Become a zombie in one thought - Mak Junlong's film "Zombie"
has always believed that film is art. Because like music, painting and calligraphy, movies also have their own special ways of expressing cause and effect. Just as not everyone's writing is calligraphy, certainly not all movies can be called works of art. A very important condition is that the film should have details. Details are not small, but express nature. There are details that are subtle, and only subtle can be subtle.
"Zombie" is a movie with details, and every detail is expressed but has its own position. So makes me want to praise this movie!
Zombie themes are one of the unique labels of Hong Kong movies, rooted in their own folk psychology and only grown on Chinese soil. I love Lin Zhengying's image of a Taoist priest, and that image can carry my imagination of those who conquer demons and catch demons. The image of success is like this, not close to reality, but close to the desire of everyone's heart. This is also a very important reason why I like the Jin Yong martial arts films made in Hong Kong, and it is difficult to accept the Jin Yong series directed by Zhang Jizhong. It is originally an imaginary theory, but it strives to be real, and it is to abandon the lightness to the heavy. To watch a play is to enter a detached state, not to connect with reality, but to go beyond reality and leave the world.
After Lin Zhengying, no one can reach his height, and zombie movies decline accordingly. Many zombie movies since then are too rough to read. Watching "Zombie" based on this mentality, I thought it was a simple follow-up film, and I realized the director's talent at the end. It's not about zombies, it's about people. This is a reflection angle that has never been covered by the zombie theme. It is not simply punishing evil and promoting good, but from the perspective of observing people from the proposition of zombies. If someone is determined to watch the Taoist Zombie Fighting, it is inevitable that they will have a strange mood in the last ten minutes.
The title of the film is "Zombie", so direct and ambitious, but the first thing that appears in the film is a ghost. After death, before reincarnation, it is the bardo. There are three bardos, and the film seems to fit the legal bardo. According to folklore, in the middle of the underworld, everything in life is recorded in the past. Up to now, we can use the word 'over the movies' to describe it. Watching people's life is like a movie. The older metaphor is that life is like a play.
So at the beginning of the film, Qian Xiaohao, as an actor, made a self-report to express the absurdity of life. The absurdity of the movie is the absurdity of the plot, not the absurdity of the cause and effect. Beneath the film's bizarre appearance, the causal structure cannot be misplaced at all. But life is just the opposite, the appearance is not only dislocated, but the cause and effect are also bizarre and incomprehensible. Life's ups and downs, turning points, like always in the fog, can not understand.
In folklore, it is said that the middle-shine will return to light and shine. Back to the light, these four words are romantic and interesting. People die and go to the dark, but there is a return to light. This light turns back and reflects the past. In life, all the light is used to test the future, in order to see the future. At this time, I saw the way I came, maybe I have the opportunity to break the road in the fog of my life, see the cause and effect of the coming and going, and feel free.
What is difficult for everyone to understand is that the future exists in the past. This is because what everyone wants to see is not their own future, but the future of the world. But in fact, every future requires the participation of people themselves. The future you see when you jump out is always someone else's. Once you enter, the first thing you will face is your own past.
The Confucian book "Great Learning" says, "You can think about it after you are safe, and you can get it after you think about it." The so-called worry is in the heart of the tiger's head. Confucians call the tiger a change from an adult, because the tiger's markings are bright and orderly, and the purpose is to be seen by him and stun the public. If a person is in a high place and is noticed by others, his every move must be well organized and not chaotic in the slightest. This is like a tiger.
Worrying means having an organized mind, allowing oneself to be a clear person, sorting out the past, and dealing with the future. Do everything in the past well, and then there will be good results in everything that follows. Magnifying it, how a person lives determines how he dies.
I don't know life, how can I know death.
I talked about the details of the film before. The house number is 2442. It is said that this number is a murderous number. Perhaps from the homophonic association between 4 and death, it can also be understood that 2442 is a mirror image, symmetrical to the left and right. This room can be the symmetry of yin and yang. What happens in this room, although it belongs to the underworld, is an artificial creation from the yang world. Or it can be interpreted as life and death, entering this room, from birth to death, out of this room, from death to life.
Between life and death, there are not only the middle-world, but also zombies, wandering in and out, not allowed to advance or retreat.
What is a zombie? Is it Uncle Dong who was refined?
As I said before, the details are meticulous and then refined. To be subtle is to show, to be subtle is to express. At this time, details mean symbols. When people watch a play, it is not actually watching the play, but watching the spirit in the play. The same is true of the so-called symbols, which are not objects or plots, but symbols and meanings, and resonate with them.
