When I just finished reading "17-year-old Bicycle" a few days ago, I was still trying to write something. When I watch it, I always think of "Children in Paradise" ("Little Shoes"), especially the scene where the two people hand over bicycles, which always reminds me of Ali and his sister, and the pair of tattered sneakers.
Probably looking for should be the theme of this film.
I don't know whether Wang Xiaoshuai paid attention to whom to learn, but there is one point, I think it is more fatal than learning from whom: when he deals with reality, he also treats reality into conceptual poetry, and many things seem to be There is an aftertaste, but this aftertaste seems to have been refined and summed up.
A good movie can often give people something other than the movie, but this kind of thing cannot stand up to refinement. Once this kind of thing has a name, it becomes very realistic and makes people lose their imagination. The smell, if it is serious, will give people the feeling of being forcibly instilled, as if it has become a preaching. And "17-year-old bicycle" has such a problem.
For example, the babysitter played by Zhou Xun, such as the language of the shop owner, and his yearning for urban life, as well as the boss and staff of a courier company, and the cashier of the sauna, the design of these people seems to be more like the characters in the play , the way they convey their feelings is also like a play.
The difference between a movie and a drama is that a drama can express a lot of innermost thoughts, and can reveal a lot of innermost parts, because its artistic space is virtual, and the audience is separated from the stage. It allows the presence of performances. The movie is different. The most important thing in a movie is the performance. Once the movie gives people the feeling of acting, it means that the movie is over.
In my opinion, Wang Xiaoshuai's inadequacy is that when he grasps the movie, he has grasped the trick. In "17-Year-Old Bicycle", he overemphasized the differences in life, and deliberately enlarged the differences, which made an expression of life and survival with a dramatic element. In fact, the difference should be a feeling, not a confession. It should be scattered in life without any trace, so that people can feel it, instead of putting it out like an exhibit for people to touch.
The difference in 17-Year-Old Bike is within reach. Taking Dongzi’s beating as an example, Dongzi’s family is organized by two divorced families. This is a hard difference. There is a soft difference between Dongzi’s sister’s tuition fees when he is admitted to a key middle school and his desire to buy a bicycle. The less friendly relationship with the stepmother is also a soft difference. The difference is realized through the understanding of Dongzi's sister, and the little girl speaks the same language as a recitation, as if she is an empathetic little girl. Angel, it makes people feel awkward to see.
The above examples are actually not enough to express my feelings. From my immediate impression, Wang Xiaoshuai's understanding of real life is still far from being close to it. There are too few everyday things in the film, and too much general and abstract understanding of life.
In my opinion, it is good that the film can convey poetry and aftertaste, but these two things cannot be at the expense of diluting the daily life, because after all, this is a film about life, and it needs a solid foundation in life. Without this foundation, life becomes free from reality and becomes lyric.
According to my guesses, I think the problem of this film may lie in the scrutiny of the script. When the script is constructed, it first abstracts life (that is, extracts or summarizes conflicts first), and then uses the scenery To restore life, this generalization will make the film sour as soon as it is restored.
Like "17-year-old Bicycle", Wang Xiaoshuai's other works also have similar problems, such as "The Girl with a Pole Pole", there are many plots that are far from life, such as the love between Gao Ping and Ruan Hong. , can conquer a woman's heart. Compared with Su Wu, the boss of the underworld, Gao Ping, a migrant worker, doesn't seem to have anything to impress Ruan Hong's heart, but he does, which makes it hard to understand.
Moreover, the plot of the "boss" wife, whether in Hong Kong films or Western films, is a relatively common concept, and Wang Xiaoshuai put it in a movie that reflects the life of the bottom, which seems to make people feel a bit untouchable. Mind, is it just for storytelling?
From "The Girl with the Pole" to "17-year-old Bicycle", it can be seen that Wang Xiaoshuai is a director who prefers to talk about the process of urbanization. But I think he still lacks a very real understanding of the city, and he often treats the city as a shell of modernity and pretense, or a venue where simplicity and purity are destroyed.
Wang Xiaoshuai often told us that there is love, warmth, friendship, and sincerity at the bottom. Specific examples, such as migrant workers love prostitutes, migrant workers love baby nannies, but these things are destroyed when they are placed in the city.
This kind of processing method, used in the past, makes people feel that this kind of film has become a genre film. Its program is just a folk, grassroots straw, plus reflection and rebellion on modern civilization, the city, the system, and human feelings, which constitutes the core theme of the film. Find a story to revolve around this core theme. , The last part of the series seems to have become a movie.
This statement of mine may be too simplistic, but the feeling of simplification really comes from the simplification of the film. Similarly, as a representative of the sixth generation of directors, I think that the distance between Wang Xiaoshuai and Jia Zhangke is not in the depth, but in the perception of life. Jia Zhangke can express his thoughts in life freely, but Wang Xiaoshuai, but he can't. Really gotta do it.
2003. 3. 18
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