When people discuss Zhang Yimou, they always give more color to the film itself. Since the movie "Hero", Zhang Yimou has entered a state of diversified creation, whether it is a literary and commercial film or a large-scale event performance. , he is exploring the possibility of a happy expression with a never-stop mentality. Every adjustment of his attitude is accompanied by infinite interpretations, whether it is hacking, judgment, or praise, and in the end, it becomes an unsolved mystery of a one-sided argument. Compared with all kinds of lively and joking comments from the outside world, he in the vortex will face it with a more calm or silent attitude, smiling happily and saying nothing.
After the Hollywood-style "The Great Wall" caused various controversies, many people evaluated "Shadow" as Zhang Yimou's return to reshape the industry's reputation and preserve the so-called honor. But if you want to carefully explore Zhang Yimou's creative mentality, there will be no conclusion about whether to return or not. For him, the creative attitude of sometimes up and down, up and down, is more like a kind of creative attitude. Daily exploration: "If you're interested today, you can do it today, or you may change your mind tomorrow, just talk about it. Therefore, my work presents various possibilities, some people think it's worthless, some people think it's sloppy, and I'm very Happy." So what the next Zhang Yimou movie will be, you can't even guess.
"Shadow" tells the story about "substitute" that Zhang Yimou has always wanted to express. In his memory, the real "substitute" will not be recorded by history, and he has always lived in his own identity. In anxiety, the possibility of life is found on the edge of life and death, which is why so many stories with dramatic tension can be unfolded accordingly. After many times of thinking and weighing, when Zhang Yimou saw the script of "Three Kingdoms: Jingzhou" created by Zhu Sujin, the original ideas came out one by one, but if you want to have a relationship with those emperors and generals in the Three Kingdoms In the story of , to focus on a common man, there will always be some unreasonable. So Zhang Yimou embarked on a journey of subtraction of his own film aesthetics, arranging historical time, removing redundant colors, and presenting a story about the awakening of individual consciousness in the flat landscape and four-dimensional image stage.
Some people say that Zhang Yimou is self-defeating martial arts, and some people say that this is an absolute national teacher level production. Compared with most of the short comments, his serious analysis of himself may be more suitable for explanation. Zhang Yimou in the previous interview. He once mentioned: "Actually, our generation grew up in the past environment, and it is already very disciplined, and there are many pressures and restrictions. I often hope to be restless in my creation, and I hope to do my best to twist myself. body. I am not a feather-loving person, so my work reflects a fragmented situation. Of course, I can also change my mind and carefully create my own posture, so that my work presents a general flow and maintains its appearance , to make myself feel whole, but I don't really want to."
It is also because of the five words "I don't want to" that there is a film work with a Chinese aesthetic style, such as "Shadow". The film always maintains the use of low-saturation color, and in terms of clothing and modeling, it is more between black and white, using different forms of splashing ink, with the extension of the plot, the relationship between the characters changes, and the level of character changes is fully revealed. In the scene setting of the film, different from the gorgeous space setting of the ancient costume theme in the past, this time a large number of simple scene setting are used: for example, the character Xiao Ai played by Sun Li, the most common living room, except for the extremely simple couch In addition, it can be said that it is a family with four walls. Then, in a huge space, the director used more than 100 screens, interspersed with them, and told the story of Zi Yu in the virtual and real light and shadow and space. There is a picturesque scene when the characters walk, plus the light and shadow. Change, it will be a confusing sense of suspense, displayed in the real world.
For most Chinese people, gauze screens are things that cannot be regenerated. Whether it is the entrance of the home or the partition in the restaurant, they are all necessary things, but in Zhang Yimou's eyes, these traditions are commonplace. Things, "When you use a special way to carry it forward as a modeling language, the modeling charm of its traditional art is presented." This actually makes people think that Japanese designer Hara Yan Zai, when talking about redesign, "I'm not trying to go back to the past, and I'm not trying to say that the past was wonderful, but like mining, I'm just trying to find something from the past that can inspire us to move forward. Resources." Taking the essence of history as an empty container and filling it with realistic meaning, here is the modern Chinese aesthetics that Zhang Yimou showed in this film.
Apart from the virtual and real space constructed by barriers and veils, the opposites and unity of yin and yang can be seen everywhere in the film, not to mention the most conspicuous gossip pictures, the use of black and white modeling. In the biggest martial arts scene, whether it is the setting of weather and rain, or the use of umbrellas and knives, as well as the melody and melody in the film, Zhang Yimou used his sensitivity to light and shadow, and finally formed a concept of yin and yang throughout the film. The application of this concept also seems to be like a dialogue between the director and the audience through the image, and the point is not broken, and the deep meaning is revealed invisibly, and the meaning of it must ultimately be left to the audience to interpret.
In addition to the changes in individual life, fate sometimes presents a state of being broken but not revealed. In such an obvious role as a big male protagonist, Deng Chao plays two roles, and one side is a conspiracy about power and life. On the one hand, it is the torture of human nature and the retrospect of one's own value. They all had moments of brilliance, and they also had an incomparable resistance to darkness in their hearts. The complicated relationship between characters in the movie was wrong, and the complex heart and character of people also unfolded. As Ziyu, Deng Chao gave his best acting skills recently, but it is impossible to deny that there is no "shadow" Jingzhou contrast, how can it be so rare and wonderful? The light and dark of Xiao Ai played by Sun Li lies in the emotional weight between her and her two Deng Chaos, real and fake husbands. She is more like a steel scale, adding to the flames in a calm manner, leading the two protagonists to play the story. over. The scene where Xiao Ai is illuminated by the dim light through the gap twice is like a reincarnation before and after the movie, showing a conscious intertext. When the ray of light whose emotional imbalance was discovered slanted towards Sun Li who was in the cave, the outcome of the next ray of light became a topic of suspicion.
This is also a suspense left by director Zhang Yimou at the end. Since the whole film is based on facts, why should the ending be successful? "Angels and devils are sometimes only separated by a layer of veil. If we look at the ending of the devil, Jingzhou has completed a change of identity. But I think the final ending is open, and after Jingzhou completes the counter-kill, it is a A stereotyped Shakespearean tragedy. At this time, he takes his own destiny in his own hands. At this time, he will have a variety of sexual choices. Of course, he can become another Ziyu, an ambitious conspirator. , become a king in another sense. Then he can also hand over all this to Xiao Ai and the others, and then walk away and return to his identity as a commoner. Therefore, I think the ending is an open one, in his first When you take your destiny in your hands for the first time. Just as everyone reacts differently when they see the light, everything is possible after that." In a sense, for Zhang Yimou, who is in his sixties, it is also In this way, after a successful exploration of light and shadow, there will be something to play next, as long as you are happy.
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