There are many details in the film, such as the building, which is like a prison and has no color, which can represent the trapping of the human heart. The people living in it are like being in a prison. But this building not only appeared in this way, but also appeared in Xiaobai's toys. Inside the glass cover toy, it was this building. There are details everywhere in the film. Every detail is spoken and expressed. It needs the audience to discover and experience it. The careless person cannot understand it. That's the difference between a good movie and an average movie.
People live in such a building, and the director specially constructed this world. This world is isolated and does not communicate with any outside world. Everything happens to people only here, and there is a kind of trapped situation in the place of life. This is the idea. So what are zombies?
In a sense, it is obsession.
There is a tradition in Chinese ghost legends that whenever ghosts remain in the world, there is always resentment. I can't let go, because I have an obsession in my heart. If the ghost is the obsession of oneself, then the zombie is the obsession of others. The zombie in the film is the obsession of Aunt Mei and the obsession of Taoist A Jiu.
Obsession takes shape, zombies hurt people.
In the film, Aunt Mei has a monologue to Uncle Dong, who has been turned into a zombie. This kind of expression is very explicit, and it is easy to break the scene. But this part of the play is undoubtedly very successful, worthy of being an old drama bone. Familiar with Bao Qijing is a photo of her and the chief designer in Lushan, as well as the role of Luye in Hong Kong films. Of course, what is more interesting to me is that her father Bao Fang has almost all the master roles in Jin Yong's martial arts dramas. The sweeping monk in "Eight Dragons", Feng Qingyang in "Swordsman", the poisonous drug king in "Flying Fox in the Snow Mountain", and even Hong Antong, the leader of the Shenlong Sect in "Lu Ding Ji", think about it.
The character of Aunt Mei is well portrayed, and she was kind all her life, but she did evil things in the end. She did evil because of weakness and fear, not because of deep love, but because she was afraid that the people she depended on physically and mentally would leave. From this weakness, an incomparable determination was born. Whether it is killing Uncle Yan or sending Xiaobai to the zombies, both are great evils, and it is extremely unbearable to deduce the source of their great evils. I can't bear to part with my husband! It seems to be doing evil things out of love, but it actually stems from the loss of the heart.
This is a brilliant expression, a dislocation of cause and effect in life. Echoing the absurdity of life expressed by Qian Xiaohao's monologue at the beginning of the film. All good films are like this, always as a whole, echoing the theme from time to time and hanging their horns like an antelope without a trace.
So the problem in life is never lack of love, but not knowing how to practice love!
Life and death, good and evil, are all in one thought. This is an old saying, so-called between a thought, then the question is, which thought is this thought? In fact, the answer is very simple. This thought is the thought that is caught by you, that is, the thought that you are attached to. The thought is where the thought is, the thought that cannot be escaped. The so-called persistence means that the problem is not being caught, but rather being caught back. For example, the Taoist priest Ajiu grasped the idea of greed for life, and Aunt Mei grasped the idea of reluctance, but was turned against the customer by this idea.
"Diamond Sutra" says that there should be no place to live in and its mind should be born. Sigh, sigh!
In a sense, life is all about dealing with loss, and that's where the film begins. Qian Xiaohao grew up beautiful, but the night scene is bleak. At the beginning of the movie, he came to this building with a bunch of costumes, a bunch of photos, and some trophies. Judging from the lines, this building was his starting point, and he unexpectedly returned to this place. After experiencing a lifetime of glory, and finally returning to this place with nothing, isn't this life? Born with nothing, die with nothing. Therefore, in the film, there is no trace of life in that room. What awaits him is death in the end, and the first thing in this world to lose is life.
What else is there in that life? A bunch of costumes, some photos, some trophies, what are these? Oh, it's memory. It turned out that a lifetime has passed, leaving only memories.
What is memory?
At the beginning of the film, Qian Xiaohao entered the building, and at the end of the film did he show how he entered the building, showing everything he saw in detail, and from the truth of all this, we were told the whole story of Taoist-zombie fighting. It's an illusion in the return of light! A self-woven story!
