans to control the direction of ignoring his family. He thought that if the direction was right , his life would not lose control, but because of his lack of care, his family became abnormal and his family's life became a mess.
Caitou’s life is completely uncontrollable. He only has his grandmother as a companion. He treats Ah He as a brother and goes to jail for hurting others. After he comes out, he is regarded as a person who wants to hide but can’t escape. He is A person who was completely abandoned.
When Ah He came out, his family could accept him, and his father blocked him from the haze, allowing him to live in the sun and live anew. Only Caitou was not accepted, excluded, and could only live in the shadows.
In this world, some people live in the sun, some live in the dark, some are redeemed, and some are abandoned in the dark, letting them fend for themselves. We all want to take control of our lives, with the sun shining and shadows to hide, but there are very few things that can be satisfied.
We can't see through people's hearts, and we can't predict the future. What we can do is to avoid losing control of our life.
The tragedy of Awen's family in the movie is not an exception, but love cannot be expressed in a proper way. Most Chinese people have experienced it. Obviously I want to care about the other person, I open my mouth into accusation, I clearly want to encourage the other person, but the other person understands it as ridicule, obviously cares about the other person, but verbally tells the irony, does not communicate, is impatient, does not know how to express, which leads to interpersonal relationships. The relationship is estranged and feelings fade.
Director Zhong Menghong once said: "We can never see the heart of a person. Even if we are close to our parents, we still can't fully understand our children."
In fact, not only parents, but even lovers cannot fully understand each other. Each of us has our own little secret hidden in our hearts, and the estrangement between people becomes farther with age.
Everyone guards their own island, and only allows others to move within the prescribed scope, but forgets not to express or communicate, how to understand.
If every family is like the family relationship in the movie "The Sunshine", the family loses its original meaning, where will the relationship between people get close?
We are human beings with emotional needs and empathy. Only then can we understand the pain of others and heal each other. Only in this way can we live like individuals, be illuminated by the sun, or take a rest in the dark instead of being like Like a footless bird, stop and die.
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