Forcibly forgiven and reunited "for a long time"

Madyson 2022-03-11 08:01:57

On the evening of February 16, Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei jointly won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actor and Actor at the 69th Berlin Film Festival for "Long Time". With their profound accumulation and keen emotional empathy, these two middle-aged actors, whose names are almost impossible for the audience to remember, have almost perfectly shaped a pair of "the most ordinary ordinary couples", and they have also touched countless audiences.

This film tells the fetters of Liu Yaojun and Shen Yingming. When their sons Liu Xing (Xingxing) and Shen Hao (Haohao) were playing in the wild, Xingxing died in an accident, which completely changed the fate of the two families. . Liu Yaojun and his wife went to the south, and many years later, the two families reunited again. In the three hours of the film, although it spans the north and the south, it includes the return of the educated youth, the crackdown, family planning, the layoff of factory workers, the south to work, the prosperity of real estate and other era events, which shape the life section of the sad family, but the final events and The emotional foothold is still "forbearance", "forgiveness" and "reunion", lacking the necessary reflection and the transformation of the human nature of the parties involved. Rather than saying that "Long Time" has a grand narrative, it is better to say that it is just a counterpoint between personal destiny and social and historical events.

This is a movie that relies entirely on the superb acting skills of the actors and ignores the director's skills. Aside from impeccable expressions and contemporary props, you don't see the transformation of the image, nor the shaping of the environment. Actors perform between each set with little interaction with the space. What the audience sees is the enlarged detail performance of the actors, which is a one-to-one precise emotional communication. The non-linear narrative not only makes up for the emotional incoherence of the characters and avoids the most direct response to the pain of the times, but also allows the acting rather than the directing technique to dominate the narrative.

The first is that the roles of Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun are highly consistent. In the face of the biggest tragedy in life, the two did not blame each other, did not lose control, and did not become hysterical. There was also no resentment of the accident during the time the two were alone. All the power points are Yaojun's fist on the wall, and even cheating is not Yaojun's active choice. Grief makes people speechless, but it doesn't make two people who depend on each other unable to communicate. They are idealized communities without autonomy.

In the role of Yaojun's father, Wang Jingchun's excellent acting skills cover up the insufficiency of character creation, turning the character's inner grief and anger into external actions that the audience can intuitively experience, such as smoking, silence, and hesitating to speak. However, it is difficult for us to see the complete character arc of this character at the text level. From the anger during the family planning period to the despair of losing his beloved son, to the numbness of saying goodbye to his hometown and going south to work, all emotions lack logical interpretation and release. , until he was forced to complete the "big reunion" style ending, Wang Yaojun always stayed in the state of "all good, all good" in the scene where Jasmine came to be a guest, and was always just a "good person".

When a film work expresses the greatest suffering and sadness, the highest form is to cover up the sadness, maintain decency, and move on with life. In "Long Time", the loss of children is the premise before everything else. All characters need to take this as the primary survival principle at all times. They are not allowed to start a new life again, and they are not allowed to live with joy. , unable to reintegrate into society, unable to never mention the past, and even pretending to be happy is wrong, so it is difficult to avoid the single state of the characters.

The "child" in the film has also become a symbolic existence due to space limitations. The lack of interaction between families and the emotional foreshadowing of father and son make the film a loss of the concept of children, rather than a farewell to real characters. The memories of their past shared life details are particularly dry. Shen Yingming came over with a kitchen knife and wanted to put his life on the line. Even though it increased the dramatic tension, it was by no means a normal behavior for parents who protected their children. It was more like a performance under guilt.

Jasmine, played by Qi Xi, is a perspective from the outside, similar to the role of the "audience in the play", she is the witness of the whole event. However, in the second half of the film, Jasmine replaced Liyun as the heroine and began to participate in the progress of the plot. It is an "ineffective" push. In the film, Jasmine should have played a role in connecting the two families, and her reappearance allowed the two families who had lost contact to reconnect, which was a bond to relieve the past. But in the subsequent episode of returning home, the audience quickly learned that the opportunity for the two to reconnect with each other could be resolved with a phone call. The character of Jasmine is pregnant to atone for sin, creating a rift for the couple who lost their only child, and finally creating a little tension through video calls, except for the blood, there is no promotion.

