If "Mahjong" tests the limit of good and evil with the narrative method of disintegrating groups, then "Terrorist" tests the limit of weakness with a tracking method. This is the weakness of a man, the weakness of a man's attitude to survive in the family and society.
"The Terrorist" is Yang Dechang's first work that has won wide international reputation. It was completed in 1986 and won the 1987 British National Film Award, the Pissarro Film Festival's Best Director Award, the Golden Horse Award for Best Feature Film and the Asian Film Festival. Best Screenplay Award.
The reason why this movie uses a clue-following narrative is because there is a very strong sense of suspense in the development of the story. As the suspense is continuously lifted, the weakness of life is pushed to the limit that people can bear. ? Or rebel against weakness? The problem that the protagonist has to face.
Doctor Li Lizhong has a secure job and an enviable wife. His wife, Zhou Yufen, loves to write, and quit her job to write novels at home, but her languid life made her feel impoverished, restless and exhausted after selling out her experience. After the troubled girl Shuan escaped from a crime, she was locked at home by her mother. She was bored. Shuan found a phone book and made all kinds of harassing calls. When she called Li Lizhong's house, she pretended to be Li Lizhong's mistress. Zhou Yufen, who was repeatedly frustrated in her creation and spirit, could not face this blow and run away.
This interrupted Li Lizhong's accustomed life. He repeatedly humbled his wife, and even did not dare to walk into his wife's study easily. Zhou Yufen returned to her old lover who was still caring about her, wrote a novel based on the impact of this anonymous phone call on the peaceful life of a couple, and became famous. After becoming famous, Zhou Yufen became even more disgusted with her previous life.
Li Lizhong, who was puzzled, also suffered setbacks in his career, and his original desire to be promoted to the team leader failed. Family crises and career crises both flock to this man who has always been cautious. Guided by a photographer who witnessed it all, he understood the reason for his wife's departure. But everything is irreversible.
Li Lizhong celebrated with police Lao Gu with a deceitful smile that he became the "team leader", and stole Lao Gu's gun, which was kept in the dark. All kinds of violence were reported one by one. His lover, pursued revenge against Shu'an, and finally killed himself and everything.
In the narrative of the film, Li Lizhong is always deceived and weak. Before retaliating, his most daring performance was to frame a colleague who was competitive with him with a little trick. But this kind of frame-up is also feminine, like a soft knife, and it was stabbed out quickly in a panic.
The tracking narrative of this film is manifested in two levels: one is that Li Lizhong is tracking the reasons for his sudden misfortune, which is the surface of the narrative; the other is that the narrator is tracking the meaning of Li Lizhong's life, and finally to him life questions.
As the director, Yang Dechang questioned the characters of the film, and the answer must be himself. When constructing the ending of this movie, Yang Dechang must have faced many possibilities in his life. Should he let Li Lizhong continue to live weakly, or should he just leave the previous weakness?
Yang Dechang chose the latter. This choice will be influenced by two factors, one is the need for dramatic conflict; the other depends on the analysis of such a life possibility. Yang Dechang must think that the weak has reached the limit, and that is not the case with human actions.
In fact, we can completely design another life for Li Lizhong, retreat from the current career and family, and choose another calm and gentle start. Although this ending is loose and will weaken the dramatic conflict, it can also be in line with the spirit of another type of Li Lizhong.
Clearly, the reflections embodied in this film focus on family ethics. In family ethics, a core issue is the form of management of family life, which in modern society is generally divided into two types: one-sided and two-sided. In Li Lizhong's family, women's power is more prominent. Li Lizhong is careful in the family, and even the design and furnishings of the family must be obeyed by his wife. Due to the long-term writing at home, the wife is constantly faced with spiritual nothingness, and the lack of stimulation of the family for a long time makes the wife's life prostration even more exacerbated.
For both husband and wife in a family, there are roughly two factors that can promote their stable development, either doing their own thing or working together, both of which are based on love, understanding and tolerance.
In Li Lizhong's house, Li Lizhong never thought novels were difficult to write, nor did he read novels. This kind of estrangement in career will inevitably make their families belong to the ranks of doing their own things. Li Lizhong can still deal with it calmly in his career, but Zhou Yufen has been unable to move an inch on the road of writing.
After suffering this setback, Zhou Yufen once wanted to have a child and form a stable family, but this plan fell through again. Long-term mutual isolation, lack of understanding, and the exhaustion of the power of love will inevitably make this family in danger.
A discordant existence is bound to be vulnerable in the face of accidental attacks.
Shu'an's anonymous phone call became the trigger for this crisis, but it was also what Zhou Yufen said later, and the phone call could only be regarded as a trigger. In the face of Li Lizhong's weakness and mediocrity, Zhou Yufen already needs a beginning, a new beginning, but she always needs a reason.
The call came, the reason came, and Zhou Yufen took this to fly high.
A weak, simple, mediocre man, who has never lost his love for his wife, needs a stable and decent family shell most. When this shell is broken, and it is broken under the action of many unexpected reasons, what can this man do? manage?
Li Lizhong chose to crack the cause and try his best to restore it. What can he do when this effort is not possible? Yang Dechang raised these questions and pushed Li Lizhong to the point of weakness. Li Lizhong began to use violence, and went to his wife's work unit in a violent manner, asking her to go home, but the result was a complete failure.
At the same time, Li Lizhong was faced with a crisis in his career, and his desire to be a team leader also came to nothing. If he can be satisfied in his career, perhaps the story will not end with a violent ending, and Li Lizhong may be able to find himself again from his personal expansion and get back on the road, but this assumption was also cancelled by Yang Dechang. Therefore, Li Lizhong only had revenge, and only revenge was left.
After revenge, Li Lizhong ended himself.
Just like the young man in the movie who witnessed the whole process of the story, Yang Dechang, who is a witness, has witnessed the fragility of life and the complete process of fragility reaching its limit until it collapses.
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