"No Love to Tell" is a 2017 family drama by Russian director Andrei Sagintsev, which won the Jury Prize in the main competition section of the 70th Cannes Film Festival.
The story is simple: husband and wife Zhenya and Boris each have a new partner, and neither wants their 12-year-old son Alyosha to be a burden to their new life. After overhearing a heated argument between Zhenya and Boris, Alyosha disappears.
Under the chilling sky of Russia, the disappearance of Alyosha pushed the life of the former couple forward coldly. In the 128-minute period, many irrelevant shots seemed to pass clearly through the eyes of the audience.
Some people think that these are "waste shots", which not only dragged the rhythm of the whole film, but also made the director blatantly write the idea of "I want to win an award" on his forehead.
But I really like the "waste shots" in the film. Because they are not only ineffective, but also conducive to restoring the scene of Russian middle-class life.
This film does write about the "middle-class confusion" that has become popular in Cannes in recent years, but to say that "it is a metaphor for the current state of Russian politics" is an over-interpretation.
Like "Tony Erdman", "The Salesman" and other "life-flow" films, it aims to lay out life itself, with extremely stable shots (even the shaky opening scene of "The Salesman" has a very reassuring), a restrained soundtrack (nearly absent in Tony Erdman), and de-dramatization are all they have in common, but unlike the light absurdity of Tony Erdman and the Salesman "Strong moral confusion, "No Love to Complain" seems more "life", except that it is very particular about the camera and composition, it uses almost no other obvious skills.
However, the audience is quite critical of its lens processing.
The design is strong, old-fashioned, and full of long shots of unknown reasons... But I think that even if the film seems to be dragging, it must be because the second half of the volunteer search for Alyosha is too long (almost mistaken for it in the advertising for Russian community volunteers), and never because of the camera. The footage itself is hardly to blame for the length of the film.
I even wonder if some viewers have grown impatient to appreciate the artistry of the shot, let alone the power-ups that generally capture the creative intent of the director in the shot.
Maybe they want the camera to become a "fast food", which can be eaten and thrown away.
A prime example is David Lowe's "The Bed Sheet Ghost Story" "Ghosts".
Inside is what has been called "the most infamous long shot of 2017": Rooney Mara eating pie. She ate for five and a half minutes. While watching, I kept thinking: Why haven't I finished eating yet? Gradually became impatient, but in the process of being swallowed by impatience, I saw the amazingness of this shot: it uses "real time" (that is, screen time = story time, how long it takes to actually eat pie, it is displayed on the screen for as long as it takes) ) depicts the behavior of the characters, and sends life itself to the audience intact. If the audience is sensitive enough, they can experience the sadness to the greatest extent in the most real dimension.
However, the audience disliked the procrastination of the first half of "Ghosts and Ghosts", perhaps the root cause was not "eating pie", but in those absolutely still shots that seemed to press the pause button. There's a shot of Rooney Mara sleeping curled up in Casey Affleck's arms. Without any soundtrack and ambient sound. The two remained motionless. up to a few minutes. Until the piano in the next room made a ghost noise.
If you cut more than ten seconds or add more than ten seconds, will it have any effect?
No for story-first audiences, but yes for audiences sensitive to the art of cinema. Because the director is forging a quiet sad mood, the length of the shot is related to the accumulation of emotions. If you don't grasp it well, the conveying of emotions will inevitably be incomplete, and it will not be able to create a sense of immersion.
Stillness is precisely a kind of wisdom.
In comparison, "No Love to Tell" saves a lot of time on the shots, at least, its "waste shots" are moving, even if only partially.
The opening of the film is an "extraordinary" snow scene. Water lines, snow, and tree shadows are moving, but the scene itself can be regarded as still. In about a minute, the cold and quiet tone of the story is set. . Then, the snow scene was gone, and Alyosha's lonely figure appeared from the crowd of people after class.
Interestingly, at the end of the film, it is also this snow scene. The water lines, snow, and tree shadows did not change, except for the height of the tree, there was a fluttering muslin strip. It was thrown by Alyosha.
The cloth strip does not necessarily have a special and specific meaning, but the structure itself seems to complete a certain metaphor: closure, and something extra.
Another long shot of Alyosha's father Boris having lunch with colleagues is another scene with typical creative intent.
Boris asks colleagues: If something happens to a colleague's home, will the boss above know?
Thus began a period of "the absurd workplace confusion of the Russian middle class".
This is an intercepted "real time".
Sooner or later, the boss will know whether each employee is with his family and children. The implication is that the workplace needs every employee to have a happy family. This is what Boris is worried about. The two talked about the end of the world again. The camera is always in front of the two. This has some similarities with the powerful and unpretentious "long table shot" of the 2007 Cannes Palme d'Or "Three Weeks in April": when the heroine Otilia said nothing at the dinner table of her boyfriend's house In a state of being broken at any time, listening to the loud noise of her boyfriend's family, the danger of life has been injected into the audience's mind in a concrete and perceptible way. , it's still this dangerous, it's just that "two people" are not as nervous as "a group of people".
Although the discussion about "the end of the world" seems redundant, the nature of the "wasted footage" here is actually not obvious, because the dialogue always exists, which will distract the audience's attention from the picture.
But the following scene is really "wasted":
after Alyosha's friend Guzi Netsov was questioned by the volunteer boss, Alyosha's middle-aged female teacher wiped the blackboard and left the classroom. There are no characters in the picture, but the camera is still moving along the position of the TV and the desk, and has been pushing towards the window. It took 15 seconds to push it to the edge of the window, so that people can see it more clearly. I saw the blizzard outside the window, and the blurry and dim silhouette of the city in the blizzard.
For the whole story, this 15-second empty mirror can be completely cut off, but it broadens the meaning of the story itself outside the story: when the characters of the story leave the scene, does the scene without characters still preserve the emotions of the characters , making it more than just a scene? Or, where our eyes can't see, are some invisible things, along with those we can feel concretely, that together construct our moments of life, our joys and sorrows?
Whether in life or in movies, we must have certain emotions about the places we have stayed.
Excellent empty shots can sensitively help the audience capture these emotions.
And in the film "No Love to Tell", such a shot is especially necessary.
Together with the characters, stories, and feelings, they share, bit by bit, a piercing chill in the selfish life of the Russian middle class.
This life is numb, mechanical, ruthless, but occasionally bursts with strange enthusiasm that even oneself doubts.
If we use another lens to push this essence of life from Russia's ice and snow world to us, it may not necessarily be a "waste lens".
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