On the occasion of the eighth anniversary of Yang Dechang's death, his "Guling Street Teenage Murder" (hereinafter referred to as ("Guling Street")) finally released the Blu-ray HD DVD version, allowing many audiences to see the movie that once made It is a story of light and shadow that people reminisce for a long time. Years later, when I was in Taipei, I wandered in the corridors of Guling Street, Nanchang Street, Nanhai Road, and the Red Building of Jianguo Middle School, trying to see the imaginary figures of Xiao Si, Xiao Ming, and Honey shuttle among them. At that time, I still clearly remember the early morning in the spring when I watched this film in the messy space of the undergraduate dormitory. The four-hour film is already blurred and full of noise, and the strange era of the other side decades ago, this No obstacle can reduce the shock it brings. Because of this shock, I watched it several times, trying to keep every detail intact. A Taiwanese scholar once told me: Taiwanese movies now only talk about "seventeen years old" The current youth film, turning the symbol of youth into a bargain for adult nostalgia and consumption, the story itself is false and frivolous. But if "Guling Street" is also one of the "seventeen-year-old stories" in a broad sense If it is true, then it is undoubtedly the
cruelest , most idealistic, and most profound one among them, but this kind of story does not evoke nostalgia. Moved to Taiwan. The vast majority of these people are just for a stable job and a stable growth environment for the next generation. However, in the process of the next generation growing up, they find that their parents are living in an unknown future and fear These teenagers, in this uneasy atmosphere, often organize gangs to strengthen their young and weak will to survive." The text typed at the beginning of the film tells the audience the background of the times, and the subsequent stories are also reconstructed by the director for us. Taiwan in the early 1960s.
The family of Xiao Si played by Zhang Zhen is also a part of this group of people. His father is a civil servant and his mother is a teacher. He has five children, two boys and three girls. He crossed the sea from Shanghai to Taiwan in 1949. In 1960, it had been 11 years since the Nationalist government had retreated to Taiwan, the mountains and rivers of the motherland had gradually become blurred, and there was almost no hope of counterattacking the mainland, which became an empty slogan. The white terror is like a dark and low thick cloud over the island, covering everything. The era of economic take-off has not yet come, and the future seems to be bleak. In the sultry and humid air of this southern island, in the cramped living space, the teenagers who have grown up gradually vented their strong energy brought by hormones in their own way in the dull and depressing atmosphere of the times. According to Foucault's theory, modern institutions such as schools and hospitals, like prisons, are fields full of power, where discipline and oppression are everywhere. Artists are sometimes sharper than scholars. In 1959, French director François Truffaut vividly portrayed bureaucracy in schools and the power play of teachers in "The Four Hundred Blows", while Yang Dechang was in Mandarin. This phenomenon is well presented for us in the movie. The coercion of the authoritarian government not only relies on the military and the "garrison headquarters" and other spy agencies, but also the school is a part of it: the dean's indiscriminateness and bureaucracy; the language teacher's ignorance and ignorance in the classroom; even the instructor's brief The rudeness, the sanctimoniousness and the rambunctiousness of the school doctor show that they are all part of the authoritarian system.
Xiao Si was originally a good boy who worked hard to study, but after a series of misunderstandings, he became involved in the dispute between the two bad boy gangs "Little Park" and "217". passed. The encounter between Xiao Si and the girl Xiao Ming in the infirmary started their emotional entanglement. Xiao Ming's identity at that time was the girlfriend of Honey, the boss of the Little Park gang. Because the Honey people are in Tainan, Xiao Ming is in conflict with all the powerful boys. Xiao Ming's mother is a sick servant. She is in a disadvantaged class and shows maturity beyond her age. Although she appreciates the idealism and sense of justice like Honey and Xiao Si, in order to survive, she constantly seeks a strong backer. It was the "slicker" of the small park, and later the son of Ma Commander, Pony. But Xiao Si can't bear to be looked down upon by the girl he likes, which is also the root cause of the tragedy of manslaughter in the end...
