Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s "April 3, Tuesday, Day" can be said to be the most faithful and comprehensive practice of Bazin’s long mirror theory in recent years. With this film, he won the Cannes Palme d’Or award, just like the new wave of France’s comeback. , It makes people admire the Romanian film industry.
The most amazing thing about the film is Cristian Mungiu's use of long lenses and composition. The whole film adopts symmetrical composition many times. From the conversation between the protagonist Otilia and his roommate Garbita in the messy college dormitory, to the end of the two in the hotel restaurant, each shot is carefully arranged and arranged everywhere. Use symmetry to compare Otilia's mentality and emotions. Among them, Otilia watched Garbita's lens in the narrow bathroom. Although only Otilia was in the lens, the director still created a perfectly symmetrical composition through the bathroom mirror. Complementing the symmetrical technique is the long mirror that is almost "ridiculous", whether it is the camera that Otilia has been following after leaving the dormitory, or she is walking around in confusion and panic alone in the dark, or Otilia's emotions. Mobility and her boyfriend's conversation fragments in one go, the use of these long mirrors can be described as perfect. The most classic is the scene where Otilia is in front of her boyfriend’s dinner table. The camera puts Otilia in the golden focus position. The boyfriend is slightly behind on the left. The two are the boyfriend’s mother and father. Because the table was small, the four people squeezed tightly to the side of the table facing the audience. In the gap at the edge of the lens are the guests on the other two sides of the table. They occasionally show half of their faces and eating hands, as well as the dishes and cups that occupy the lower half of the lens. This composition is based on the bookshelf of her boyfriend's home, which not only sets off his "literary family" growth environment, but also constitutes an element of the content of the dispute between Otilia and her boyfriend. The whole shot started from Otilia sitting down, and slowly progressed until she listened awkwardly to all kinds of comments from the guests, until everyone stood up for her boyfriend's mother's birthday and ended, without cutting, and it took more than ten minutes in one go. There is no change in the viewpoint of the lens. From the bookshelf in the background to the cups and bowls at the forefront of the line of sight, they all appear in the same depth of field. The priority of the viewpoint is completely conveyed by the level difference in the composition. It is a perfect and thorough Mise. en scène.
In addition to the rigorous lens language of textbooks, the plot arrangement of the film, despite its simplicity, is truly impeccable. The most important thing is that the development and changes of the plot are organically combined with the use of lens language. The use of long shots is not a gimmick that breaks away from the theme of the story (such as the beach long mirror in "Atonement"), nor does it overwhelm the narrative. The rhythm is purely long for the sake of length (such as the long mirror in "The Good Man in Three Gorges" that shows the characters at a loss). Whether it’s a still picture or a follow-up moving shot, each shot is closely integrated with the character’s mood and emotions. This method strongly increases the real-time sense of the film. I have been anxious, irritable, and painful with the characters several times. The real feelings are like being on the scene, and the aftermath is long.
For Chinese audiences, in addition to these academic points, the background of the story also has a resonant resonance in time. In socialist Romania in 1987, materials were relatively scarce, and the supply system still existed. To buy Kent cigarettes, Otilia had to go to the black market for help several times; the hotel staff was arrogant and rude. It is a hard assignment. Parents are happy because their children don’t have to be assigned to the country; couples at school are at a loss in the face of the upcoming graduation choice, and are at a loss in the face of separation... How similar is Romania before the change to China ten years ago! The only difference is the institutional difference directly related to the Central Festival. At this point, the shock felt by Chinese audiences is probably far less than that of Catholic-dominant Western countries. From this perspective, Romania is in the gap between the traditional German culture in the same line as Western Europe and the radical reform and unification trend of Eastern Europe. In addition to the depression caused by economic deprivation, this gap between the confusion imposed on them is probably even more. Another layer of unbearable depression.
Cristian Mungiu’s "April 3, Tuesday, Day" was filmed solidly and steadily, and each shot was ingenious. It almost fully and faithfully demonstrated Bazin’s long-lens theory like a full-scale graduation thesis, as if returning to France. The New Wave has once again confirmed the rich connotation and powerful expressiveness that pure lens language can have. The film school has a strong atmosphere, which can be said to be a serious and perfect theoretical practice, but it is probably not entertaining for ordinary audiences.
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