2006-12-04 23:25:04 Big,
medium and small
Decision
-- "The Good Man of the Three Gorges"
"The coal miner Han Sanming came to Fengjie from Fenyang, looking for him who has not been there for 16 years. The ex-wife they met. The two met by the Yangtze River, looked at each other, and decided to remarry.
Female nurse Shen Hong traveled from Taiyuan to Fengjie to find her husband who had not returned for two years. They hugged each other in front of the Three Gorges Dam. After only dancing, I broke up sadly and decided to divorce.
The old county town has been submerged, and the new county town has not yet been built. Some should be picked up, and some should be discarded."
(I like the movie's own story introduction.)
Watch " "The Three Gorges Good Man", tears welled up in my eyes without warning. Suddenly I thought of Ai Qing's poem: Why are there tears in my eyes? /Because I love this land so much.
It seems that Jia Zhangke's movies are always dark and sad. It seems that this gray tone is out of line with the emotional words like "love". It seems that there are always people who say that Jia Zhangke's movies are too far from the public.
Why haven't we seen it? We should have seen it earlier. How sad Xiao Wu is, how sad are those who can only reach the platform in their dreams. The young man with hepatitis, the young man standing indifferently in front of the TV, the humble woman still worrying about her chastity, the man staring blankly at an old burning chair...they talk to us Keeping a distance and deliberately hiding our sadness, we really thought that for these "marginal people", we just need to give them a sympathetic look in the middle of the noise. We seem to have forgotten that we and they are actually in the same land.
It seems that Jia Zhangke is always alone there, moving stones from his heart to the curtain, piece by piece.
As I said earlier, it's not that Jia Zhangke is too far from the public, it's that we are too far from the public. And "The Good Man in Three Gorges" suddenly reminded me why I didn't notice his tears before, his love for this land, such a deep love. Should have noticed, almost every movie has a tragic death of a minor character. The death of the miner's cousin in "Platform", the death of "Second Girl" in "The World", and the death of "Little Chow Yun-fat" in "The Good Man of Three Gorges".
The deceased once said ruthlessly to the relatives who were about to leave their hometown not to come back. They turned their backs to you and you thought they didn't shed hot tears? They always plan to leave, do you think their tears are not shed over and over again on this land they don't want to stay?
Different from the previous work, this time, Jia Zhangke's protagonists left their hometowns, broke into Fengjie, and started a search in this abandoned city. In Jia Zhangke's past movies, the protagonists always stay in their hometown in Shanxi. Later, when it came to "World", they entered the "World Park" of the big city. For us (the audience), no matter where they are, the environment they are in is a different place to be watched; only in "The Good Man in the Three Gorges", we can become the intruders there, just like the people in the play. This is the first time that the audience's perspective in Jia's films has been unified with the perspective of the people in the play. Maybe that's why I noticed Jia Zhangke's love. There used to be a mental presupposition that I wasn't there, but now the presupposition is that I (and the character) are there. This kind of turn is like the turn made by the 360-degree pan at the end of "Xiao Wu". For the first time, I was completely integrated with his characters. I'm not just a spectator of the astonishing ruins on the screen, I empathize with the protagonists, walking around the ruined city with them.
This turn also makes us finally realize after going around, discovering that the change has occurred, and discovering the necessity of making a decision.
If we stay here, we are always slow to change. And when we followed Jia Zhangke's protagonist into Fengjie, a city that had been demolished due to a world-renowned water conservancy project, we were only astonished at the changes that had taken place in the whole of China. Just like the word "demolition" that I see on the screen from time to time, I suddenly have a deep feeling for china, which is translated as "demolition". My motherland, I finally know your devastation.
The most distinctive and intriguing aspect of "The Good Man in Three Gorges" is the bizarre and astonishing ambiguity of the past, the present and the future. This kind of ambiguity, isn't it the ambiguity with Chinese characteristics? The Three Gorges Man can be regarded as another true record of Jia's reality in China, and this record can be regarded as a prophecy about China's future. No, not a prophecy, because, the future, has already happened.
We all have our own expectations for the future, and we are always waiting for that change to happen one day in the future. But in fact, the future happened two years ago. Two years ago, Shen Hong's (Zhao Tao) husband suddenly had no news. Shen Hong's husband-hunting journey finally found out that her husband Guo Bin has now become the local "boss" in charge of demolition and relocation, and he has long since abandoned the people who love him. The future we have been waiting for has long been replaced by this future. Waiting for that future turns out to be a mockery of us, with a constant loss of dignity and tears.
Jia Zhangke took the protagonist and us into Fengjie, and in this part of the search that unfolded on the ruins, we woke up together, and everything had already happened. The future is unpredictable, the predictable is the painful reality that will extend to tomorrow. Zhao Tao's performance in Shen Hong and Guo Bin dancing farewell to that scene can be regarded as the best performance by a Chinese actress this year. The loss of soul actually belongs to every Chinese who is shocked that the change has occurred.
Jia Zhangke said in an interview with the Southern Metropolis Daily reporter Chen Yiyi about the film, "I think the changes in China are over. The biggest change is over, and the rest is for everyone to face reality and make a decision. "
The Good Man in Three Gorges"'s precise sense of China makes it the best Chinese-language film of the year. In fact, if possible, I really want every Chinese to watch this movie and then make a decision for themselves after watching the movie.
"After Auschwitz, I will no longer write poetry, but become a deputy director" (Zhang Xiaozhou, "After Auschwitz, You Can Play Football", Southern Metropolis Daily 2006-06-15), it is a decision;
like Shen Hong It is a decision to say goodbye in despair, but to say goodbye resolutely;
like Sanming, it is also a decision to get back the 16-year-old love without saying a word, and make the person he loves burst into tears.
View more about Still Life reviews