"The Last Night on Earth (hereinafter referred to as "Earth")" should be regarded as a very unique film. This film has almost opposite sides: on the one hand, the film has a lot of investment, and it adopts a completely commercial operation in its publicity; on the other hand, the film is artistic in both narrative and audio-visual More audiences have adopted a genre kernel, but at the end of the day, this is an art film. Although it is unfair to measure "Earth" by the standards of commercial films, since this film has entered the field of public entertainment through large-scale publicity, it has entered the New Year's Day holiday, which is usually exclusively enjoyed by commercial films, with great ambition. file, then when discussing this film, you have to use a commercial angle first.
From the perspective of a commercial film, this film does not have any qualifications except for the investment scale and cast. The narrative pace of Earth is so slow that I was 10 minutes late for the movie due to road conditions, and it felt like nothing was missing. That is to say, in the first ten minutes, other than the appearance of the protagonist, no key plot clues about the main line appear. You know, generally speaking, commercial films have to spend every second due to the high production cost. With a 10-minute opening, the New Year's film will definitely choose a hot opening to make the audience's taste so high that it can make They are willing to take a serious look. For the typed story core used in "Earth", most of the first 10 minutes of the type film will push the main event to the beginning and enter the second stage. "Earth" uses a lot of long shots, staying in each scene for a long time, the camera position changes less, and the lines are long and poetic. From the perspective of commercial films, this is not a qualified operation. Generally speaking, people's attention can be concentrated for up to 15 seconds in a single camera position. Commercial film directors who are well versed in this way can always use the rhythm of editing to always grasp the audience's attention. And if it's a fast-paced genre or action movie, it's common to cut several shots in a second. Therefore, the single-camera long shots of several minutes in "Earth" will indeed make viewers who come to watch a New Year's commercial film feel that it is not the case. However, as mentioned earlier, it is unfair to discuss "Earth" from the perspective of a commercial film. Because director Bi Gan did not intend to compromise with the direction of commercial films from the beginning, he made an art film from beginning to end, and the investors also understood this, so what finally appeared on the screen is what we are watching now. to the "Earth". The large-scale announcement of such commercialization by investors may also be due to the pressure of cost recovery. But it is also this kind of publicity method that caused the dislocation of the film's promotional direction and the film itself. A large number of audiences who came to commercial films saw a slightly obscure literary film, and naturally felt dissatisfied, resulting in "Earth" 》Scoring Avalanche on various rating platforms. This is actually a pity.
If you pull Earth back to the category of art film it should belong to, it's a good film. The most important reason why I think "Earth" is a good art film is because it is a rare "unity". There is a classic principle of dramatic analysis: unity at the climax. What this principle means is that, from the climax of the play, you will be able to see the character relationships, character lines of action, emotional changes, plot trends, etc. throughout the play. There is no doubt that the climax of "Earth" is the last hour-long shot. In this one-hour long shot, all the characters are brought together in the same time and space, all the puzzles in the previous episodes are solved, and all the seemingly inexplicable actions made by the protagonist in the previous time are obtained. explained. In this hour, we saw clearly what the protagonist is doing, what relationship each character has with him, and what the protagonist's attitude towards them is. In this long shot, we can finally find that the characters did not do anything nonsense before, and the words they said were not nonsense. All actions were to bring the characters, plots and emotions into the final climax to form a complete movie. narrative.
In addition to the unity of climax, "Earth" also achieves unity of expression and presentation. This is a unity that is more difficult to achieve than the climax unity, which means that you use an audio-visual means that suits your story to show the story you want to tell, so the film will not feel disconnected and will be more complete , more artistic value. The storyline of "Earth" is actually quite simple. Luo Hongwu, a man with a melancholy mother who hopes to go far away with his lover, falls in love with Wan Qiwen, the lover of Zuo Hongyuan, on the way to seek revenge for his murdered brother Bai Mao. . Wan Qiwen used to be a thief, and was sold to a small town to be her mistress during the absconding process. Wan Qiwen used Luo Hongwu's hand to kill Zuo Hongyuan, and then she disappeared from the town. After the murder, Luo Hongwu left his hometown. After returning home, he went to many places to find his old lover, Wan Qiwen, but just when he was about to find Wan Qiwen—or when he still couldn't find Wan Qiwen, he walked into a cinema and wore Putting on 3D glasses, I had a dream of self-redemption. It is not difficult to find that this is a fairly typed story, much more typed than its predecessor, Roadside Picnic. The killer hero who took a life and the heroine of the mysterious "Femme Fatale" in the past, this is a typical type of character setting. As far as this story is concerned, it can completely produce the effect of a commercial type film. But Bi Gan chose Nolan-style fragmented narrative structure, Tarkovsky-style symbols and imagery lens presentation, and David Lynch-style psychoanalytic techniques, and even Tsai Ming-liang, Yang Dechang, Wong Kar-wai The audio-visual means of others have just shot "Earth" in a Bi Gan-style style.
