No matter how everyone commented on the director's previous works, this time Chief Jia is amazing.
There's a convention you should know: if you're trying to express a lot of things in a 2-hour movie, you're going to end up with two things -
either it won't fit, or it won't fit.
"Old Man of Mountains and Rivers" is one of the most diverse and well-matched films I have ever seen, leaving the audience with a great space for aftertaste.
Not long ago, I was chatting with a friend about the concept of "hometown". I said that modern people no longer have the concept of "hometown" or "hometown". Where am I from? It's getting harder to answer.
I stayed in Shenyang until I was 18, came to Beijing, went to Hong Kong four years later, and returned to Beijing three years later from Hong Kong. My wife went to Shenzhen from Jinzhou when she was seven years old. After marriage, I became more and more familiar with Shenzhen. When we go out, we usually only go back to the Northeast to visit relatives during the Chinese New Year. Last year, my grandfather passed away, and my grandma was taken care of by us. It is estimated that in the next New Year, more relatives will be invited to Beijing for reunion, and the necessity of returning to "home" will be even weaker. .
According to the place of origin, we are all "Northeasterners", from Liaoning, but we are far more familiar with other cities than the Northeast. You don't know a city at all, how can you say that you are from there? Cantonese and Cantonese can be seamlessly converted. When a friend asks you to speak two Northeastern dialects, sometimes you can't find the context.
The so-called "can't go back" hometown probably refers to this level of meaning. The longer you leave, the more accustomed you are to the present, and the less you want to go back to touch it.
I can't tell whether it's because of age or the speed of society. I always feel that life is becoming more and more fragile and impermanent. Today, another plane fell off, and a friend's relative was in a car accident. Whoever got married, whoever got divorced... ...At the end of last year, my grandfather, like Shen Tao's father in the film, left without warning, leaving nothing behind.
Therefore, we are at a loss in the panic of working hard and cherishing family relationships.
This film is about distance, distance in space, distance in time, two people face to face, culture is distance, facing mountains and rivers, facing the sea, you know that the person you want is there, but the reality is already there. Years ago, it was forked by a small choice to separate mountains and seas.
So the film that left the deepest impression on me was that dollar and Zhang Aijia were in the car. He suddenly felt that the scene seemed familiar. Zhang Aijia was wearing sunglasses, and he was sitting in the co-pilot. We, as the audience, were familiar with Shen Tao many years ago. Driving the little dollar to the station, but dollar doesn't remember, just vaguely feels deja vu.
We often have this kind of deja vu experience, but the director tells you that all deja vu may be memories that you are about to forget - a song you don't know where you heard it, a person you think you have seen before, A scene that you think happened.
Memory is the most powerful thing, and it is very uncontrollable, but human emotions and emotions all come from human memory. Memory even builds your character. The most important thing is that you better not have any memory that you really want to delete. The more you think about it. Forget, the more impressed you are.
The performances of several actors are well done. I have never seen Zhao Tao acting before, but this film does show a lot of skill. Except for the solemn and awkward movements when the two places are handed over, everything else is very good. I heard that Huang Xiaoming and Yang Mi recently He Luhan's acting skills have also been recognized by awards and fans. I would like to congratulate them here.
Time, space, distance, cultural estrangement, sense of belonging, choice, intergenerational relationship, impermanence, future, memory, feelings... This is a film that can only be made by people with a certain age and experience. Therefore, some directors show their talents when they are young, while others accumulate their talents, just like Xu Anhua after Sister Tao, Wang Jiawei after a generation of masters, and Jia Zhangke after Shanhe.
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