The first half of the film seems to be lacking in climax, but there is enough foreshadowing, and only the small park gang boss Honey mentioned by everyone returns from Tainan to show up: he is dressed in a navy uniform, very dazzling, but his face is like a gentle scholar. His lines are indeed related to books. "There was an old man who was thought to have taken the wrong medicine. I remember, it seemed that everyone in the city had their heads turned up and set on fire everywhere. He was going to block Napoleon by himself, but he was finally caught by a smuggler." And Peace, I forgot all the titles of martial arts books, I only remember this one." Honey and Xiao Si sat opposite each other in the attic, and slowly recounted his experience of reading novels when he fled in Tainan, like a biography of Taishigong's rangers. The characters in Yang Dechang's films are also ideal personalities that often appear in Yang Dechang's films. Yang Dechang has a preference for the ideal personality that is alienated from the world. In addition to Honey, the father played by Zhang Guozhu in "Guling Street" is also such a character who insists on principles and ideals, so he hits the wall everywhere and is eventually caught by his classmate Wang Gou. Framed, turned into a political case, was summoned by the garrison headquarters, and could no longer gain a foothold in government departments. Yang Dechang's poet in "The Age of Independence", his father in "Mahjong", and NJ in "Yiyi" all have the shadow of Honey and his father in "Guling Street".
Milan Kundera said: "Fiction seeks a kind of existence through imaginary characters", and so does the film. Reality is always finite, and existence means infinite. The 1960s in Taiwan were far away from us; however, the human condition was very close to us. A friend once said to me that some things need to be interpreted with life. Honey went to pick 217 alone, but he was plotted against him and buried under the car; Xiao Si stabbed Xiao Ming's body with a knife, and the conversation between the two of them echoed in my ears, "In this world, only I treat you well, only I can Help you, I am your only hope now, just like Honey before, because now, I am Honey.", "You mean to help me to change me, don't you? To change me? I am just like this world In the same way, this world will not change!" A person challenges the whole world and goes to death, but behind this death, there is the ultimate possibility of life. In the real world, despair and numbness, injustice and stupidity are all around us, but we are not Honey, and we are not small four. Under the discipline of rationality, we can only give up infinite possibilities and act as spectators, because life is only Once, but death reflects the ultimate value, and living can only mean compromise, how should we choose? The rules and ways of doing things in the adult world entered into Xiao Si's surroundings too early, and their youth became heavy. Violence is just a symbol, and history is only a possible way for the world to exist. Where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. This is where cinema transcends its time and reveals a deep human condition.
In addition to the vividness and excitement of the plot, "Guling Street" also reflects the director's care and shrewdness in many "idle strokes". dialogue. The tank is used as a symbol here, which is a metaphor for the oppressive atmosphere of the times; Honey walked alone to Zhongshan Hall to single out the 217 gang in the sound of the "National Anthem" of "Three Principles of the People, our Party", showing his contempt for authority and order. . Xiao Si's mother sighed while eating: "I have fought with the Japanese for eight years, and now I live in a Japanese house and listen to Japanese songs." Paradoxically, it shows the embarrassment and helplessness of families from other provinces in Taiwan. And the ubiquitous dialects in mainland China: Shanghai dialect, Nanjing dialect, Hubei dialect, Sichuan dialect, Henan dialect, Cantonese dialect with southern and northern accents, even more vividly show the atmosphere of the times, and even the arrangement of these dialects is not random, but It is related to the identity of the characters, such as the dean of Nanjing dialect, the Henan veteran who sells steamed buns, and the Sichuan veteran who participated in the Anti-Japanese War in the military dependents' village, all of which allude to their respective origins. It makes the whole story fuller and presents a three-dimensional Taiwan in the 1960s for the audience.
It is worth noting that the mainland and Taiwan in the Cold War era have the same and different elements, like mirror images of each other. In 1995, Jiang Wen's debut film "Sunny Days", which draws on the bridges of "Guling Street", including the title of "Sunny Days", is also the English title of "Guling Street". A brighter summer day. In it, brothers against the opposite sex, bloody fights, the cruelty and sternness of smashing bricks against weak opponents in the dark alley, the stern history teacher in class, and the dark ambiguous light and shadow of the cinema, all seem to be directed towards Yang Dechang's "Guling Street" pays tribute, but the youth of the red age is different from the other side. In the revolutionary songs broadcast by the loudspeaker, the excitement of Ma Xiaojun's fantasy of smashing the war machines of the United States and the Soviet Union in the third world war is not The depressed little fours can only dream that they are afraid of death when they see soldiers shooting targets at the shooting range. Ma Xiaojun’s savagely grown adult bodies still belong to the minds of teenagers, but in the frail bodies of the little fours, they pretend to be already It is the law and friendship of the adult world. At the end of the film, Elvis Presley recorded the English song of Elvis for the fourth in the prison: A brighter summer day, which seems a bit ironic. In the midsummer of the southern country, a sunny day, a melodious and decadent movement, An idealistic dirge.
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