Shower
Story Location: Beijing
Story Time: Around 2000
Director: Zhang Yang
Title: "Bathing"
Theme:
Bathing is a ritual and culture, but it has been demolished by modernization.
Zhang Yang is a new generation director with "Love Mala Tang" Known to the public, this film is his second work, which is as soothing as the first, full of nostalgic and sad feelings.
And just as the delicate and soothing old Beijing bathing methods will inevitably be replaced by fast-food-style bathing methods, soothing and delicate movies will finally be replaced by mindless "starry" movies, which is a helpless "modernization" Process. We seldom see flamboyant films these days.
The opening of the film is the reverie of He Zheng, a second-rate Beijinger played by He Bing: in the future, taking a bath will be the same as washing a car. . He said to the old man in the bathhouse played by Zhu Xu: "The pace of modern life is so fast, who has the spare time to soak in you?"
This sentence foreshadows the ending of the film and the present twenty years later. Now it is hard to find a bathhouse like the one described in this film in Beijing. In Beijing now, the collective bathing culture has been replaced by recreational activities in bathing centers. And cultural landscapes such as caged birds, fighting crickets, and the primitive and sincere neighborhood watch have also disappeared with the demolition of the bathhouse.
Old Liu's peaceful life gradually began to show crisis as he got older. First, the eldest son, Daming, came back inexplicably, then the second son, Erming, who had mental problems, disappeared, and finally, the red armband aunt notified the "demolition".
As he said to his old friend, the child grows up and it is difficult to manage. This sentence is a metaphor, I am old, and old is useless.
When old buildings are useless, they will be demolished; when old people are useless, they will die.
This is the law of nature. Can't change.
Just as Daming played by Pu Cunxin said to Erming played by Jiang Wu: "I know you don't want to leave here, but the bathhouse will always be demolished, just like Dad wants to leave us, you have to accept the reality, and I also have to accept the reality. "
Da Ming represents a kind of modernization, just like the city where he works, Shenzhen, which represents newness, vitality, fast life and so on. He despised his father for being a bath worker and running a bathhouse. He went to Shenzhen to make a lot of money. Married a wife in Shenzhen but never brought him back to Beijing to see his father, nor told his wife that his younger brother was a fool.
So Lao Liu said to Daming after Erming was lost: "I know you look down on me. You are going to make a lot of money. What are you doing here? I lost a son and I recognize it. I can't lose all of them!"
Although Erming has intelligence problem, but he's not really a fool. He is a symbol. He represents a type of stubborn children who do not want to leave their cultural homeland. They depend on each other with the elderly. They do not adapt to the jungle society of survival of the fittest, and they can only support themselves in a kind of "hutong culture". But modernity tells us that if you don't accumulate wealth as fast as everyone else in modern times, then you're a fool.
In this sense, the demolition in "Bath" is not just the demolition of buildings, but a cultural demolition. The culture that has been moved will die, just like the old man fighting crickets said that crickets cannot live in another place.
The modern Daming didn't understand why his father wanted to open a bathhouse, he just returned to Beijing for his obligation. After living with his father in Beijing for a while, he began to understand his father slowly, so he also began to give others a bath.
Lao Liu told a story to his neighbors: People in northern Shaanxi did not like to take baths, but lacked water, so they regarded bathing as a ritual. Only their daughters could take a good bath before they got married, and Daming's mother was there. people.
Daming understood why his father wanted to be a bather and why he opened a bathhouse. In my father's eyes, taking a bath is not to cleanse the skin like myself (I only use the shower), but to wash my soul.
Although Er Ming is a fool, he understands his father. So when a fat boy with a mental disorder couldn't sing "My Sun" on the stage of the demolition art show, he gave the "singer" a "final bath" with a tap. Only in the bathhouse, which cleans the soul, can the "singer" sing "My Sun", which symbolizes the cultural motif.
The bathhouse is destined to be demolished in the end, just like many rules in old Beijing will be demolished by modernization.
When He Zheng was being persecuted by the debt collectors, Lao Liu said to several debt collectors, "I don't care about the affairs between you, but in my bathroom, he is my guest, and it is my responsibility to take good care of him." Several debt collectors can only acquiesce. Later, Daming helped He Zheng, and Daming recognized the old Beijing culture represented by his father on a psychological level, and He Zheng also fulfilled his promise to make the bathhouse "bright again".
In the end, Erming couldn't be a "care" object in the orphanage. He wanted to go back to the bathhouse. He didn't want his culture to be demolished, and he didn't want to admit that his father was dead.
At the end, he told Daming a story that his father had told him: his
father said that they were going to take a bath in a far, far away place. There are all kinds of diseases...
The bathhouse was demolished, and Daming and his neighbors removed the plaque that read "Shang Shan Ruo Shui". From then on, they could no longer "bath" in the bath house. Maybe, after 20 years, they can only go to the bath center for leisure, entertainment and health care, and this is no longer the "bath" defined by Lao Liu.
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