As a typical representative of the common people, the Lin family reflects the microcosm of the entire Taiwanese society, so that those who have watched this film will also feel the joy and pain of the world, and taste the ups and downs of life. The Lin family has four sons. The eldest, Wen Xiong, is a local corner head and runs a small Shanghai restaurant; the second, Wen Sen, became a military doctor in Nanyang, and has never been heard from; Deaf since childhood, he is a photographer in a photo studio. Although the fates of the four brothers of the Lin family were different, they all reached the same goal. They all ended in tragedy, either dead or crazy.
I dare not say that I fully understand this movie, after all, my personal life experience is far from that era. However, "City of Sadness" gave me a feeling of depression from the very beginning. Whether visually or audibly, this heavy feeling of depression never disappeared from the first second of the film to the end, and it was almost breathless. gas.
The first is color and light.
Color throughout the film is based on blue-black, dark gray and dark tan. For example, the opening scene of the film is that Wen Xiong's wife is about to produce in an unlit room. The blue and black of the picture are dim and gloomy, which immediately makes the audience feel the generally suppressed emotions in Taiwanese society at that time.
Looking at the whole film, I noticed that most of the shots were taken indoors, and most of the time there were no lights. The indoor light in the picture is dim, damp, dull, and cloudy, which makes people feel sullen. This kind of heaviness and depression also continued to the later outdoor scenes: the dim dark blue sea surface, blue-gray mountains and rocks appeared several times, desolate and age-like, and the tone of the whole film maintained the same emotional consistency. .
There are two places with the brightest colors in the film: one is the hospital, and the other is the grass in the suburbs. The color of the hospital is bright and pale, even with a neurotic light blue, giving people the feeling of being deserted, cold and morbid (because the hospital is a place to treat diseases). The color and light of the grass in the suburbs (that is, the places where Wenqing, Kuanrong and Kuanmei took pictures) are completely different, and are much normal and healthy in comparison.
The few dozen seconds of taking pictures in the wind are beautiful, and it is one of the few passages in which I can relax my emotions while watching. Kuan Mei was wearing a white cotton dress, smiling in the wind, gentle and sweet; Wen Qing and Kuan Rong stood in front of the camera, their faces were also three-point joy and three-point joy. The bright green of the grass infiltrates the vitality and vigor of young people, and I think it also alludes to the lush, green and profound friendship between Wen Qing and his best friend Kuan Rong.
Second is music.
The recurring theme song gives people a strong auditory shock and mental pressure (because this song is repeated so many times in the film that I still feel that the reverberation is lingering for three days), especially the kind that does not know Is it a wooden fish or a tambourine musical instrument, "dong, dong, dong" fell one after another, slowly, dull, desolate, with a vibrato at the end, and each stroke was like a percussion on the apex of the heart. .
Although I can't explain the meaning of each use of the theme song individually, it feels strange and dissonant when the music is played simultaneously with the appearance of the blue-gray mountains and rock shots. Perhaps this inexplicable sense of disobedience is exactly what the director intended. Even the natural scenery will be filled with desolation in the eyes of those who see it - all of this is an inevitable product of the social environment at that time. This is true for the people in the play, and it is also true for the audience.
Apart from the colors and music, there are two other characters that impressed me in this movie: Wenxiong and Kuanmei.
As the eldest of the family, Wenxiong is a place where he has a good reputation in the rivers and lakes. He has a bandit spirit, straightforward personality, rude demeanor, quick talk, and hot temper. He is like a pepper, and he is the most intense of all. one of. When his younger brother Wenliang was arrested, he went to find someone to clear up the relationship, even if he asked for it, he was rude. The politician pretended to be crazy and stupid across the table. He turned his face and slapped the table. He grabbed the bag of money he brought and threw it on the table and said, "I know the rules. Don't talk nonsense and do things quickly."
Impatience is a clear manifestation of Wenxiong's personality. When someone was sitting at the table at home and pulling the erhu to sing a tune, Wenxiong became impatient when he passed by and told them not to sing any more. Wenxiong walked two steps and the man was still singing, and he turned back without saying a word. After grabbing the erhu, it fell on the table and broke into several pieces. This impetuous character finally caused Wenxiong's tragedy: in a gang fight, he was killed by someone else's gun.
Kuanmei gave me the impression that it was light and light, with a watery temperament, like a sweet and harmless white rabbit candy. She wore a light-colored sarong, light makeup, and gentle hair. Quietly, he doesn't speak often, and when he is with Wenqing, he is even more silent, but the smile on his face is always soft. She sat next to Wen Qing and watched him write with a pen and paper. She looked at every stroke carefully, and her eyes were full of tenderness.
Wen Qing came back after disappearing, and Kuan Mei finally saw him again. She didn't cry or burst into tears, she just stepped forward and held Wen Qing's hand tightly. In fact, the emotion of forbearance is often more difficult to express than the intense emotion. However, when this pair of lovers hold hands and look at each other, time seems to freeze silently and stop flowing. Time finally made Kuanmei a stoic woman, so even if we know in the end that Wenqing will never come back, we believe that those who stay will live quietly - at the end of the film, she writes to A Xue that :
"Aqian already has teeth. He knows that his expression is very good, and his eyes are very similar to that of the fourth uncle. Come to the house when you have time, Jiufen is starting to get cold, and the mango flowers are blooming. The mountains are covered with white, like snow."
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