we've burned, but there's still unburnt parts.
Burn it through.
——Yixian's "Andante Like a Song"* The
sixth master stood up straight on the ice lake again with his saber, and walked and rushed to his feet. The spark that never went out in the deep inside of Lao Pao'er burst out in the vast and desolate ice and snow, Achieve a magnificent burn.
This scene, accompanied by the repeated beat of the drum, hit my heart again and again, which is shocking. Even if I watched it for the second time, I was still deeply moved, just because "Old Pao'er" is quite poetic and intriguing. Can afford to chew repeatedly.
However, this straight-line narrative film is also Guan Hu's most straightforward work in recent years. It is like a yellowed diary in a person's memory box. It tells the story of a hutong gangster Liu Ye's former glory, but it is not enough to rely on this afterglow to fight against power and power. A new force built from wealth.
Liu Ye can point the country in the hutong, and walk freely like a hegemon, but he and the hutong he lives in are an isolated island. This isolated island is shrinking due to the encroachment of modernization. Came to the suburbs to visit the rebellious only son Xiaobo, and watched the apartment buildings under the gray sky compress the space that human beings can live in. With the demolition and reconstruction of brick alleys and courtyards since Beijing's bid for the Olympic Games, the previous generation became the so-called "towers". A group of "shoveled", the young people who moved to the suburban cement grids are no longer grounded, they live arbitrarily and lost, and the pictures are sensuality and timely entertainment, but the older generation in the hutong is still alive and still. In order to survive, the rules of the rivers and lakes that Xiaobo despised by his father’s generation were exactly the way that Sixth Master relied on for his entire life. No matter how out of place this survival rule seemed today, it could not be removed from the bones.
As far as the process of raising money by Liu Ye's "redemption" of his only son Xiaobo, the documentary is like the social page of the Daily Evening News. What we can see is the compromise of the common people to real life, or because of the anger and injustice of the system, or because of the anger of the system. The unfortunate insensitivity of others, it is this realistic depiction of the nature of all beings and life that makes me feel that Guan Hu's films are more gentle and honest than before.
Wang Jun once wrote: "Look at a city to see if it can allow the poor to live with dignity. This is the case in old Beijing." *
The first time I went to Beijing was in the summer of 2014. On the night of my arrival, my friends took me to Guijie Street. After eating a meal, compared to the red food street that looked up, I took a walk to digest food. Before ten o’clock, the Donghuamen generation was silent and silent, and the ground of Nanchizi Street, which was almost empty of pedestrians, was dirty. The newly built and luxurious courtyards in the small and old buildings are particularly eye-catching. My friends told me about the changes in Beijing over the past ten years. The Forbidden City was shrouded in the night, standing majestically, never wavering.
Some people say that when you look around the city and find ugly corners hidden under the glossy exterior, you will know that this city can only be Beijing.
The prosperity of Xidan and Sanlitun is dazzling, but there is no such thing as Doujiao Hutong, Nanxiawazi Hutong's vegetable stalls, food stalls, and bicycles. The residents' life is so flamboyant; Page One is fashionable and full of design concepts, but I prefer nests In Zhengyang Bookstore in Brick Pagoda Hutong, looking through old books and teasing cats, the white-bearded old gentleman with the unique style of the Republic of China sat on the Taishi chair and told me about the dusty and reappearance of the old Wansong Pagoda in the center of the courtyard.
The pace of modernization cannot be stopped, and there is no need to keep the ancient and the present. However, it is undeniable that it is the oldness and dilapidation in the eyes of the experts that led me to visit Beijing after half a year, even if such nostalgia mixed with my imagination. Deliberately pursuing, but when "Old Pao'er" faithfully reproduces the Beijing in my heart, the yearning and admiration for the old Beijing is pouring out, just like when I arrived in the early summer, I still can't distinguish the south, south, north and west like Beijingers, facing my dazed , my aunt led me to the former residence of Lao She boldly. I will lead you for a while. She said, you can ask again when you are in front of you. People from the south don't know. People here call each other regardless of their age. "Is it possible that Old Beijing knows how to address people by listening to him. If you ask Lu Shouting, uncle and aunt, how to get to Lao She's former residence later, people will definitely answer.
I found the former residence of Lao She, which was renovated until August and was not seen, and experienced the pride and boldness of Beijingers. Since then, I have done the same, and Lu Chi can also pass through the city of Beijing without hindrance. Asking the way philosophy has benefited me a lot. "Old Pao'er", I understood: Sixth Master's rules, understand and make sense.
