(Chinese Opera Director's Writing Film Review, 2020.10.31)
The film shows the youth life of Ma Xiaojun and his buddies during the Cultural Revolution in the form of the protagonist Ma Xiaojun's recollection and self-report. During those sunny days, Ma Xiaojun fell in love with a girl, and he gradually developed a cognition of the adult world. During that time, there were ignorance, hesitation, helplessness, loss, joy, pride... In the days with endless aftertastes, Ma Xiaojun has grown up.
Growth is the door that opens the door to the unknown world for teenagers. One of the props in the film, the "lock", is the medium through which the teenager opens the door to the unknown world. Ma Xiaojun doesn't like classes. For him, it is more fun to successfully open a lock. Hearing the sound of unlocking can bring him a great sense of achievement. Ma Xiaojun first picked the lock and opened his father's safe. He put all his father's medals on himself, walked straight, looked in the mirror and salutes the army. The moment he opened the safe, he also tentatively touched his father. authority. He opened his father's diary, took out a "holster", and blew it bigger and bigger. He used the condom as a balloon, made the sound of shells in his mouth, and slapped it happily. "Sex" knows nothing. He was so naive, ignorant, childish, and cute. In his cognition at the time, he couldn't think of any connection between this holster and "sex". Then he went to pick the neighbor's lock, he went from roof to roof, slipped from one room to another, this behavior did not have any emotional color in his eyes, he instinctively hunted for the space that belongs to others The novelty in the book, the locks seem to be the keys to open the adult world. He is extremely happy, with a child's freshness and curiosity about things. The fun simply continued until he slipped the door and picked the lock into the heroine's room... The blurred sunlight filled the room, as if it was mixed with dust. Ma Xiaojun spun the telescope to his heart's content, excited, curious, and dizzy. When his eyes touched a photo of the heroine, the holy sunlight descended. The pure image and bright smile of the heroine made Ma Xiaojun's heart tremble. Since then, he has developed a hazy love for the heroine in the photo. He quietly lies on her bed, picks up a strand of hair, and examines it carefully against the full sun. It was a pure emotion, and his holy gaze and careful movements showed how seriously he valued it. And with such emotions, he has undoubtedly grown.
On that sunny afternoon, Ma Xiaojun wandered aimlessly around the house. Maybe he doesn't know what he's chasing himself, he just runs around the roof "like a cat on a hot tin". This is a kind of trance like losing his soul, and it also reflects the restlessness and confusion in Ma Xiaojun's heart. Ma Xiaojun searched hard, but to no avail. In that scene, there was sunlight in every shot, but it seemed to be the afterglow of the setting sun, dim and powerless. There was only Ma Xiaojun in the whole vision. He was alone in his heart and was extremely restless, from the restlessness of the beginning of adolescence. There are a lot of shots related to the bathroom in this film. In the scene of Yu Beibei breaking into the boys' bathroom, the color tone of the whole picture is a cool blue tone, which is the cold and damp image that the bathroom should have presented. Later, Ma Xiaojun talked to Milan in the bathroom. Milan was washing her hair, but the whole picture was bright and warm. The golden sunlight came in from the window and reflected on the faces of the two protagonists. It was warm, sunny and beautiful. The protagonist Ma Xiaojun's mood is in line, and when he is with the person he likes, his heart is bright and happy.
The scene of Ma Xiaojun seeing Milan for the first time was impressive. He hid under Milan's bed. The camera showed the heroine's figure from Ma Xiaojun's point of view. What Ma Xiaojun saw most directly was a pair of feet with chains on them. , which is the body of a girl. He was hiding under the bed, a voyeur in the shadows, and he looked in the mirror at the hazy naked Milan—a beautiful, slightly plump and mature woman, which undoubtedly aroused his desire for sex. The camera gave a close-up of Ma Xiaojun, a face full of sweat, a pair of frightened, nervous and shy eyes. He had been in such close contact with a girl before. That girl was called "Yu Beibei", but this time the girl was the one that really made him dream. Awareness, another step forward. When Ma Xiaojun finally saw Milan, he rushed up, but he didn't have the courage to express anything, he just said weakly: "I think you are very like my sister". Since then, he has often gone to Milan, and he will always put things done by others on his head to show that he has great powers. He brags about himself, but the mature Milan doesn't seem to care, she has already seen through the trick of the childish Ma Xiaojun. In that era, little boys would show their heroic deeds in front of the people they liked. At that time, the heroes understood by teenagers seemed a bit ridiculous to mature people: they would smoke and know more girls, they would be attractive; if they beat people hard, they had loyalty and courage; It's just showing off...but in any case, when I look back at it when I'm an adult, those stupid and ridiculous things will be memorable.
The memories of youth are not always so happy. Ma Xiaojun's youth life is timid. He hopes to be brave and like a hero, but he is crushed by the tall and handsome Liu Yi. He is jealous that Milan can talk to Liu Yiku, and he is jealous that Liu Yiku can help Milan in the limelight. In a way, Liu Yiku is what he wants to be but can never be. He could only kick the pedal of his bicycle when Liu Yiku was chatting with Milan to relieve his unhappiness; on a rainy night, he wanted to confess to Milan, but he gave up halfway; he wanted to force a relationship with Milan, and he was thin But he was easily subdued by Milan... In the end, he failed to have a relationship with Milan, and he was excluded. He jumped off the high platform wearing the red swimming trunks that Milan gave him. He acted like this because he was confused and at a loss, and he had to have a vent at that time. It was also because he saw Liu Yiku do this in front of Milan. He wanted to prove to everyone that he could do it too. Also very bold.
Shortly after that, Milan left, along with a bunch of his good buddies, but those days were always sunny in his memories. People usually like to reminisce, to be nostalgic about the past life, especially when we are carefree, can be naughty, do silly things without so much cost, and can grow up by making mistakes. Because in that period of happiness, confusion, helplessness, and sadness, we, like Ma Xiaojun, gradually matured from an ignorant child and became sensible...
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