The Good Man in Three Gorges: Everyone’s hometown is being submerged.
On the evening of January 5, 2007, at the "Good Man in Three Gorges" screening and exchange meeting at the Beijing Film Academy, Director Xie Fei said that "The Good Man in Three Gorges" won the 2006 Venice Film Festival gold. The Lion Award established Jia Zhangke's status as a master in the international film scene. Perhaps this statement is an exaggeration. The laurel of "master" cannot be worn by an award-winning film. Whether Jia Zhangke is a master or not depends on his future film creations. The premature "conclusive conclusion" did not praise Jia Zhangke, but praised him. However, "The Good Man in Three Gorges" is indeed a film that is not inferior to the masterpieces. The spirit of realism it exudes is especially precious in the Chinese and world film circles where the trend of large-scale filming is rampant. . Certain mysterious scenes and images are considered to be full of surrealism, showing the surreal nature of China's current reality. However, to say that these scenes and images are surreal, it is better to say that they are poetic. Surrealist movies or surrealist passages in movies, such as Bunuel’s "An Andalu Dog", and the dreams in Hitchcock’s "Doctor Edward", give people the feeling of absurdity and horror, while the "Three Gorges" "Good People" does not give people this feeling, on the contrary, they are metaphors and lyrical means.
In my opinion, the overall style of "The Good Man in Three Gorges" is poetic realism. George Sadour said: "Poetic realism was a common bond that united Claire, Vigo, Renoir, Carne, Berger, Federer and others from 1930 to 1945." (George • Sadur's "World Film History" electronic version) "In their films, dreams or fantasy are combined with the real world, naturalistic literary traditions are combined with romanticism or symbolism, full of poetic pictures (Especially the scenes of nature) are combined with real life scenes or life situations at the bottom of society. The emphasis on the theme of the film and the deliberate portrayal of the characters' personalities make their films often have profound social meanings."( "Film Encyclopedia" electronic version)
I am not saying that "The Good Man in Three Gorges" is a good film because its style is close to some French films in the 1930s and 1940s. On the contrary, the film shows the reality of China, exudes Chinese aesthetics, and expresses the mainstream values of China. Compared with the films filled with "Chinese symbols" such as red lanterns, firecrackers, suona, pipa, and women with little feet, the state of it is self-evident.
1. Realism
1. Story
When discussing the style of the film, the first thing to touch is not the audiovisual elements, but the story of the film. The story conflict is strong, it can easily become a dramatic film, and the story conflict fades to close to zero, and it becomes a poetic movie. The story of "The Good Man in Three Gorges" is non-dramatic, but it is not without a story, so it is a prose film. This way of applying the literary classification method to classify movies is helpless, but it is not incapable of explaining the problem.
"The Good Man in Three Gorges" has two clues. The first line is Han Sanming, a migrant worker from Shanxi coal mines, looking for his wife and daughter in the Three Gorges reservoir area. Against the background of the demolition of Fengjie County, the miner Han Sanming came to look for his unmarried wife Mayaomei, who had been separated from him for 16 years, and his daughter who was taken away just after birth. Sixteen years ago, he bought Mai Yao from Fengjie, but was rescued by the police and returned to his hometown. Ma Yaomei’s elder brother Ma boss owed a boat owner 30,000 yuan, and Ma Yaomei was mortgaged to the boat owner. She has been running boats on the Yangtze River for many years, and her daughter is working in Dongguan. In order to meet his wife and daughter, Han Sanming stayed in the Three Gorges and joined the ranks of demolition migrant workers. Finally, he saw his wife and decided to take her back to Shanxi, but he had to pay the boss of the ship 30,000 yuan to take her away. The demolition migrant workers he met in Fengjie were willing to go back to Shanxi to dig coal with him, and a group of people walked towards the Yangtze River Wharf. The second clue is that Shen Hong, a nurse in Shanxi, came to look for her husband Guo Bin, who had not returned home for two years. She couldn't contact Guo Bin, so she had to find her husband's former comrade-in-arms, the current archaeologist Wang Dongming, and ask him to help find it. She thinks Guo Bin may have a new woman. In the end, Shen Hong met Guo Bin, but lied to Guo Bin that he liked other people and wanted to divorce him. She went to Shanghai by boat alone. The two clues are linked by Guo Bin and Xiao Ma. Guo Bin is the husband of Shen Hong, Xiao Ma is a subordinate of "Bin", and Sanming is a new friend of Xiao Ma.
