Cold, rational, speculative, calm, cruel, the critics' evaluation of Taiwanese director Yang Dechang.
A film critic commented on Yang Dechang's "Guling Street": After four hours of savings, the whole world collapsed.
I have seen two films directed by Yang Dechang before, "One One", "Guling Street Murder", and "Terrorist" is the third one. He always has enough stamina. He uses his own thinking and observation to reproduce an absolutely real movie. The world, this world is not the real world, but a refined, rearranged and well-organized virtual world. The raw materials come from reality. Germany's Krakauer said that the ontology of film is the restoration of the material real world. French Bazin said that film is a The asymptote of life, it cannot completely reproduce reality, it can only approach it infinitely. Rather than viewing it as a representation, simulation, and subjectivism of reality, I prefer to view film as a rearrangement of real materials, whose core decisive force is the director’s creativity, which should also be the essence of film being regarded as an art. For this reason, Bazin and his followers of Cahiers du cinéma refer to it as "author theory". This is my movie view.
The worldview in "Terrorist" comes from life. In the 1970s, Taiwan withdrew from the United Nations and broke off diplomatic relations with the United States. Other countries cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan like dominoes. Taiwan became an isolated island and was isolated from the world. At this time, Taiwan proposed ten The social changes brought about by the large-scale construction and economic development have caused the alienation of people, and the negative emotions caused by existentialism have spread rapidly in Taiwan society like a plague. With the sensitive art sense, this sense of suffocation is first reflected in the works of art , Yang Dechang's film came into being.
Everyone says that no one is at fault, it is society that is at fault. The society has given the middle class a relatively prosperous life, but it has ignored the space for the pursuit of personal meaning. Therefore, everyone's pursuit of wealth has become common practice. The so-called success theory is also measured by the accumulation of wealth. , the society regards it as a social roundworm in a disdainful tone, and all these malicious intentions stem from one reason, and they cannot create value temporarily. Ironically, most of the tragedies caused by the crisis of human nature in society stem from these "middle classes" who believe in the supremacy of money. And those who are different, but most of them end up being a "complete person" in Schiller's mouth, "a person who is rational (impulsive) and sensual (impulsive) in harmony". Yang Dechang's films are the images of all beings in Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s, whether it is a female writer who pursues art at the expense of her family, a middle-class who is extremely shrewd and incompetent, a rich second generation who uses ideals as an excuse to escape reality, and is immersed in novels and love. Simple and positive girls, social youths who use "fairy dance" to make money, all these kinds of things make us feel very familiar, why? Because this is also the appearance of all beings in contemporary China.
Therefore, under Yang Dechang's camera, the characters are sinister and maliciously slander a competing colleague in order to be promoted to a high position. Even if the colleague has a good personal relationship with him, the character lacks emotion, and cannot have the slightest empathy with his wife who is in creative trouble, and has never even seen his wife create day and night. 's novel. The characters are cowardly, and in the face of a powerful third party, their posture is extremely humble. All kinds of things have aroused our infinite empathy. Little do we know that this weak and incompetent hero is actually ourselves.
If Hou Hsiao-hsien reconciled with his former self by staring at his memories, then Yang Dechang turned into an experienced doctor, using a calm and cold scalpel to pick out the tumor that causes social morbidity, exposing it to the sun, allowing the patient to Willful scrutiny. Yang Dechang, who was born in science, prefers to hide his rational thinking and strong emotions in cold long shots, rather than pursuing poetry and creating an illusion of a happy life. This may be the biggest difference between him and Hou Hsiao-hsien. the difference.
A good movie should have humanistic care. "Terrorist", as Yang Dechang's early film, is a complete tragedy, but it does not mean that Yang Dechang has completely despaired of Taiwan. This extreme despair and cruelty are caused by Yang Dechang's calmness The objective long shot, shown under the fixed lens, has a Brecht alienation effect, which makes people feel the cruelty while maintaining self-rational thinking. The audience is empathetic and alienated to the movie characters. Create a bystander's perspective.
So when the movie ended, Tsai Qin's distant and deep singing sounded, and then we could really appreciate the old saying of Romain Rolland - there is only one kind of heroism in the world, that is, after seeing the truth of life, you still love life.
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