It is out of date, but there are no rules and no circles. People change between circles and circles in their whole life. When they are young and frivolous, they are gradually smashed by society, reality, and more by their own powerlessness, self-selection or forced. Choose to turn around, the surface is smooth, but there is still unwillingness and loneliness. If you can only float and sink in the current of life for a long life, "survival" is the minimum pursuit, which is no different than an ostrich kept in a courtyard house. Let others tease and play - suffocated - facing his sixth brother, Man San'er gritted his teeth and burst out his anger at the injustice of life.
In fact, heaven and earth have never been biased, but character determines fate, so the bloody and reckless Man San'er (played by Zhang Hanyu) comes and goes in the number, and the lampshade (played by Liu Hua), who has been cowardly since childhood, is still a scumbag when he is old. It’s the material of the aftermath, but the sixth master is in trouble. It’s these two guys who go on without a second mention. Of course, the years can smooth out the edges and corners. It’s the brothers who have always been there. The biggest rare, like a glass of old wine, like an old song.
In such a masculine movie, Xu Qing's chatterbox threading the needle in a man's play, just like the female character in Guan Hu's movie. She is not the protagonist but always stands out. She is charming, pungent, tough, and balances the movie with a woman's softness without weakness. The black elements and masculine colors of her, she has affection for the sixth master, and understands Xiaobo. Neither of these two fathers and sons obeys the other, but they have to obey the words.
However, the alienation of the father and son is not only because of the opposing values and lack of mutual understanding, but also because the father has wrong expectations for the son, and the son has the wrong expectations for the father. Under the catalysis of alcohol, the son vomited his long-term resentment and resentment, and the face that his father could not get rid of was finally cut off. Liu Ye was unable to fight back due to the questioning of his son, just because Xiaobo attacked the exact same thing. The softest place in his heart, this place is filled with a piece of heart that came to collect debts in a previous life, and his debts and guilt for his son cannot be comforted and comforted -
this confrontation is rather heartbreaking rather than shocking , an old Jianghu who was humiliated by the younger generation and did not take action easily, and endured all the way to save his son, just wiped his eyes in front of you, quietly and gave up his struggles and spread out his fragility and helplessness. How can you not teach people to be moved? At this moment, there is no Feng Xiaogang, only Zhang Xuejun, who is heartbroken for his son.
So you are a little angry that your son is ignorant, but you can see Xiaobo’s guilt after letting out his anger, and then think about his bluff that he had slapped the cat and scratched his claws before he could say a few words to his father, and you can’t help but soften your heart. A child whose father loves to be half-raised since childhood, with prickly eyes and words full of gunpowder, is it not a silent request? Li Yifeng's performance is in the right mood. The conflict is not exaggerated or pretentious. He firmly catches the ball made by Feng Xiaogang and then throws it back calmly. You can't help but secretly promise a "good shot" in your heart, this young man has a show.
Putting aside anger and knots, Zhang Xuejun and Zhang Xiaobo's mutual damage and barbaric relationship can often amuse people. The biggest concession and spoiling an authoritarian father can do is probably asking his son to call him by his first name, or dragging his son to the hospital. To stage the escape scene, it is to use a pair of headphones to cuddle with each other.
Once lost and found, all the warmth will be poured out. The fatherly love of "Old Pao'er" is clumsy and deep. At the beginning, we saw that the sixth master had to carry and pet the myna bird that he kept in the cage wherever he went, and then suddenly realized that the movie had foreshadowed the key to the whole story from the very beginning. There has always been only one weakness, when did you get really angry when you saw the sixth master? Once for his "Boer" and again for his "Boer".
But we also understand that Lao Pao'er's determination to try to make the last fight in life is not only for his son, but also for himself. When you stare at life for the last time, it should not be a pale wall and a cold instrument, but a more splendid one. What's more, there is no regret, because the ostrich will eventually run out of the cage, and the sixth master will also leave an indelible knife for his era.
In the early morning of that day, in addition to the coldness of winter in Beijing, there was also the blood and passion that had been buried for a long time. Sixth Master swung his saber on the ice lake, and the sparks in Lao Pao’er’s heart burst out in the vast and desolate ice and snow. Achieve your own final combustion.
Guan Hu's restrained lyricism and Feng Xiaogang's performance without axe marks made "Old Pao'er" good and good-looking.
2015.11.10
*"Andante Like a Song" is a biographical film that records the poet Yan Xian, a poem written by Yan Xian, and also the second movement of Tchaikovsky's String Quartet No. 1 in D major
*If the memory is correct, it should be Wendeng published "Youth Digest" in February this year, which I bought and read at the Capital Airport. Wang Jun is the author of "The Story of the City" and "The City in the Interview Book"
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