Director Wang Xiaoshuai took a camera and followed Xiaogui's figure through the streets of Beijing, recording all the traces of youth, and also feeling the warmth and warmth of society in this era, making ideal and reality with irreconcilable contradictions again and again collision. Under the director's cold lens, in the meaningful notes, the youthful vision and self-esteem fell to pieces on a sunny afternoon.
In this youth-themed "Seventeen-Year-Old Bicycle", "bicycle" is the thread that runs through the film, so the story of two teenagers revolving around a bicycle begins. Here, the bicycle is no longer a A simple means of transportation, but a symbol of "survival" and "self-esteem". The director unfolds the narrative through three parts: the loss of the car, the compromise and the destruction of the bicycle, and the content is interspersed with each other. Finally, the youth is frozen in a broken afternoon through a large-scale violent fight. For Xiao Gui, who came from the countryside, bicycles are his means of making a living, and delivering couriers on a bicycle day after day is his living state. In his eyes, bicycles are also a way for the society to accept him; For Xiaojian in the family, the bicycle is a measure of whether he is accepted and recognized by his family, friends and even his lover. Both young people want to find the value and dignity of their existence on the bicycle, so both of them want to hold the bicycle tightly, and in this pulling, their scars and pains are exposed little by little, Their self-esteem is also disappearing little by little. Xiaogui wanted to integrate into this society, but was misunderstood as a thief because he was looking for a car, and his existence value was indifferently denied and ridiculed by people; and Xiaojian also became a problem in the eyes of family, friends, neighbors and others at the door of his house. As a young man, his disguise was ruthlessly exposed, and his humble self-esteem was exposed in plain sight. So they screamed loudly while clutching their bicycles on high-rise buildings, and gave a hysterical explanation at the door of their home, which eventually became a microcosm of an era in the city's feasting and feasting.
In "Seventeen-Year-Old Bicycle", the director used traditional visual tones and unique cold shots to cherish the unforgettable youth and the gradually fragmented dignity in society. First of all, when the director described this period of youth, he did not have many warm emotions mixed in. This can be seen from the grasp of the color tone. The whole film is shrouded in a dim yellow and black and white, which makes the film a little more. Divided into obsolete and cold, the whole film contains a kind of indifference and anger. Secondly, at the beginning of the film, the director used a subjective close-up to describe an interview. On the one hand, the interviewer was impersonal, as if to force out all the humbleness and embarrassment in everyone’s heart. On the other hand, the numbness and embarrassment of the workers In order to please, the director deliberately turned an interview into an interrogation, and intuitively showed this indifference between the city and the countryside, and between people with the camera lens, which laid the tone of social torture for this film. In addition, the smashing of the bicycle during the fight was endowed with a unique emotion under the filming of the director. The combination of bystander and subjective lens made the visual image appear a unique emotionality. The close-up of Xiaogui's face after angrily beating bricks casts a violent and angry feeling in the film, as if they are trampling on Xiaogui's self-esteem. Under the director's camera, everything is endowed with emotions, either indifferent or helpless, and the pain of youth is vividly interpreted.
For a good film, the director attaches great importance to the rhythm of the music, and the music of "Seventeen-Year-Old Bicycle" connects the fate of the two protagonists and is endowed with emotions by the director. Through the grasp of music, the state of people under heavy pressure gradually losing their dignity and survival instinct is explained through music. In the days when Xiaogui rides and delivers newspapers, the music carries a marching passion, showing Xiaogui's vision and hope for the future life; and for Xiaojian, the sweetness of love is also shown through warm music Come out, romantic and tender. However, as the story progresses, when depicting this ever-modern city, the blurred lens and music, and when Xiao Gui searches for a car and Xiao Jian's family conflicts break out, the music is soothing and sad, blazing a faint emotion. It seems to be telling the confusion of the times. In the final fight, the intense music is completely emotional along with the chasing scene, conveying the violent emotions directly to the audience. It is this control of music that makes this film more rhythmic, full of emotional tension, and fills the audience's heart with a sentimental memory of youth.
In the 1990s, both writers and directors felt the changes in society, but did not know whether this change was good or bad for society, culture, and tradition, so the sixth generation of directors began their own explorations. Wang Xiaoshuai's "Seventeen-Year-Old Bicycle" has brought this quest with traces of youth literature. It is pessimistic and non-mainstream cultural in content, with a strong social and cultural reflection on the past and the present. We make euphemistic suggestions on the reality of that era, and let us recall that era and at the same time let us pay more attention to this society and reflect on reality.
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