Bi Gan's style is difficult to define precisely in words. There is a shadow of magic realism in audio-visual use, and a surrealist feeling in the arrangement of the plot. However, whether it is magical realism or surrealism, its fundamental role is to explore the objective "truth", whether it is the objective reality or the unconscious reality in dreams. And the most important thing about genre stories is truth. Genre stories require strong real logic to drive the actions of the characters, which in turn drive the development of the plot. Many art films tend to pay too much attention to presentation and pursue the ultimate audio-visual effect, while it is easy to ignore expression. As a result, quite a number of films show the state of the characters in a large amount of space, instead of letting the characters really act and actively promote the development of the plot, but instead show the state of the characters according to the plot, which can easily lead to shooting a good-looking picture. It is easy to cause a disconnect between expression and presentation, which greatly affects the viewing experience.
In terms of narrative and presentation, "Earth" does not have much disconnection. Although "Earth" is an art film, it still maintains the integrity of logic in the telling of the story. The arrangement of the scenes and the actions of the characters have sufficient realistic and emotional logic. Occasionally there are pure character states, but when pushed to the whole plot to see, such a state is reasonable, and it is also a part of the logical line. Therefore, when the fireworks of the last scene are lit to the end, the whole story is neatly strung into a complete line, and the whole narrative is successfully completed. The only thing that may diverge in expression and presentation is the poetic lines of the film, which may seem a bit laborious compared to the neatly stylized stories. But it is precisely because of this seemingly incompatible disagreement that the film has a magical appearance, which, combined with aesthetic audio-visual, highlights the reality beyond the dream. From this perspective, "Earth" has indeed achieved the unity of expression and presentation.
What "Earth" shows is indeed a dream. The hero Luo Hongwu has always been immersed in the old dreams brought to him by the heroine Wan Qiwen, constantly groping in real and false memories. This kind of truth and falsehood can also be seen in the character settings. From the perspective of the characters presented, with Luo Hongwu as the core, the film shows three roles that are equally important in everyone's life: mother, lover and brother - Luo Hongwu wants to reconcile with his mother, to find a lover, and to pay homage brother. But the separation between characters is blurry. Are Luo Hongwu and Bai Mao two brothers, or are they teenagers and adults of the same person? Are Bai Mao's mother and Luo Hongwu's mother two people, or are they the same person at all? Did Luo Hongwu's mother abandon her son in order to run away with the beekeeper, or did she choose to leave the person she loves because of her love for her son? Even, is Wan Qiwen really Kaizhen, does Wan Qiwen love Luo Hongwu or not, or is Wan Qiwen just a projection of Luo Hongwu's heart towards her mother? Regarding these questions, "Earth" chooses not to answer them, burying these questions in the plot. Any interpretation makes sense, but like translating an ancient text into a vernacular, the interpretation of an art film plot will lose its original rhythm.
However, the real problem is that the announcement process of "Earth" has pushed the film to the stage of mass entertainment, and mass entertainment will never be interested in such a suspicious character relationship. Art films and mass entertainment are no different, but they are two completely different audiences. Just like Oasis and Keane once dissed each other, you can't say which of the two bands is good or bad, they each have done well in their own style, but they are incompatible. I am more willing to believe that Bi Gan wanted to shoot "Earth" in this way, rather than acting alone and behind closed doors. He created "Earth" with the attitude of an art film, and received a lot of support, including investors' support for his shooting ideas. However, even artists have to return to the real situation frequently and encounter many real problems. Real problems can’t be erased with an imaginary symbol like in movies. You just have to face, endure, and find ways to solve many problems. Or, there is no problem if it is not solved. Fundamentally speaking, on the road to becoming an artist, the first thing a person should learn is to ignore what others say and do what he thinks is right.
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