The film could have been developed into an arched structure: Sanming's story is a gatepost, Shen Hong's story is another gatepost, and Xiao Ma's story is a gate arch. The story it tells can be ups and downs and exciting when replaced by another director, but Jia Zhangke handles it very plainly. Events with strong dramatic conflicts are either treated as character history or not shown. Xiao Ma is a gangster who admires Chow Yun-fat's image on the screen, doing nothing and fighting all day long. His story can be handled with a strong dramatic conflict. But the director only intercepted some of the least dramatic fragments of his life: he was hanging around in front of the magic house; he watched the video in the Tangren Pavilion hotel and asked Han Sanming to smoke; he was pretended to be blue and white. In his plastic duffel bag, he was thrown on the edge of the Yangtze River and was rescued by Han Sanming. The two of them drank together; he took people to Yunyang to fight and gave everyone the "white rabbit" toffee; he was beaten to death and buried in Under the bricks. These bland incidents confessed the character's short youthful time. The film deliberately ignores the conflicting events, allowing the audience to complete the story of Xiao Ma in their imagination.
The film’s treatment of Xiao Ma best reflects the style of realism. The narrative point of view of the film is Sanming and Shen Hong. They are ordinary people, even ordinary people who are afraid of their heads and tails. What Jia Zhangke pays attention to is no longer marginalized people like Xiaowu. He pays attention to the mainstream people in China. Sanming and Shen Hong are representatives of the “mainstream people” (I use "from the perspective of quantity rather than the right to speak" "Mainstream"). Although a small gangster like Xiao Ma has a story, it is not the focus of this film. In real life, the stories of "mainstream people" are the least dramatic. Most people don't want their lives to be ups and downs and their emotions ups and downs. If the story of Xiao Ma is fully presented, then "The Good Man in Three Gorges" becomes "Once Upon a Time in America."
The story of Han Sanming and Shen Hong is not without events that can be exaggerated. For example, Han Sanming met Ma boss, met Ma Yaomei, said goodbye to migrant workers, said goodbye to Xiao Ma, Shen Hong saw Guo Bin, Shen Hong and Guo Bin broke up. In Han Sanming's story, the most violent conflict is that Han Sanming was kicked by Ma's brother. In Shen Hong's story, the most emotional moment for Shen Hong was when she showed her mobile phone to Wang Dongming. That was the last phone call her husband made. If the director uses a lot of sensational music in these places, or makes the characters conflict and the performance becomes exaggerated, then Jia Zhangke will become Qiong Yao, and poetic realism will become a melodrama.
The non-dramatic conflict-style story of "The Good Man in Three Gorges", or the weak drama conflict-style story, is in harmony with the film's realism style.
2.
The choice of space in the space film and the audio-visual means of presenting this space are an excellent embodiment of the style of realism. In "World", Jia Zhangke tried to use the man-made landscape of "World Park" to symbolize China. It showed the director's efforts to grasp the reality of China, but it was criticized as artificial. In "The Good Man in Three Gorges", the Fengjie county seat that is being demolished is first of all the authentic and credible county seat of Fengjie, and secondly, it is sublimated into a symbol of China. The real space recorded in the film is bipolar reality. One pole is the demolition of collapsed streets and houses, dilapidated and rusty factories, dirty and narrow hotels, and crowded ferries; the other pole is the rushing river, the brightly lit new bridge, the expansive Fengjie New City, Weiran The towering Three Gorges Dam. The film makes extensive use of horizontally moving long shots, not only recording the real space, but also like touching it. It is not old or beautiful, and only natural light is used in the display of the space. Because this space cannot be old or beautiful, it has enough power when it is presented.
