Ang Lee asked: "Compared with your previous films, this time you hired Zhang Yaosheng to co-write the screenplay with you. What difference do you think his addition brings to your creation?"
Zhong Menghong replied, "He will tell me not to add too much violence."
The two laughed together.
The above is a dialogue from Ang Lee's interview with director Chung Menghong after "The Sunshine" swept the 56th Taiwan Golden Horse Awards. As mentioned in the interview, director Zhong Menghong has always created with the thinking of genre films. The extremely violent opening, the highlighting of the dark parts of the human face, and the cool tones throughout the film, the style of this crime genre film makes "Sunshine" destined to be a scarred family drama. The title of the film contradicts. "Sunshine", the English translation is A SUN. In English grammar, sun is a proper noun. It needs to be followed by the definite article the instead of the indefinite article a. Obviously, the English translation of A SUN does not refer to the sun. The reference is also far from the sun. A SUN sounds the same as a son, meaning a son. Wu Jianhe's Chen Jianhe, Xu Guanghan's Chen Jianhao, Liu Guanting's Caitou and Zhang Lidong's Black Wheel, all of them are sons, and they all participate in the film's narrative as sons and become the film's expression. base symbol. The opposite of the "son" symbol is the "parent", because the title of "son" comes from the parents, and "a son" is the embodiment of the parents' words. The words are the words of the father Awen played by Chen Yiwen.
Therefore, this film review will combine the specific plot and audio-visual skills to analyze the relationship between the patriarchal discourse and the symbols of the four sons in "The Sunshine", and the thematic expression extended by this relationship. The reason why the four sons in the film are symbols is that they have a corresponding or opposite relationship with the other three sons, and when the four are put into the ideographic system for analysis, they can all correspond to a concise and clear concept.
The first is the appearance of father Awen. Although the opening is a violent paragraph where Ah He and Caitou go to chop the black wheel, the function of this paragraph is to objectively show the beginning and motivational events of the whole story. Because the father who represents the discourse of the film has not yet appeared, that is, the discourse power has not yet been clarified, and the relationship between the patriarchal discourse and the son's symbol that we are discussing has not yet emerged, so only a brief analysis of the opening paragraph will be made here. The opening of the film is a sudden violent crime, the camera is bold, the straight shot hurts, and the blood is splashed. The opening routine of this crime type film can give the audience a dismay, and the audience who have just entered the movie state may be frightened or excited, and use the excitement. Quickly lose audience interest. The second is the rainy night, the long shadows of the lights on the ground, the two young people driving motorcycles, and Lin Shengxiang's gentle and melancholy soundtrack, which effectively sets off the atmosphere of pain and youth. The hidden behind is also discussed in this film. The family of origin problem is presented in disguise. The opening of the combination of the two sets the tone of black and hurt family tragedy for the whole film.
Then there is the passage of father Awen. In the driving school practice area, Awen is impatiently instructing a student who has failed the test seven times. This is an appearance with a professional identity. As a representative figure of the patriarchal discourse in this film, Awen is set as a middle-aged driving school coach. This identity endows Awen with the rationality of self-identification and the toughness of actual control. A coach is a type of commander who has the natural right to command others to speak, and occupies the dominant side of the discourse. They are also driving school instructors. The profession of a driver is relatively simple, and the direction and trajectory are their most basic criteria for judgment. As in the film, Awen said to the students who insisted on driving a manual car to pursue the feeling of driving: "Do you know why you have been unable to pass the test? Because you insist on driving a manual car. The car feels like driving when it runs. Well, who cares if you drive by yourself?" He doesn't care about your route process, he thinks that as long as you drive in the correct direction and trajectory, you can pass the test. Such simple, rigid, and arbitrary value standards were directly transplanted into his life and life planning, which became the driving school motto "grasp the time, grasp the direction" in his mouth. Such standards define his own life, the lives of his two sons, and the lives of the two "sons" of Caitou and Heilun.
