Some time ago, after Zhao Ting won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival for "Nowhere to Go" , many people began to dig out her 2017 movie "The Knight" , and so did I, and I also watched her first film by the way. The feature-length movie "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" .
The two films have a lot in common. From the background, they both show the lives of American Indians. Zhao Ting's attention to this ethnic group and the simple language of the overall story remind me of Shanxi in Jia Zhangke's film.
Although this analogy is not appropriate, you should be able to understand the meaning I want to express. After watching the two films, there is a feeling of sister films, and there are many similar expressions in them. It will be a very interesting thing to talk about the two together. When I haven't seen the movie "A Land of Nowhere" for the time being, I'm curious about the Hollywood blockbuster that Zhao Ting will shoot in the future.
What the Eternals will feel like.
After all, there's something of the same vibe that's perpetuated from her first two feature-length films and the trailer for Nowhere. And the tonality of Marvel movies like "The Eternals" and her previous three feature-length works is completely different. So into today's topic, let's take a look at the similarities between the two films.
01 The reason why Indians think of Jia Zhangke is like the "Qingsongling Indian Reservation" where the story of "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" took place. Like a small town in Shanxi that no one knows about, few people pay attention to it. it. Such symbols of marginalized and disadvantaged groups are naturally a sign of Jia Zhangke's early films.
The Indians in our usual impressions are full of mystery. For example, in "The Burning Years" , an Indian elder in an American family has a wild and divine halo, representing some kind of deep spiritual dependence.
In Zhao Ting's film, the Indians in the new era are very real, and their living conditions are so embarrassing that they really have a feeling of "no support". So the boys in the film want to get out of here and go to a big city like Los Angeles to find a life of vision.
But he still stayed. Only this land is the most familiar to him. Going to Los Angeles may be like 1900 in "The Pianist at Sea" to face the land life that he can't control. And the male protagonist in "Knight", in addition to living on this land, also has a certain ideal he believes in. For modern life, riding a horse is extremely luxurious.
In the eyes of urbanites, it is a kind of pastime, while for a "knight" in trick horse racing, it is a lifelong career, or even the whole of life.
02 Accompanying cattle and horses
Horse riding itself is the theme of "Knight". In "The Song My Brother Taught Me To Sing", in the first shot, the protagonist's brother is also riding a horse.
The same director, similar character attributes and story background, do have natural reasons to become sister chapters. In this particular group, horses and cattle are often not only life partners, but also professional partners.
What was passed over in the first film is the main element in the second full-length story. The "knight" who was trampled on the head by a horse realized a real dilemma in his life. Would he dare to ride like before? In addition to the factor of his own injury, there is a "hero" in the hospital waiting for him. A character similar to Ming Yang in "The Silent Truth" . The good friend and brother who was disabled in the bull riding competition was his role model.
On the other hand, it is also a hidden warning and reminder: if you want to continue this kind of professional competition, there will be a danger of injury and disability.
But the tattoo pattern on the back of the knight is the image of the bull rider, which shows how important this spiritual power is to a galloper. But navigating life is harder than navigating a horse . Although the boy in "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" can also ride horses, it seems to be a natural skill in his blood. He disagrees. He is more interested in cars because he has the opportunity to take his girlfriend to live in Los Angeles.
And that car was burnt down in person, there was a sense of fate, and at the same time it was full of contradictions. The more people in this place dislike themselves, the less able they are to travel far away. The image of the burning fire is reminiscent of Li Cangdong's movie "Burning" .
03 Siblings
From the title of the first film, I know that this kind of brother-sister relationship is a main line of the film. The girl who just lost her father doesn't want her brother to leave her right away.
Mothers don’t want to go the way of their mothers, saying that they want to protect their daughters, but this is different from male emotions, such as fathers and brothers, who are more dependent and have irreplaceable male power.
The younger sister, who was crying in the ruins, looked for the traces of the past years. If she couldn't see her father's body, she could only look for things related to her father, and think about people when she saw things. The male protagonist in "Knight" also has a sister, and the opposite of this family and the last movie is the absence of the mother. The care and maintenance of the elder brother to the younger sister can be heard from their daily conversations. For example, when the father speaks harshly, he will stand by the younger sister.
In the same way, when the boys who drink alcohol do something to his sister in the bar, he will also come forward to stop it. Although there is no explanation in the film, the audience should be able to see that my sister has some mental retardation. Perhaps it was this situation that also reminded him of the good brother in the hospital who was too disabled to speak.
04 Prey on prey
Getting along with animals is a natural coping mechanism. In the "Songs My Brother Teach Me to Sing" class, students and teachers have animals to play with, ranging from snakes to insects like cockroaches.
Of course, it also means killing. There is a scene in the film where the deerskin is peeled off, mixed with a little youthful impulse. Other girls take the initiative to show affection and kiss the boy. In an environment where two people are alone, the girl still feels a little guilty after making this move, after all, she knows that the boy has a girlfriend.
In "Knight", the protagonist hunts and eats rabbits with a pistol, which is a scene of wildness and loneliness. As we'll see later, that gun was also used to kill useless livestock, like wounded horses. Unable to face the shooting scene, the knight handed the gun to his father. Because of this, he also thought of himself and the injustice of facing life. He was also injured, but he would not be killed, but if the horse was injured, he would be shot to death if he was not cured. Maybe at that moment, the disabled brother flashed in his mind again.
05 Singing and Campfire
A suitable form of entertainment for this land is to sit around a campfire and chat and sing. The boy and his girlfriend in "The Song My Brother Taught Me to Sing" had a big bonfire party together before they planned to leave their hometown.
Of course, they did not leave, otherwise it would be difficult to have a chance to relive what was in front of them. The same is the flame. Before the villain burned the car, it was a kind of destruction, but the bonfire here brought some kind of hope.
At the end, the boy who did not abandon his family and friends in his hometown unloaded his heavy burden and found a job in the local area. The cheerful songs and activities with national characteristics are the purest happiness that his hometown brings to him.
A scene at the beginning of "Knight" is a few good brothers chatting around a campfire, some people play and sing, but the theme is sad because they talk about the "hero" falling from the back of the cow.
This kind of opportunity to sit around the fire and talk for a long time is rare, and the conversation and singing are very timely soothing. 06 Tattoo
In "The Song My Brother Taught Me To Sing", there is a young man with tattoos all over his body. He is addicted to alcohol and also likes to sing. My sister follows these people and goes to the bar one day when she is caught by the police.
For girls, tattoos may not have the concept of art in their hearts, but the feeling similar to graffiti is what she likes. She watched the tattooist draw on a T-shirt.
She can't always walk around in the lives of her brother and girlfriend and act as a light bulb. She has to do what she wants to do, but she is only eleven or twelve years old, and the world is still too complicated for her. The police drove her home, and on the way, they chatted about the girl's father, an absentee who is mentioned throughout the film.
As for the "Knight", as mentioned earlier, a friend helped him get a tattoo, which is the pattern of the bull rider. Although it is an external image, its spirit directly points to the heart.
On the back of the bull rider, there is also a stubborn sentence, which is a provocation to fate, but it reveals some kind of unspeakable tragic: "If you say I can't, I will go."
Those knights who are struggling between reality and dream are still moving forward in constant challenges.
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