In fact, the old city of Fengjie in the film is connected by the three cities of Fengjie, Yunyang, and Wushan. For the millions of people who have lived in these three cities, "The Good Men from Three Gorges" will be their hometown. One of the few image resources. The choice of space in the Three Gorges Reservoir area reflects Jia Zhangke's extreme keenness. He caught its last sigh in the last few months of the demolition of the old city of Fengjie. Its reality, its power, and its fleetingness make every shot that passes by is full of emotions. The so-called poetic realism is the affectionate gaze of people and things in reality. The English name of the film is "Still Life", which means "Still Life". In the director’s explanation, Jia Zhangke said: “Still life represents a reality that is ignored by us. Although it leaves a deep trace of time, it is still silent and keeps the secret of life.” “Still life” is not only smoke, Wine, tea, sugar, and the entire city that was demolished, they have left traces of time since the Western Han Dynasty, keeping the secrets of millions of people's lives. "The Good Men of the Three Gorges" records their demise. Based on this alone, no one can deny its achievements. (The other movies that I know about the Three Gorges demolition are: Zhang Ming's feature film "Wushan Yunyu", documentary "Wushan Spring", and Li Yifan and Yan Yu's documentary "Submerged".)
3. Dialogue and details that
reflect the documentary style elements also include character dialogue, the use of dialects, the natural appearance of non-professional actors, non-theatrical performances, and so on. Among them, the most noteworthy is the character dialogue. One of the chronic problems of character dialogue in Chinese movies is that a large number of lines are just to explain the story, and some lines will suddenly jump out and let the characters speak for the director. The lines have two functions: one is to explain information, and the other is to express the emotions of the characters. Smart lines always merge the two into one. Take Han Sanming's scene with Mayao Mei as an example. In the analysis, it is inevitable to design other audio-visual means.
Shot 1: Daquan, shake, the camera is 45 seconds long.
Han Sanming and two co-workers walked from the depth of field, passed six people who were saying goodbye to each other, and walked to a dilapidated shack by the river with a few wooden tables inside.
Han Sanming: Let's go.
The two workers painted from the left, Sanming walked to the shack, and Mayao sister who was sitting at the table stood up and walked over.
Mai Yao: Sit down.
Mayaomei took Sanming's clothes and hung them on the bamboo poles outside the shack. Two ducks quacked and walked into the screen, and Sanming sat down.
Sanming went with his coworkers. It seemed that he was just stopping by to meet Mayao sister. In fact, it was the first meeting in 16 years. They passed by six people who were saying goodbye to each other. The meeting and goodbye formed a sharp contrast, and the separation between Sanming and Mayaomei was magnified into more separation between relatives. When Ma Yaomei saw Sanming, she only had a simple "sitting" and an action of picking up clothes. It seemed that their separation did not last long. The word "sit" again showed the politeness of Mayaomei, after all, they are no longer a husband and wife. Surprisingly, they did not know each other, indicating that they had been missing each other and had long anticipated what each other would be like. In the end, the two ducks quacked and entered the screen, it was a magical touch!
Lens 2: Panoramic, fixed and still, the lens is 2 minutes and 41 seconds long.
Sanming sat down and saw a back pocket on the left, which contained cabbage and tobacco leaves. Mai Yao came over and sat across from him. The two remained silent for a long time.
Mai Yao: Are you hungry? How about I buy you a bowl of noodles.
Han Sanming: Not hungry. (Pauses) Where is my kid?
Mai Yao: I work in the South.
Han Sanming: Isn't this just the south?
Mayaomei: In Dongguan. Farther south.
A long silence.
Han Sanming: How is your current husband treating you?
Mai Yao: Not her husband, just run the boat with him and give me food.
Han Sanming: You are much darker than before.
Mai Yao: I'm getting older.
Han Sanming: How are you now?
Mai Yao: Not good.
Han Sanming: I'm so good to you, you have to run.
Mai Yao: At that time, she was very young and ignorant.
Han Sanming: You are out of confinement, and my mother still doesn't let you work and can't support it.
Mai Yao: Do you have a wife?
Han Sanming: No.