For example, a fat aunt student who practiced the road test later asked Awen how many children he had and whether he was doing anything. Awen replied: "One. Not yet. I will go to medical school next year." Polite Sven's eldest son, Ah Hao, is on the right track and facing the right direction. He is his only son. Even if Ah Hao failed the medical school entrance exam last year and is repeating his studies, the final result is still unknown, but he can still simply say in front of others that Ah Hao will go to medical school next year. Because that's his ideal son, that's the son that he's on the right track and going in the right direction and should achieve his goals, that's his son. And the younger son Ah He, who started to be rebellious, rude and irritable, and got into trouble early, is nothing. Similarly, Caitou and Black Wheel, which are similar to Ah He, are nothing to Ah Wen. They don't need to care and just let them go on their own, because they are all out of his "right track". The strong family power brought by the identity of the father, coupled with the coaching profession, which has the social power of commanding others for a long time, makes Awen develop the idea that it is natural to guide others according to his own standards, and it is very harmful to others in the process. He didn't know it, let alone his own fault. And his simple and rigid value standard of "grasp the time, grasp the direction" makes his command and control extremely tough, because simplicity seems clear, and there is no room for refutation and fault. Such a father used his words and power to deeply hurt the four sons in the film, but he did not know it. It is this unawareness that is the source of this family tragedy.
Is the real Ahao really what Awen looks like under Awen's words? Ahao only appeared in ten short scenes in the whole film. Every time he appeared, he wore a white short-sleeved shirt with a solid color long-sleeved shirt jacket and trousers. He also had those white shoes on his feet. A clean, gentle and simple boy, a sunny son. But when he woke up from a break in a cram full of teachers, he couldn't see anyone else for a moment, only himself was alone in the huge classroom, and the noise of the air conditioner and exhaust pipes in the background was just like him. Confused and confused mind. In the Chinese class, the slender glass frame on the door of the classroom framed him tightly in this crowded classroom, and he began to question the series of words spoken by the teacher Sima Guang. In fact, he questioned not only the content of the textbooks, but more of whether he really chose to repeat his studies to be admitted to medical school, and why he had been living according to the wishes of others. So when he was kicked out of the class by the Chinese teacher, a very strange image appeared on the screen. The TV sets on both sides of the front of the classroom displayed the movie images we saw, that is, the image of Ah Hao leaving his seat and walking towards the classroom door, which was shot by the front of the camera. This is a deliberate camera presence.
Combined with the interviews between Zhong Menghong and Ang Lee mentioned above, Zhong Menghong said that he believed in the theory of fatalism and causality, believing that life, fate or the driving force in the story is the so-called fate determined by cause and effect. He also incorporated this concept into the film. For example, Awen said to Heilun's father who asked him for legal compensation: "Have pity on you? This kind of thing happens." In Awen's opinion, because the direction of the black wheel was wrong from the beginning, he deserved all the things he was receiving, and the same was true of being sent to the nursing home for Caitou and Ahe. It is precisely because of this concept that Awen will directly define that the fate of Ahe, Caitou and Heilun is doomed to fail and worthless, and he will shine the sun on Ahao, the eldest son who is all right. As mentioned above, the scene where Ahao, who appeared in the camera's perspective, was kicked out of the classroom, is the display of the restraint and persecution of Ahao by the fatalism and causality in Awen's words. Ahao's every move was filmed by the camera and put on the TV, as if he was being monitored and watched by something. And this thing is the father's "grasp the time, grasp the direction", the praise of outsiders to him as "the good boy of other people", and the high expectations of the tutor of the cram school for his re-reading results. He wants to have his own ideas. He rebelled once in class and was kicked out of the classroom, but even such a rebellion and such a self-independence are still being supervised by them, living forever in the words of his father and the expectations of others. within a limited trajectory. His fate was fateful because of fatalistic causality.
