First published on Tencent News Krypton Entertainment
Yin Xiang from Berlin
This year's Berlin Film Festival is the last year of Dieter Kosslick's tenure as chairman. In a sense, this event may be regarded as a "summary" of the sixth generation of Chinese directors-2019 Berlin The film festival can be seen as a gathering of Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, and Wang Quan'an, the three backbones of China's sixth-generation directors.
From a macro perspective, it is easy to find that the works of the sixth-generation directors all have a process of change from the earliest " survival state of marginal individuals " to " epic ". Jia Zhangke from "Xiao Wu" to "Old Man in Mountains and Rivers" and "Children of Rivers and Lakes"; Wang Quan'an from "Lunar Eclipse" to "White Deer Plain"; from "Weekend Lover" to Lou from "A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind" Ye is like this; so is Wang Xiaoshuai from "Winter and Spring Days" to "Long Time". The sixth generation has finally gained a position to look at Chinese history, and " time " and " the relationship between man and the times " have become propositions that they can deal with.
——These two keywords are the entry point for discussing "Long Time", and also the entry point for discussing the sixth generation's creative turn.
Of course, I must also describe the major premise, why the shortlisting and coronation of international film festivals are so important to the "sixth generation".
Even if Jia Zhangke, who is considered to represent the highest achievement of Chinese art film, has embarrassing domestic box office results for "The Old Man of the Mountains and Rivers" and "Children of the Rivers and Lakes", this is not important, because through the system of international film festivals, Jia Zhangke's works have been in the "world" as early as Even before its premiere", it recovered its investment and even made a profit through international sales. This is how the "circle" of international film festivals operates. Therefore, international film festivals, especially "Category A" or "Big Three", whose nominations and awards are an important reference standard for film authors, film genres, and film movements.
Let’s look at this year’s award distribution again – “Long Time” won two performance awards. Although “Dinosaur Egg” (directed by Wang Quan’an) was highly rated, it returned empty-handed; It has not won any awards in Cannes several times), which means that the "sixth generation" is no longer a pioneer in film art, and they no longer need the awards given to directors by the film festival to gain support. The wind vane of the world's film art is always turning subtly, and the sixth generation of Chinese directors is no longer the one who stands at the forefront.
Before the awards, Wang Jingchun's best actor voice was relatively high, and Yong Mei's award was really an upset (there are quite a lot of major female lead plays this year), but this kind of award configuration is also more in line with Berlin's logic. In the previous "45th Anniversary", compared with Aunt Rampling, who swept the major awards and grabbed an Oscar nomination, the male protagonist (almost only one performance award in Berlin) must be much weaker. The simultaneous distribution of awards to two leading actors is a testament to the preference of an actor-based jury.
Two awards for a film is actually the default upper limit (three awards for "A Separation" in 2011 is really rare), and being able to win two awards shows that the judges recognize the film; Another angle shows that this film is flawed.
Back to video.
"Long Time" can be called the epic work of Wang Xiaoshuai's ambition. The story spans 40 years of reform and opening up, and integrates the fate of workers after the restructuring of state-owned enterprises with the two heavy themes of family planning and families who lost their only child in a family melodrama.
Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun, played by Wang Jingchun and Yongmei, are the protagonists of the film, and they are surrounded by friends Shen Yingming (Xu Cheng), Li Haiyan and his wife (Alia), Shen Yingming's sister Shen Moli (Qi Xi), and Zhang Xinjian (Zhao Yan Guozhang) and Gao Meiyu (Li Jingjing) and their husbands, they work together in the "Baojiang Manufacturing Factory", and they are considered a "three and a half" worker family.
The core of the film is the " tie " between them.
Liu Xing, the son of Liu and Wang, was born on the same day in the same year and month as the son of Shen and Li. The two have a very good relationship, as evidenced by the group photo in the film. The core conflict of the story is that Liu Xing and Haohao accidentally drowned while playing together, and Li Haiyan, who was the deputy director of the family planning office of the factory, persuaded Wang Liyun, who was pregnant with her second child, to have an abortion because of the operation. During the period of heavy bleeding, Wang Liyun lost her fertility.
The main story line is a real family melodrama, and it is a typical so-called "East Asian grief drama" routine——
"A series of misfortunes are poured out on the protagonist."
But more important is the secondary line of the story: the four decades of changes in state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises.
The art and costumes of the film are very attentive and have an excellent restoration of the sense of age. The two themes of the film "time" and "the relationship between man and the times" are revealed by this auxiliary line. From the prosperity of state-owned enterprises in the early 1980s, the leisure life of workers, popular songs, and even the "strike hard", southward gold rush, to the wave of laid-offs in the mid-1990s (a necessary routine for grief dramas, lay-offs should be regarded as a continuous flow of people-mourning The final crit after the son), the nationwide movement of laid-off workers to become self-employed, and the real estate economy that has become fully commercialized in recent years.
This line is the really important story of the film, and it is also what the director spent a lot of effort to create, and the "epic" feeling of the film comes from this.
"State-owned enterprise" is the background or space, which determines the character's attributes, while "forty years of reform and opening up" is a measure of time.
The film adopts a relatively complex non-linear structure - generally maintaining a relatively sequential time structure, but the timeline jumps a lot, there are about six relatively concentrated stories with a clear time span of each other, and there are many layers. 's flashbacks are interspersed over six periods of time, creating suspense and intensifying emotion. In fact, straightening out the timeline is a particularly typical TV drama story, but through the script and editing, the timeline is more complicated, and a more fully filmed is achieved.
Of course, the last half hour of the film is indeed quite debatable. First of all, the style of this half hour has changed a lot, and it is not as refined as before.
And more importantly, is it possible or necessary to have multiple reconciliations at the end (especially the reconciliation between the adopted son and the couple Liu and Wang)?
The award video selected at the awards ceremony is very clear:
When presenting awards to Wang Jingchun and Yongmei, the short film chose the same clip-towards the end, the scene where the couple went to visit the grave of their deceased son, about ten seconds of the video, neither of them said a single line. .
More than one foreign reporter lamented that it would be better if the film ended here.
It should be pointed out that since the film was shot in Baotou, the prototype is also the Baotou Iron and Steel Factory, and it is a pity that the main characters did not use dialects. There may be market considerations in it.
In addition to the length of the film, it must be admitted that for this story structure and "epic" style, a film length of three hours is necessary.
The fate of the characters needs time to be laid out in detail, and the delicate timeline must also give enough time for the audience to experience.
At the end, the fate of the two families is just like the living space of the two families. Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun returned to Baotou after many years. The dormitory at that time was actually a very few old houses that had not been demolished, and the furnishings inside were exactly the same as when they left.
This is clearly to say that their lives have been stagnant from the moment of losing their children/laying off, and this huge sense of tragedy is reinforced by the contrast created by the mansion of Shen Yingming, who has now become a real estate tycoon.
And only in this time-stagnant state-owned enterprise dormitory, Haohao made the final confession on behalf of his mother.
I believe this is the attitude of director Wang Xiaoshuai. Those who have been deprived and hurt in history/change, although they are silent and forbearing, the director tells their stories.
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