Mai Yao: I can introduce one to you.
Han Sanming: I don't want it. I just want to see the children.
This is, a woman with dyed yellow hair came up from the embankment, looked at Han Sanming and Mayaomei, and left after a while.
Han Sanming: Don't you even have a picture of your child?
Mai Yao: Yes, on the boat.
Han Sanming: Take me to see.
A long silence.
Mai Yao: If you don’t come early or late, why did you come to me for 17 years?
Han Sanming sat, then took a cigarette from his trouser pocket and lit it.
The back pocket is an important prop to show Mayaomei's identity. The cabbage and tobacco leaves in it imply the existence of another man and another family. The water bottle on the table separates the two. The dialogue before the first long silence, the greetings and the discussion of "Southern" are both caring for my daughter and strengthening the sense of wandering. The dialogue before the second long silence, caring about each other's marriage, is not only in line with human nature, but also implies the attitude of the two to each other. Han Sanming blamed Mayao sister for leaving 16 years ago, her tone was gentle and calm, and Mayao sister simply replied, "At that time, she was very young and ignorant." When her emotions were about to climax, a woman came up from the river bank and said The sensational possibility is suppressed. After the second long silence was the end of the scene, Mayao Mei said: "If you don't come early or late, why did you come to me after 17 years?" Han Sanming didn't answer, and lowered her head to smoke. Regarding the handling of this dialogue, the director said in the interview that he had originally written a lot of words, but Han Sanming reminded the director that it is best not to speak at this time, because "talking will be small, if you don't talk, it will be big."
Simple lines, plain performances, and life-like details, but behind the simple and plain are the passionate feelings that have been suppressed in the character's heart for 16 years, and it is also the director's ability to grasp the emotions of the characters in real life. This is a carefully arranged composition, a carefully arranged emotional explosion, but also a natural expression of the director's deep love. It is the dialogue of realism, the scene of realism, and it is the dialogue of lyricism, the scene of lyricism. This scene can be said to be one of the most successful scenes in the film. This scene reminds me of a passage from Gui Youguang’s prose "Xiang Ji Xuan Zhi":
In Yu Zishui's study hall, one day, the eldest mother passed Yu and said: "My son, I haven't seen Ruoying for a long time, why Jingri is here in silence, big girls?" Bi went, closed the door with her hands, and said to herself: " My family’s studies have not been effective for a long time, and the success of the children can be waited for!” Hengzhi, holding an image of the wat, said: “This is my ancestor Taichang and the public proclaimed the morality to hold this to the dynasty, and you should use it in the future.” Zhan Gu The relics, like yesterday, can't help but trombone.
2. Poetic realism
Poetic realism is the combination of lyricism and reality. The realistic aspect of the film is discussed above, and the lyrical aspect is discussed below. This is not to say that the film can be divided into documentary paragraphs and lyrical paragraphs, but merely an analysis of the feet being cut to fit the shoes. Sadly, analysis always cuts the feet and fits the shoes. The following analysis will deal more with the audiovisual means of the film.
1. The horizontal shift lens
"The Good Man in Three Gorges" has a distinctive feature in lens movement, that is, it uses more horizontal shift and pan lens, and rarely uses depth movement lens. What is impressive is the first scene and a scene where Sanming tells the demolition workers that he is going back to Shanxi. In the first shot, on the ferry boat, the camera slowly moved horizontally, passing people with different postures and expressions, and finally fell on Sanming, who was sitting lonely in the stern of the boat. The scene is close-up, close-up, and the angle of view is head-up. It means that the director is in the middle of the crowd, trying to see people's hearts. During the horizontal movement, the camera has two virtual focus, like an ellipsis, omitting many people who did not appear, and it seems that tears have blurred the director's eyes. Sanming told the demolition workers that when he was going back to Shanxi, the camera was first fixed, the scene was medium shot, and the angle of view was head-up. Then, it moved horizontally to the left and landed on a person smoking sideways. These two shots at the beginning and the end of the film echo each other, expressing the director's deep feelings for ordinary people.