Memories come from seeing and hearing, and people have their own feelings about seeing and hearing. Based on this, Qian Xiaohao re-weaved his memory and achieved a story between one thought. The friend sitting there cutting his toenails is actually a buddy, but he is so laid back that he is mistaken for the boss, while the real boss becomes the buddy in the story. Brother You was the one who rushed in to save him, so he became the Taoist priest who saved him in the story. And this Taoist priest also alludes to the relationship between Qian Xiaohao himself and his son. Qian Xiaohao is a father, but the Taoist friend is a son. It is Qian Xiaohao who simulates the feeling of a son who has lost his father's care in his heart. Therefore, the Taoist brother has various resentful emotions, and he finally inherited his father's Taoist profession, which also represents Qian Xiaohao's inner hope to gain his son's approval.
The old administrator in the property management room was fast asleep. This scene reflected in Qian Xiaohao's heart, making him feel that this person was kind. Yes, all people in the world are kind in their sleep. But after having experienced too much, he naturally understands that goodness is often swallowed up by evil, which is the feeling this poor actor has experienced in life. So in the story, Uncle Yan was brutally killed by the evil Aunt Mei. This cruelty actually comes from Qian Xiaohao's conclusion to reality in his own experience, which reflects his attitude towards fate.
Xiaobai and his mother Feng in the elevator are normal, but Feng's language and unnatural smile towards him made him think in his heart that she is a crazy woman. So, in the story, Feng became a crazy woman. In fact, it came from his impression of his wife and children. In his heart, his wife and children are dead, but in fact they are not, because in his heart, his wife is crazy. The only thing he misses is his son, who he wants to catch.
Ah Feng, the mother and son, reminded him of his relationship with his wife and children in a vague way. He wants to save this crazy woman, A Feng, because in some vagueness, A Feng and Xiaobai are his own wife and children, and his rescue operation is also rooted in this. Therefore, there is a scene of a family of three eating in the film, which is very father and son peeing together. Yes, he wanted to save his family, he wanted to be a husband and a father, and he realized it in this illusion.
In the film, Uncle Yan burns incense and says "Respect is like being there", which is a saying from Confucius. Respect as in, Respect as God as God. The so-called existence is the ghost. Don't dare to call him by his first name. Uncle Dong is dead, but Aunt Mei sees it as if she is there, and puts the photos on the shrine to meet every day. It expresses how reluctant and missed Aunt Mei, so in the story, Aunt Mei was persistent and hoped that Uncle Dong would return to Yang. In expressing this hope, the film uses a lot of props, which are dried flowers in Aunt Mei's house. The image of countless dried flowers echoes the existence of zombies. Pulled out, it was Uncle Dong's line, the burnt flower that was picked up really bloomed.
Dead flowers can bloom again, and dead people should also be able to come back!
How the dead will come back, all the stories are in his most accustomed and beloved thinking, which is his actor experience, which is his glorious and confident memory, and these memories constitute his self-confidence and value. It was the way he unconsciously used to deal with the world, so he weaved this story, naturally using his most glorious and splendid identity, and why there are zombies in this woven story, because everyone is willing to use their most glorious identity. Well, the most proud side to face everything. So the way to come back is zombies, and the appearance of zombies needs a pulling edge, and that is Ah Jiu. That is, the real uncle of the mortuary.
Why did Uncle Xiancai eat apples in the morgue, because at that time Qian Xiaohao was still in the middle-world and not completely dead. This person who ate apples in the morgue made him feel disgusted, because this person first lived by guarding the corpse, so in the story, he lived by the ash who raised ghosts, and he was also a person who lived by corpses.
From the beginning, the story hangs into a vortex tunnel, and sees countless pasts he deduces, and then sees the birth and death of all things, the filaments are dimmed, and a naked woman wearing a horn is also seen. Sheep's head, I don't know what the director expresses with this image, is it a female? Or the sentient beings representing the six realms of reincarnation? The source of this image has not been found. It all makes up a story, and this story happens in one thought. Buddha said that if you recite three thousand words, everything in the story comes from the reflection of Qian Xiaohao's heart. This expression is also seen in other films, such as "Mulholland Drive".
So memory is a person's attitude towards the world. People choose what to keep, what to change, how to understand, and how to describe their own experiences. So memory is the way people understand the world. One of the basic attitudes is to leave what I want to leave behind, to be my memory.
As the saying goes, people always believe what they want to believe. After everything, everything is left in my heart. So is this story. The so-called self-interpretation and self-fabrication are often a process of self-deception. Is your movie real, or is your real life real? The film shows the choices made by Qian Xiaohao through a process. In the story, Qian Xiaohao also experienced a process from not believing in ghosts to believing in ghosts, which is reflected in two scenes, the first is the topic of Taoist friend's glutinous rice and Taoist priests, and the second is the tall ghost in the corridor. This process represents that Qian Xiaohao has completely entered into the story he weaved, to be a hopeful self, in a world of his own hope.