In the end, the cacophony of the air conditioner and the exhaust pipe sounded again, and Ah Hao's mood became restless again. The sun that had just swept the earth was blocked by a large cloud, and there was a cool and comfortable shadow on the earth. Ah Hao washed and cleaned up, and slowly walked to the only place with a huge light-transmitting hole in the dimly lit home. He walked towards the light, just as he had always done in the past, following the words of his father and the expectations of others along the right track towards the light. Only this time we see his shadow, and the closer he is to the light, the bigger his shadow, the more the shadow blocks the light, until it is completely blocked. In this way, Ah Hao committed suicide by jumping off the building, leaving his last words and the unusual story of Sima Guang smashing the tank, and the second act of the whole film started. The entire community of residential buildings was shrouded in dark purple, and even the white light tubes in the aisles appeared blue-blue. This was the appearance of another world that Ah Hao walked to, like Hades' underworld, without sunlight. Nature does not have the color of sunlight, there are shadows everywhere. The parents on the side can only cry and sigh that it is not Ah Hao, that is not Ah Hao. So what exactly is Ah Hao? It is "He is very kind to people, and sometimes he feels that he seems to give all the good things to others, but forgets to keep a little for himself", it is "the messages and data in the mobile phone are all deleted, and the room is also organized. It's good, as if you don't want to trouble us." He is hiding in his heart, "The most fair thing in this world is the sun. Regardless of the latitude, the time of day and darkness is half the time of the whole year in every place. A few days ago We went to the zoo and the sun was so strong that day that all the animals couldn't take it, they all managed to find a shade to hide in. I had a vague feeling that I couldn't explain it, and I hoped that like these animals, there was some shade that would help Hide. But I look around, not only these animals have shadows to hide, including you, my brother, and even Sima Guang, you can find a corner with shadows. But I don't, I don't have a water tank, I don't have a dark place, There is only sunshine, twenty-four hours a day, bright and warm, and the sun is shining" boy.
Sima Guang, the genius of the stars and the moon, chose to smash the water tank so that everyone who was hiding in the shadows could see him. But the story we are passing on is still Sima Guang tactfully smashed the water tank to rescue the child who was about to drown in the water tank. Are we not like the father in the film, using our self-righteous words and values to define others and shape them? others. Maybe there was really no water in the tank, and no children fell into it. What Sima Guang did was not to save others, but to save himself. Father's words, the expectations of others, are like the never-ending sunshine, shining on every inch of Ahao's skin every day, asking him to always be in the light, face the light, go to the light, there is no shadow to rest, You can't even save your own shadow. Because in his father's words, in his mother's cognition, and in the imagination of others, Ah Hao is so good, so perfect, without shadows, completely on the "right track", and his life should be good. Therefore, Ah Hao, who could not find the shadow, could only choose to commit suicide and choose to move towards a different light. The light projected on the wall is gradually blocked by the shadow, symbolizing the bleak end of the light of his life, but the increase of the shadow also symbolizes that he chooses to save himself by walking into the endless shadow, and the light he is walking towards is also gentle and appropriate. Not as hot as the sun. The mother saw the shadow of her son through her son's last words, but the father Awen did not. He was still immersed in his own words of power.
On the other hand, Ah He, who stayed in the nursery school, finally had the opportunity to reveal his heart after his brother passed away. He pulled the loading trolley down the slope, and the sliding trolley pushed him down, and he had to hold it to prevent the food on the car from spilling. The backlog of various emotions is like this downhill scooter, pushing him down constantly, just as his father said that he has been walking downhill for his life. After all, he couldn't bear it or restrained himself. He let go of the scooter with one hand and let it rush down and spill the food. He followed the playground and screamed constantly, unwilling to be restrained any more, so that his emotions could be released. . Then he was put in a psychological interrogation room. The entire interrogation room is an all-green square room. The only light source is the light from the windows on the side roof. With the adjustment of cool tones and dark yellow filters, the whole space presents a feeling of depression, decay and death, which is different from the original one. The vitality that green represents is very different from hope. Just as Kubrick chose emerald green for the bathroom wall of Room 237 in The Shining, a color that is not often used in architectural decoration, the strange wall color greatly enhances the enclosed space of the bathroom. The sense of horror, which belongs to the use of setting off the atmosphere. In the scene of the psychological interrogation room in "The Sunshine", the small space mixed with yellow and green is the externalization of the inner world of the protagonist Ah He, who is mixed with various emotions and has been suppressed for a long time and no one understands. The sunlight passing through the window hit Ah He sideways, forming a yin and yang face where black and white meet, symbolizing Ah He's gray area between black and white, and reflecting his complex and diverse emotional heart. Since childhood, Ah He was not as good as Ah Hao. Ah He, who was not good enough, not only could not get the sunshine at home, but also had a bad reputation on his back. The better A Hao is, the more A He hates A Hao. Because his brother's excellence has taken away the love and care that A He deserves as a son, he can only rely on the back seat of his bicycle as a child to gain a little independence. To enjoy the chance of mother's love, to get that little chance to be dazzled by the sun. When he heard that his brother had committed suicide, Ah He's first reaction was relief and joy. He no longer had to bear the criticism brought by the contrast and the blame for his disappointment. He finally had the chance to get the sunshine. But what followed was fortunate, because he was not Ah Hao, he was not forced to die on the "right track" by the words of patriarchy and the expectations of others, and he was still alive. But it is more of worry and hopelessness. He has become the only son in the family, but he is not Ah Hao. Can he bear the sunshine? Even if he leaves the nursery school and returns to the family and society in the future, facing his wife Xiaoyu and the child who was born unexpectedly, he has to change himself and become better, but he knows that no matter how he changes, he can't become as good as his brother. Will he still get sunlight? I remember when my father watched Ah Hao's funeral With his helpless and painful eyes, how should I face my father after going out? Doesn't he have to live in his shadow after all? In the end, it is the sadness of the death of my brother who is a relative. The accumulation of multiple emotions forces Ah He to speak his mind, allowing us to see another son living under the harm of his father's words, a kind of harm that has been in the shadows for a long time.