2. Depth of field lens
The film makes extensive use of depth-of-field lenses, presenting a contrast relationship within the lens. Numerous panning shots are like unfolding landscape paintings, presenting the magical and beautiful natural scenery of the Three Gorges to the fullest. The river is rushing, the peaks are steep, and the clouds and mists surround it, just like a fairyland. But it is different from the scenery film that shows the "great rivers and mountains of the motherland" in that no matter how beautiful nature is, it is only the background. People and the traces of their lives are the prospects, and the ruined walls and ordinary people walking in the dilapidated walls are the prospects. So the beauty of nature is in sharp contrast with the harsh living conditions of human beings. Jia Zhangke said in a speech at the Peking University screening: "If we are tourists, we can still see the green mountains and waters, the immortal mountains and the smart water, but if we go ashore, walk through those streets, and go to the neighbors in the neighborhood, Entering this family, we will find these modern people in these ancient mountains and rivers, but their family is surrounded by walls. This huge change is manifested in the immigrants of 1 million people, including the instant demolishing of the city for more than two thousand years." These feelings are expressed in the right audiovisual language.
In a scene where Shen Hong bids farewell to Guo Bin in front of the Three Gorges Dam, the foreground is Shen Hong and Guo Bin. In the depth of the field is a pair of lovers on the broken bridge. The foreground is emotional breakdown and divorce is about to be divorced. The background scene is the meeting on the broken bridge. When dancing, the foreground and background also form a contrasting relationship. It is hard to believe that such a large depth of field is also under the director's control.
In the use of depth of field, in addition to contrast, there are metaphors. For example, the foreground is the Kuimen on the renminbi, and the background is the real Kuimen, a metaphor for the commercialization of beautiful nature. In the last scene, Sanming saw a high-altitude tightrope walker, a metaphor for the future fate of these migrant workers going to Shanxi to dig coal.
In The Good Man in Three Gorges, the use of depth of field is a direct contrast between romanticism and realism, a clever combination of lyricism and documentary, and a straightforward montage inside the lens.
3. gaze
Let's look at the direct lyrical shot. As the story progressed, the director typed out the four words "tobacco, wine, tea, and sugar" on the screen, which are the so-called "still life" in the English title. The first is smoke. When the subtitle "smoke" is played, the next picture shows Chow Yun-fat on TV lighting a cigarette with dollar bills; after Xiao Ma died, Sanming lit three cigarettes in front of his photo, and the camera was pushed up. Stay on the cigarette, stay on the picture of Brother Ma. The relationship between Sanming and Xiao Ma has progressed from one cigarette to three cigarettes. The second is "wine". When Sanming took out the wine he had brought to Boss Ma from Shanxi, the camera stayed on the bottle of liquor, Sanming and Boss Ma, which were not high-end, for a long time. It was "tea" again. When Shen Hong broke the iron lock of Guo Bin's cabinet, the camera was pushed up and stayed on the box of "Wushan Yunwu" tea that Guo Bin left in the cabinet. Later, Shen Hong made a cup of tea. Tea drinking. Strangely, there is no stare at "sugar".
Let me quote the words of the director once again: "Still life represents a reality that is ignored by us. Although it has a deep trace of time, it is still silent and keeps the secret of life." Smoke is Sanming in a stranger Liquor is Sanming's way of expressing respect for Ma boss. The expired tea represents the expired marriage of Shen Hong and Guo Bin, and the sugar represents the care and love between Sanming and Mayao sister. The emotions between people represented by cigarettes, alcohol, tea, and sugar range from alienation to respect, to closeness and intimacy. The lens staying on cigarettes, alcohol, and tea means gazing at the emotions it represents. I Call it "gazing long shots". Does not stare at "sugar", does it mean that the director does not believe in love?
4. Sound
simplest and most effective means of lyrical sound than the movies. Jia Zhangke has always been very distinctive in the use of sound in movies. It is called "sound documentary", which is mainly used to create a sense of reality, and at the same time uses pop songs with sound sources to help lyric. "The Good Man in Three Gorges" is unique in sound processing, and the use of popular songs is bolder, and it also uses a mysterious and dreamlike soundtrack.
