Before watching the film, many people said that "Long Time" was a tearjerker. When it premiered in Berlin, various media and film critics burst into tears. Personally, I was very resistant to sensational films, and I was a little wary in my heart. After watching it in the cinema, I found that it was not as "tear-jerking" as everyone claimed, and Wang Xiaoshuai was still very restrained.
Speaking of which, the most touching plot is not the later scene of "the reconciliation of the two families", but the beginning part. After Liu Xing drowned, his father Liu Yaojun, played by Wang Jingchun, carried him all the way to the hospital. This episode was particularly touching. I used a fixed lens from a distance to deal with this extremely emotional episode with a calm attitude of watching from a distance, and then followed up with a close-up shot to give a close-up of Wang Jingchun's expression-Wang Jingchun panted heavily, eyebrows raised. Pulling, full of grief and despair, after arriving at the hospital, he used a long-distance fixed camera again. The camera and the audience watched Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun struggle with grief at the end of the corridor.
The second most touched was Liu Yaojun and his wife, who had just experienced the pain of losing their son. They were alone at home on the New Year's Eve. Shen Moli (played by Qi Xi) came to deliver dumplings. The expression on it is indescribable. This scene is also enough to destroy people's hearts, and the way of performance is also restrained, which can be called brilliant.
In stark contrast to this sternness and compassion, it is the "reconciliation" drama that follows. The director brings the camera and begins to accurately control the audience's emotions. Mei (played by Mei) embraced each other, and many viewers had already burst into tears at this time. This was just a prelude. After entering the ward, Li Haiyan and Wang Liyun, who were dying, said goodbye: Now that they are rich, they can give birth. At this point, the emotions of the whole film reached a climax, and the characters and the audience burst into tears together.
After that, Shen Hao (played by Du Jiang) told Liu Yaojun and his wife the truth (or details) of Liu Xing's death in those years. The audience was in the position of Liu Yaojun and his wife, and had to face the great pain of the past again. After this episode, the two families basically completed the reconciliation, and the scabs of Li Yaojun and his wife's wounds really fell off, and the rest was just scars.
This kind of restraint and sensational strategy (non-pejorative) before and after is intentional by the director. The first is to slowly but effectively enter the mood, and then it is constantly brewing and developing, and finally there must be an explosion.
On another level, there are strategies of restraint and rendering, that is, the damage of rendering and the healing of restraint. The core contradictions of the two families: one is that Liu Xing's death is somewhat related to Shen Hao; the other is that Li Haiyan, as a cadre in charge of family planning, forced Wang Liyun to have an abortion, especially the second contradiction, which is the main cause of Li Haiyan's lifelong depression. The movie directly shows the plight of ordinary families in the family planning era. There are countless women like Wang Liyun who were forced to have abortions. Most of them are employees of state-owned enterprises. The wave of layoffs in the 1990s made this kind of "subordination" instantly absurd, and even the bamboo basket was empty.
In terms of the influence of the times (policies) on ordinary people, the director has increased the strength and exaggeration, which is the formation part of the wound - when Liu Yaojun faced the iron fist of Li Haiyan and others, he was incompetent and helpless, which made the audience really worried; In the healing part of the wound, the director once again used a very restrained and forbearing technique to perform. After the death of their only son, the two couples hardly had any scenes of emotional outbursts. They just endured silently, and even left their hometown and went to live in silence in a remote place. Except for the father-son conflict between Liu Yaojun and the adopted Liu Xing (played by Wang Yuan), there was nothing. Intense and painful emotional drama, until Wang Liyun committed suicide - this is the limit of restraint.
Many viewers dislike this arrangement of restraint and exaggeration, and think that avoiding the important is light. The poor couple has endured so much suffering, and then there is a happy ending. What is the criticism? What is the complaint? Where is the dignity of the people at the bottom? And when you think about it carefully, this is the real situation. Liu Yaojun and his wife, like countless ordinary Chinese, can only restrain and digest themselves in the face of majestic power and policies. It seems to be the consistent theme of the director's previous works: a portrayal of the fate of small people (family units) under the influence of big policies in a big era. Whether going to the mountains or the countryside, family planning, or layoffs due to system reform, they are all the trends of the times. They are like a leaf and can only follow.
Including the big reunion at the end is also true, forgiveness everywhere, comforting happiness everywhere, the movie seems to have become warm, but it is not pale, as long as there is comfort, who can refuse? In the great reconciliation between families, there is also the reconciliation of Liu Yaojun and his wife: it is not directly shown in the movie, but many details hint at Wang Liyun's suicide. Confessed - in the last video chat, when I heard Shen Moli say that she had a son, Wang Liyun's expression was so complicated.
The reconciliation between families and the reconciliation between husband and wife all have "Chinese characteristics" and a Chinese-style "everything is fine, harmony is supreme". Each of us must have a similar experience in the relevant memories. Many People hate this kind of psychology, but it is also full of some real meaning of human feelings. If you can forgive, who doesn't want to forgive? In other words, how much pain and torture do those who never forgive endure?
At the beginning, when Liu Yaojun rushed to the hospital with his drowning son in his arms, he passed through a tunnel and faced a rolling train. This scene constitutes the most accurate metaphor of the film.
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