Another role of Jasmine's role is to lead to Liyun's attempted suicide, pushing the "couple who live for each other" further into the abyss. In the film, Yaojun has a line: "In Liyun's words, time has stopped, and the rest is to grow old slowly". Undoubtedly, Liyun's suicide is a strong turning point designed by the director to make up for the procrastination and single emotion in the second half of the film.

In Jasmine, we can't see the growth trajectory of this character, nor her persistent attitude towards the whole incident. She is the conflict that comes at the director's call, and also the little episode that goes away after drinking.

The role of the adopted son Xingxing also lacks a deeper expression. The family who lost the only child adopted an orphan who looked like their own child and took the same name. The emotions that this child has to bear and the self-deception that husband and wife need to face are not what the rebelliousness and running away from home can show in the film. At the end of the film, when the adopted son returns, he omits the most complicated emotional transformation, and regards moving the audience as the greatest behavioral significance.

The new and beautiful jade in the three pairs of families, apart from their existence as a manifestation of the characteristics of the times, has absolutely nothing to do with the Yaojun family and the orphan incident, so at the end of the film, they can only appear as a kind of reunion. He is like Qin Hao dancing in gingham pants in "Qinghong", and was added to it for the director's personal memory.

Among the various character behaviors, "Long Time" also conceals the cowardice of the core of the script.

The first is the unacceptable rebellion of the adopted son.

He came to the motorcycle party with fancy clothes and roared to eat a pot of watermelon. He broke with his adoptive parents angrily and did not forget to kneel to say goodbye. The realization of adulthood is to accept that his parents still call himself "Xingxing" regardless of the real name on the ID card. The director controls that each character is not allowed to have abundant instinctive feelings, which is actually a kind of "don't dare". Don't dare to let idol stars self-destruct their images, don't dare to let the contradictions escalate and reveal evil, and don't dare to make another choice that is more in line with human nature besides the big reunion.

Before her death, Haiyan said to Liyun, "We have money, and we can have children." There was no reflection on the family planning policy, no questioning about the meaning of her life's work, and she just used a line with extremely inappropriate logic to atone for her sins. Even the deputy director who has implemented the family planning policy for decades, does he really have such guilt? This most confessional character makes the audience perceive the most indefensible evasive ambiguity.

The truth about Haohao in the three-hour film was placed at the end of the film as the biggest "burden" by the director. This is the truth that broke up the two families, and it is also the guilt that makes Haiyan and Haohao restless all their lives. However, what is revealed to the audience is just a "pushed" behavior of a child who has no reason not to be forgiven. Haohao's line here is: "A tree has grown in my heart, and I'm about to be broken by it", so begging for forgiveness is just because my heart can't bear it, not because I want to atone for my sins. Behind this "unbearable" is a wealthy and happy family, a staggered dinner party, and a "generous" who chooses a set of real estate to give away. None of this has any atonement.

Yaojun and Liyun responded: "Just say it." They can't even choose to hate, they can't blame young children, they can't resent their colleagues who are doing their jobs, and they can't even cry and make a fuss, because this is the director Understand the "forbearance of people in that area".

What "Long Time" presents to the audience is a vague and covert criticism of the meaning of the times, but no character stands up to reflect and atone for his sins.

Only silence and forgiveness can last forever. What "Long Time" wants to impress the audience is the truth, but the characters in the film are the most unreal.

However, it still gave four stars...see the short review for the reasons...

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Extended Reading
  • Jaunita 2022-03-15 09:01:11

    Accept life, accept fate, and work hard to move forward. The people of the previous generation were really forbearing and helpless, but they still chose to be generous. Although the final ending is a bit happy, but Liu Xing's sentence that my father, I am a star, is my biggest tear. What about positive and negative life, it is good to live, and the stars are still there. (But I still feel that three hours is a bit too long. In fact, sometimes it is a technique to cut it properly (the voice of the stars is really nice)

  • Dorothy 2022-03-15 09:01:11

    Thirty years later, another "Alive"! Definitely the best film at the Berlin Film Festival!

So Long, My Son quotes

  • Moli Shen: In love, women are stupid.