In terms of audio, the sound of migrant workers tearing down walls, the noise of the city, the sound of factory workers beating iron pipes, and the sound of steam horns of ships, etc., have all been carefully designed. The percussion of migrant workers and workers is full of rhythm, that is to say. , Those migrant workers in the big vision are not really tearing down the wall, the workers are not really knocking on iron pipes, they are playing music!
Popular songs used "A Good Man Lives Safe", "Shanghai Beach", "Mouse Loves Rice", "Two Butterflies", "Dry Wine Sells Nothing" and "Damp Heart". Among them, "Mouse Loves Rice", "Two Butterflies" and "Damp Heart" fit the story line of the hero and heroine "searching" and express the theme of love. The first two songs were sung by a little boy who had nothing to do with the plot, and converted into a silent soundtrack in the middle. Jia Zhangke called the little boy an angel, which is equivalent to the singing team in ancient Greek drama. At the screening, Jia Zhangke mentioned many times that he wanted the little boy to sing "If Without You" by Teresa Teng, but the little boy couldn't learn it, so he had to use "Two Butterflies". "Damp Heart" directly expresses Shen Hong's sadness for love and marriage. "Shanghai Beach" was introduced by Xiao Ma's cell phone ringtones and converted to a silent soundtrack in the middle; "Liquor is sold for nothing" is sung from beginning to end by small town singers. They fit the situation of Shanxi people in the Three Gorges and the Sanxia people going far away. , Used to express the wandering theme of the film. In addition, there are some songs rich in local characteristics, skip the table.
Popular songs are empty and lyrical, without context, so if a sad pop song is sung happily, we never feel that there is a problem. Jia Zhangke's use of the characteristics of popular songs is to add a context to popular songs and make popular songs change from death to life.
Finally, there is the soundtrack of the film. In order to cooperate with the charming natural scenery of the Three Gorges and to create a certain degree of unrealistic color, the film uses a lot of fantastic electronic music. The same music was used in the documentary "East" that was filmed at the same time. When the music starts, reality is taken away. It makes the Three Gorges no longer the Three Gorges, Fengjie no longer Fengjie, they are the epitome of China.
5. Surreal scene
Finally, let’s take a look at a few controversial scenes in the film with “surreal” colors. There are mainly five scenes: flying saucers passing over the Three Gorges, the unfinished Three Gorges Immigration Memorial Tower soaring into the sky, Peking Opera characters playing mobile games, people wearing disinfection suits disinfecting houses being demolished, and people walking tightrope. The flying saucer flew over the Three Gorges, from Sanming's field of vision to Shen Hong's field of vision, it seemed to be a metaphor for the similarities between the emotions and destiny of the two; the Three Gorges Immigrant Memorial Tower soared into the sky, and it was actually Shen Hong who made up his mind to get a divorce. Herald: She will pull up this unfinished marriage that will no longer be built. Several Peking opera characters are in the shapes of Cao Cao, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei. Liu Bei, one of the three brothers in Taoyuan, is replaced by Cao Cao. He is also playing a mobile sparring game: even Guan Yu and Zhang Fei are already sitting with Cao Cao. Brother Xiao Ma is still talking about loyalty, his "nostalgic person" will definitely be buried in the ruins. The scene of a person wearing a disinfection suit spraying disinfectant water also appeared in the documentary "East". It is the material that Jia Zhangke obtained from his personal experience. Under the background of mysterious music, it becomes surreal. The tightrope walkers heralded the fate of migrant workers to mine coal in Shanxi. These scenes regarded as "surreal" are not only meaningful, but also very consistent with the overall atmosphere of the Three Gorges and the theme of the film.
Jia Zhangke explained the above scenes: "One day when I went to the riverside to see the scenery, there were dark clouds and thunder and lightning. Because the Three Gorges has been clouded and rained in Wushan since ancient times, there are so many myths and legends. I think the weather in that place is very mysterious. A northerner who can’t swim, I’m scared at high tide. I think there will be aliens looking at me, so I drew a flying saucer in the movie. I think that when we arrive in Fengjie, we will really feel that there is a lot of reality in reality. The surreal atmosphere. The entire building was demolished in seven days as a unit, basically five floors and six floors a day. We shot desperately and raced against the disappearing city. I think it’s very surreal. I think this is today’s one. Atmosphere."