Fortunately, in the "Flower Heart" sung by the residents, Ah He bathed in the sunshine and returned home after being discharged from the hospital. He took up his family responsibilities and went out to work. Although the trajectory is wrong, at least the direction is right now, and Ah He is walking in the bright direction as far as he can. But the father, Awen, who is immersed in his own words of power, refuses to reconcile with his younger son. It is because of his face, because of the loss of expectations, and more because he has not given sunshine to A and should he give it now. , and the question of how to give. So he decided to escape, decided to let it go as he once did, and moved to a driving school, still immersed in his own words.
In the end, one night, Awen dreamed that he was walking in an alley, and his eldest son, Ahao, who had been thinking about him all the time, came from the end of the alley. This scene is in my opinion the most moving part of the whole film and one of my favorite parts. Ah Hao was still wearing that set of white short-sleeved white long-sleeved shirt and black trousers. He was clean and came out of the shadows with a sunny smile. In the dark night without sunlight, he peacefully accompanied his father on the road. "Dad, I came home to look for you a few days ago?" "Is there anything you want to do with me?" "I just came to see you." Finally, Ah Hao stopped at the entrance of a bright alley and went back from here. Say goodbye to father. Awen woke up suddenly, the same purple sky as when Ahao jumped off the building shone on Awen's face, he walked outside, the dark night shrouded the training ground in purple, the ground and the sky seemed to be endless because of the same color. Countless ice cream cones are reflected in the standing water, their orange appearance is particularly eye-catching in the purple, like dozens of lighthouses in the sea. Awen walked into the training ground, walked into the purple shadow world of Ahao, looked left and right, looking for his son. According to the correlation between this scene and the scene of Ahao jumping from the building in the color of light and shadow, the last scene where Awen dreams of Ahao is not only Awen's dream, but more of a surreal life and death In the time and space when the world is handed over, Ah Hao's soul gets in touch with his father in the form of a dream, not only to visit his father, but also to bring his father to the alley, creating an opportunity for the reconciliation between Ah Wen and Ah He, because the next scene is A Wen accidentally meets A He, a part-time worker, at a convenience store after finding no hope for a child. Although he has passed away, in that surreal illusory time and space, Ah Hao is still the original Ah Hao who lives in everyone's eyes, he is still so good, and he still gives his good to others. The whole scene is mainly shot with a panoramic back shot. Only the street lamps in the alley are lit. The whole alley is covered with shadows. Ah Hao, who is walking in this alley, also lives in the shadows as he wishes. Despite this, in Awen's imagination, Ahao will always be the existence facing the light, just as he finally stopped at the alley full of light. It can be said that this is Awen's expectation for his eldest son. It can also be said that Ah Hao is taking care of his father's imagination, who is still immersed in his own words. Back to reality, Awen walked to the alley that appeared in the dream, turned back three times, and stopped at the door of the houses on both sides of the alley many times, hoping that his eldest son would really come back. It was also at this moment that he realized in his heart that he really only had A He as a son now, and he was the only one who could pin his hopes and love on him. This also promotes the reconciliation between the two in the next scene, and the reconciliation between the two is actually more of the reconciliation between Awen himself and himself. He has to make a decision.