This is the director's idea. When a person hangs himself and returns to light, he sees everything in the past, and finally realizes what kind of person he wants to be, and eliminates all the pain in this life. A person who represents his true thoughts, abandons the troubles of too many distracting thoughts, and really wants to be. And when he wants to be that kind of person, it will promote the development of the story and make him willing to help Ah Feng's mother and son.
Is this self-deception? A real epiphany, but not in reality. So at the end of the film, Qian Xiaohao was hanging himself with a smile on his face, and he was freed from himself.
People are very strange, maybe they always follow the rules of heaven and are always changing. Change makes people forgetful. Therefore, people always need something to help us remember memory. Costumes, photos, trophies or testimonials. Aunt May left a picture of her husband on the shrine, and in the story, she wanted to keep his husband,
Why do you say that the monologue to the corpse is very clever. If there is only memory, people will forget, and when the dead person, the person who should have disappeared from sight, is always in front of him in the form of a corpse that can't speak and has no temperature, and all the sadness and sorrow of the person he misses will be instantly forgotten. Emotions have found a carrier, and at the same time, Aunt Mei's helpless loss after her husband's death is eternal at this moment, which solidifies the sadness and stretches infinitely, and the eternal injury is hard to get rid of. Using such a performance to explain the grief that will never come back after a loved one leaves, it is in front of you and out of reach, making it concrete and powerful!
It's a clever way!
Faced with such an irreversible parting, how can we achieve liberation? In the film, it is this proposition that has been completed all the time. It is reflected in the story that Qian Xiaohao helped Ah Feng return to 2442, removed the lingering ghosts, removed the furniture that left traces of the past, and let go of the past. In the film, the three people sat on the floor to eat. Xiaobai asked if white is the most beautiful color in the world.
White is the color of nothing, let go of the past, and you will naturally feel liberated. Let go of the ways of the past, the pieces of furniture that have been eliminated, the walls that have been repainted. How to kill that zombie?
This zombie is not simple, it is a tool used by Taoist A Jiu refining to take his life, and it is also the product of Aunt Mei and him with different obsessions. And the injection of the twin ghosts, the corpse is revived, making this zombie incomparably powerful. The ghost of twins comes from the tragedy of Ah Feng's family, while Uncle Dong's death comes from a conspiracy and a long-term relationship. All the problems of life are here.
What kills zombies is to use a barrier formed by a powerful compass, forming water, wood, earth, gold, and fire in turn, and finally the zombies are turned into ashes by the fire. Among the five elements, the fire is the transformation. The five elements appearing in this order represent a process of life. Water represents birth, wood represents growth, earth represents decline, gold represents farewell, and fire represents transformation. Whether it is a ghost or a zombie, it is the obsession of the self and others. The change that should have happened did not happen, so everything was destroyed in a raging fire!
At this point, the toy shattered, revealing the glass-covered building, and it was only after seeing the last shot of the snow that I realized that everything was in that toy, which was even more absurd. When the glass is broken, it means that some kind of confinement is broken, and life is no longer a predicament. Everything was put down, as reflected in the story. The first thing that was smashed was the son’s message on the phone. Everything in life lost its appearance in the change, and what people have to do is not to keep the past, but to have the courage to accept it. And create the future, go to the next stage, whether the past is the beauty that Aunt Mei wants to keep or the sadness that Taoist A Jiu wants to get rid of, it must pass and enter the next season.
Qian Xiaohao is an actor, from the lively to the desolate, the world is like a ghost, but in the world of ghosts, he has found his own excitement, really life is like a play. Brother Taoist said that when he entered the enchantment, he only had the time for a cigarette, and he had to defeat the zombies within the time of a cigarette. In fact, that cigarette was the one that Qian Xiaohao smoked before hanging himself in reality.
The story exits from Yongdao, still Qian Xiaohao's eye, the eye represents observation, represents the way we look at the world, and our mind looks at the world behind the eyes. When looking at the snowflakes in the sky, seeing his corpse card, and seeing his name for the first time, suddenly someone came to recognize the corpse, and it turned out to be his own son! The sons in the story are all dead!
Ah, it turned out that everything before that was an illusion story. When the illusion touches the reality, life becomes like a drama, everything is shattered, and the film ends immediately, this is compassion!
I saw the director said in an interview that he wanted to shoot a life story from a zombie theme. I think he did it! The person who saw the director's tribute at the end of the film was Lin Zhengying!
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