As for whether this direct lyrical way is excessive, each audience can have their own judgment. In my opinion, they at least enhance the viewability of the film.
3. Chinese aesthetics means that
"The Good Man in Three Gorges" shows the living conditions of Chinese people from three levels.
First, the material life of suffering and poverty, and the fate of people under such living conditions.
On January 13, 2007, the second "Young Directors Forum" closed at the Beijing Film Academy. The participating experts discussed ten films produced by young Chinese directors in 2006. Cui Weiping criticized The Good Man in Three Gorges, saying that Mayaomei was first sold to Han Sanming for 3,000 yuan, and then mortgaged to a ship boss for 30,000 yuan. On the contrary, the director showed the so-called true feelings between Han Sanming and Mayaomei, which is probably incorrect in the general direction. Cui Weiping also commented on Wang Quanan's "Tuya's Marriage", thinking that when Tuya married her husband, he lived a life below the human level, but the director showed it as a warm and affectionate life, which is also problematic.
From the perspective of feminism or human nature, Cui Weiping's evaluation is irrefutable. But outside the vision of intellectuals, outside of big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, it is far from enough to talk about feminism and the theory of human nature. I am an ancestral farmer, and my parents, relatives, brothers and sisters are all in the countryside. My aunt's second daughter was sold in Shanxi, and my aunt's second daughter was sold in Jiangsu. It is said that they are all living well, much better than staying in Sichuan. In order to survive, in order to live better, people can live without dignity. The living conditions of the people in the films of Jia Zhangke and Wang Quanan are not evaluated by the director, but more real. For people living in this state, Western evaluation standards such as feminism and human nature are equivalent to saying: You are good to die.
Jia Zhangke and Wang Quanan didn't use these standards to evaluate the characters because they were too familiar with the lives of the bottom Chinese people. They respect the resilience of life embodied in Mayaomei and Tuya, and also respect their feelings. As for the criteria used by the audience to evaluate the characters, it is the audience's own business.
Han Sanming bid farewell to the demolition workers. Speaking of Shanxi's many coal mines, earning one or two hundred a day, the migrant workers immediately decided to dig coal with Sanming. Sanming said that more than ten people have to die every year, and they go down in the morning, but I don't know if they can come up in the afternoon. The migrant workers just clink glasses and drink. Early the next morning, one of them set off with Sanming without landing. If we think this is just fiction, then we can refer to the documentary "East" that Jia Zhangke shot at the same time. A migrant worker model of the painter Liu Xiaodong was smashed to death, and Liu Xiaodong came to the migrant worker's house. The daughter of the migrant worker cried for the dead father, but the wife and father of the migrant worker showed no grief. Among them is a close-up of an old migrant father, his face is wrinkled, his eyes are full of tameness to fate. They have already accepted the hardships in their lives. For coal miners, demolition workers and their families, abnormal deaths are normal. This is the material life of suffering and poverty, and the fate of people under such living conditions.
(In the director's version, Sanming went to the house of a man with a broken arm. His wife asked Sanming if he wanted a young lady. Sanming asked what kind of young lady, the woman said: Not a young lady, but a young woman. She yelled to the broken building opposite, and walked out of the building. Several middle-aged women were knitting wool while waiting for Sanming to choose. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television thought this section was "indecent", so the mainland release version was cut off. This section extended the situation of Mayao sister to more lower classes. Women’s situation. Two other places were cut. One was that Sanming had just moved into the Tangren Pavilion Hotel. The boy who sang twice in the film came in wearing briefs, picked up Sanming’s cigarette, and smoked it skillfully. His future is a small one. Brother Ma. First, Shen Hong came to the factory to look for Guo Bin. The camera was swayed from the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Zedong on the wall to the workers who were arguing. In this regard, Jia Zhangke said: Sri Lanka's portrait had hung in there, we do not artists, are China film Lima En columns Maus portraits can not appear? obviously, SARFT people still understand the political meaning of this paragraph.)
the first Second, changes in interpersonal relationships and interpersonal feelings under the impact of interests.