Three years later, Ah He opened the iron gate of the car wash, and the crimson lights outside the store suddenly enveloped him, symbolizing the coming of a huge danger, which might even be a bloodbath. Outside the door is Caitou, who just came out of prison to find Ah He, and the movie enters the third act.
After being released from prison, Caitou chooses to continue working in black jobs and seeks troubles for Ah He one after another. Worrying that his only son, who had rarely returned to the right path, would deviate from the right track again, Awen took the initiative to pay to help his son get rid of troubles. This is the same sense of surveillance created by the presence of the camera when Ahao walked out of the foreign language classroom mentioned above. It is also controlled by his father Awen's patriarchal discourse, because Ahao has been excellent since childhood and walked under the patriarchal discourse since childhood. On the right track, so his supervision is invisible, spiritual, ideological, and Ahao knows but cannot get rid of it. On the other hand, Ah He is always at risk of derailment, so he is under the supervision of his father's entity, which is tangible, physical, and unknowable to Ah He. Therefore, when Caitou approached Ah He to help him deliver and withdraw money that night, he used his patriarchal discourse to define Caitou's life again, and used his fate and causality to discuss the fate of staying in Caitou. He stepped on the gas pedal, knocked the vegetable head unconscious, dragged him into the grass and stoned him to death. Sima Guang threw stones at the water tank to save himself. Ah Hao used the story of Sima Guang to smash the water tank to reveal his heart to others. Just like the previous empty shot, the sun that just exposed the sun was immediately obscured by dark clouds. For the sake of Ah He, Cai Tou did not smoke in the car, and he did such a good and bright thing but never ended well. Because the right to speak in this film is in the hands of Awen, the only sun who decides who to shine is Awen. He used his words to define Caitou as a black boy, a person who was walking in a crooked path and in the wrong direction. His fate should be punished by various consequences, and he was the son of Xiang Hei who was not disciplined by someone else. So he used lynching to end Caitou's life, just like he was unapologetic and unconcerned about the black wheel family who was cut down three years ago, and morally sentenced the black wheel to death just because the black wheel didn't leave. On the right track as defined by him, he is also the son of Xiang Hei who was not disciplined by other people.
Later, Awen revealed to his wife what he had done to Ahe on the top of the sun-drenched mountain, and counted the help he had given him because of his love for Ahe. The dazzling sun is himself in the logic of patriarchal discourse, and the scorching sun that illuminates the earth is what he thinks is his passionate love for his son. After hearing the howl, his wife started to beat him. This is the profound point of this film. The father who holds the right to speak is not unaware of his mistakes, not that he will not correct them, but that all their actions are carried out completely intoxicated by the logic of patriarchal discourse, and they are the perpetrators. They are unaware of the harm itself, unaware of the identity of the perpetrator, and the right to speak remains unchanged, and they will never change. Awen will only worry about whether he has helped his son enough, whether his love for his son has been discovered by his wife, and whether his son has gone according to his own plans and his expectations, and completely regards killing as a means to clear the trouble. The good sense of morality, which was an important component of the right track, was completely left behind by his ego-motivation. He thought he was guiding Ah He towards the same light as Ah Hao, but in fact he was covering Ah He with the darkness of his unknowing sins, making Ah He, who had grown up in gray, become trapped in gray forever. That one, he can't become "white" like Ah Hao. Under his powerful narcissistic patriarchal discourse, he has killed two sons, so what will happen to Ah He, his youngest son, in the future?
In the end, my mother sat on the back seat of the bicycle that Ah He was riding, watching the passing scene, and realizing the mottled tree shadows that the sun hit her face, and finally understood that the little bit that Ah He pursued when she was a child had the feeling of sunshine. . Knowing more about Ah He's mother, will it affect Ah He's fate as demanded by the patriarchal discourse?
"The Sunshine" does not give a direction to deal with the harm of patriarchal discourse at the end, which just corresponds to our reality. When we were young, we were all forced to do Ah He. We grew up and got married, but we became Awen unconsciously, urging our children to become Ahao. How many people can actually avoid it?
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