Throughout the ages, there has been a river in many stories, and among them, love stories are more talked about, and are constantly interpreted in different forms.
For example, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai turned butterflies on the banks of Weishui and Qinshui;
Another example is the tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet described in "Exploring the Qingshui River", which was compiled into a ditty and sung around;
Another example is the well-known Pan Changjiang Spring Festival Gala sketch "Crossing the River";
In 2008, Jia Zhangke directly shot a short film called "Love on the River", and recalled his youth with the help of the four characters in the film.
To borrow Bei Dao's poem is: "At that time we had dreams, about literature, about love, and about traveling across the world."
Lou Ye, who is the sixth generation with Jia Zhangke, set his sights on Shanghai.
A photographer living on the bank of the Suzhou River took a job shooting Century Happy Pavilion one day. Here, he met Meimei who was acting as a mermaid, and the two started dating.
Meimei has a habit of disappearing suddenly for some days, and she is also inexplicably sad.
Because Meimei always plays the mermaid, this reminds the photographer of a mermaid story he read in the newspaper, a legend that every boatman on the Suzhou River knows.
The hero of the story is called Ma, a typical unemployed young man in a small town. One day, he accidentally got a motorcycle. He said that he would ride this motorcycle to a far away place, make a career, get ahead and return home. However, this motorcycle did not take him to a distant place, but it carried the heroine of the story, Peony.
Peony is a pure and innocent flower girl, her parents divorced and she lives with her father. Every time my father called a girlfriend over, he told Peony to spend the night at his aunt's house. This time, it was a motor pulled alive by a motorcycle that took her to her aunt's house.
Maybe it was the wind blowing from the back seat of the motorcycle that made her feel relaxed and happy like never before;
Maybe it was the first time she received a gift from a boy—a mermaid toy;
Or maybe it was the never-before-seen care of tying shoelaces that touched her heart;
In this way, Peony, who lacked family care and security, soon fell in love with him after touching the motor a few times.
Unexpectedly, Ma Ma, who is getting bigger and bigger in Mudan's heart and is about to become everything, deceived her. Ma Ma and several accomplices kidnapped Mudan and extorted money from her father. The pure-hearted Peony couldn't take such a blow, so the mermaid who took her motor and sent her jumped into the Suzhou River and said, "You lied to me. I will become a mermaid and come to you."
Ma Ma also jumped down, the police came, only Ma Ma came up, and Peony disappeared. After that, people on the banks of the Suzhou River claimed to have seen mermaids.
Ma was in prison for a few years, and when he came out, he left and went to other places.
This is the end of the story circulating in Suzhou River.
Unexpectedly, it was the hero Ma Ma, who was heard by the photographer in the story, and then broke into the photographer's real life;
What was even more unexpected was that the heroine Peony that the photographer heard in the story looked exactly the same as his girlfriend Meimei who played the mermaid.
motor has recently come back
So, in this regard, this love story about mermaids that was circulated on the banks of the Suzhou River and appeared in newspapers continued to develop.
Ma Ma came to Century Happy Pavilion and happened to bump into Meimei. Ma Ma was stunned when he saw Meimei's appearance. In front of him was Peony!
He wants to tell Peony that he didn't lie to her back then!
So Ma Ma always went to look for Mei Mei. The Century Happy Pavilion, Mei Mei's own residence on the boat, and the photographer's home all made Ma Ma search all over. But Meimei didn't believe him at all, a man like him who pretended to be affectionate had seen a lot in Century Happy Hall.
Until one day, Meimei asked Ma Ma what was so special about peony, Ma said that there was a peony flower on the peony's leg. Mei Mei told Ma Ma that she also had it on her leg at this time.
Immediately afterwards, everything was shot, and the motor and Meimei slept.
In fact, Meimei lacks love, or it can be said that she does not believe in love. She performs in entertainment venues.
I have seen too much humble love;
Heard too many nasty love stories;
I have met too many shameless men.
A love affair with a photographer is just for fun.
But at the same time, she longed for love. God asked her to meet Ma Ma. By the way, she took advantage of Ma Ma's love for peony, and made herself feel that she had received true love temporarily. So later Meimei put peony flowers on her legs again.
But after a short time, Peony still couldn't believe what Ma Ma said, and armed her armor again. She still thought that Ma Ma was lying to her!
Knowing that Meimei is not the motor of Peony, she decided to return Meimei to the photographer and set off to find Peony again. Soon the photographer received a letter from Ma, in which Ma said he had found Peony at a convenience store that sold vodka with bison grass.
But then, two corpses were salvaged from the Suzhou River, Ma and Peony.
The photographer and Meimei went to claim it, and Meimei burst into tears when she saw the two bodies. It turned out that what Ma Ma said to her was true, Ma Ma did not lie to her!
Afterwards, Meimei asked the photographer, "If one day I leave, will you look for me like a motor?"
The photographer replied: "Yes."
Meimei retorted: "You lied!"
On the second day, Meimei left and left a note saying "come to me".
The photographer did not go. He continued to stand on the balcony and look out the window and Suzhou River, waiting for his next love to come.
Among all the works directed by Lou Ye, I personally like this "Suzhou River" the most. Before I saw the photographer and Meimei go to claim the corpses of Ma and Peony, I kept guessing whether Meimei was a peony or not.
Between the photographer and Meimei, the motor and the peony, the creators deliberately set up some similar points to connect them, and also use this to confuse the audience. Such as,
It just so happens that Meimei looks exactly like the peony in the story;
Coincidentally, both of them are related to mermaids;
It just so happened that Meimei also had a peony flower on her leg at this time.
And in clothing, Peony always wears red sportswear, and the leather jacket that Meimei always wears is also red. Moreover, after finding the two bodies, Meimei said, "It turns out that Ma did not lie to me, never lied to me." This sentence is easily reminiscent of what Peony said to Ma Ma before jumping into the river, "You lied to me". Both Peony and Meimei think that Ma Ma is lying to them, and Ma Ma wants to prove to both of them that he is not lying.
Finally, I would like to talk about my understanding of the passage from a strange girl singing to a bunch of people eating cakes to a couple getting married after Meimei and the photographer raised their hands in the second half.
I think the audience will be stunned when they see this, who is the girl singing? Who's birthday and who's getting married? What is the point of the director making this scene?
The singing is to the camera, and we know that the photographer is a ruthless person, so this girl is actually the new girl who went to KTV after the photographer broke up with Peony. She is singing to the photographer.
And the next birthday, marriage is the photographer's job. At the beginning, I explained that the photographer will take any job. Through the cheerful singing and the happy life of others, it contrasts the loneliness of the photographer who just broke up. The life of a photographer.
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