Chinese society is rapidly changing from a society of acquaintances to a society of strangers. The characteristics of the acquaintance society are: acquaintances have interests and emotional relationships, and the acquaintance society forces members of the society to abide by its rules; acquaintances guard against and bully strangers. Sanming’s first encounter in Fengjie is exactly what a stranger encounters when he comes to an acquaintance society. He was forced to watch a magic show and was dragged by Huang Mao to the river to see "No. 5 Qingshi Street, Fengjie County, Sichuan Province". If it were not Huang Mao, he would have to spend more money to live in a hotel. Therefore, Sanming had to use a knife to protect himself. Anyone who is away from home must have had a similar experience.
Sanming is a low-level person, while Shen Hong is an urban citizen. Her marriage and emotional changes are the subjects of many movies and TV series, so that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television had to stop TV series involving extramarital affairs. Someone pointed out that Shen Hong's environment, camera use, and scene scheduling when he was in the factory were similar to, or even the same as, Antonioni's "Red Desert." But the same is just appearance, just a tribute to Antonioni. Shen Hong’s loneliness is the sadness of being betrayed, a manifestation of physical and emotional hunger, and its premise is to believe in love; the loneliness of "Red Desert" is existential loneliness, it does not believe that there can be real between people Communication, let alone love. Antonioni would doubt whether there can be love between Han Sanming and Mayaomei, but Jia Zhangke believes in their love, and the scene of them eating a piece of white rabbit toffee can move a building crashing down.
We have no religion, most people live very practically, do not believe in the other side, do not believe in God, do not believe in the afterlife; we have not entered the modern age, individual independence, equality between men and women, and other values are still far away from people. The so-called postmodernism is just the way of life of a handful of petty bourgeoisie. For most Chinese people, the emotions between people are still the final destination.
Third, the drowning and disappearance of the hometown and the wandering of people caused by the great changes of the times.
In Chinese classical poems, ancient poets once repeatedly expressed the lament that "things are not humans". "Farewell to my hometown for many years, and people have been half-worn recently. Only the lake in front of the door, the spring breeze does not change the old wave." Today, the mulberry field has become a sea, and people are nothing but things.
When Shen Hong left Fengjie, the ship broadcast said:
Today, it has become the focus of the world because of the world-renowned Three Gorges Project. The Three Gorges Project is the ideal of several generations of leaders in our country, and people in the reservoir area have also made great sacrifices for this. On May 1, 2006, the water level here will rise to 156.3 meters. You see these small houses on both sides of the bank, and they will all be submerged by then.
In order to move towards modernization, it may be inevitable for some or all people to "make huge sacrifices", but when the flood of modernization floods everyone's hometown, there are always things worth recording and reminiscing, and there are always some values and emotions. Worthy of inheritance and expression. As the singer in the film sings:
Without heaven, there is land, without land, there is home
without home, then there is you, without you, there is me.
If you never nurture me, give me a warm life.
If you didn’t protect me, my destiny What is going to
be you raising me and growing up, the first thing to say with me is that
you give me a home and let me share it with you
Although you can’t speak a word
, you can better understand the black and white and true and false of the world
Although you don't know how to express your true feelings
, you have given a passionate life.
This kind of melancholy of hometown loss and the wandering mentality of wandering is something that people accustomed to modern Western civilization cannot experience. Only those souls connected with the ancients can feel this classical emotion. I have experienced it in Angelo Pross' movies, and I have also experienced it in Tarkovsky's movies, but I prefer to say that the memory of "The Good Man in Three Gorges" and the wandering mentality of the hometown are inherited from Chinese classical poetry.
Finally, I end this article with a scene from the movie. Han Sanming sat on the humble bed of Tangrenge Hotel and called home and said, "Second brother, tell mom, I'm in Fengjie."
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