On May 15th, French local time, Bi Gan's new film "Last Night on Earth", which has attracted much attention, premiered in the "Un Certain Regard" section of the Cannes Film Festival. He won the Golden Horse Award and Locarno Film for "Roadside Picnic". Bi Gan, who won the Best New Director Award at the festival, is currently the most artistically talented young director in China, and has high expectations from the film industry. "Roadside Picnic" won high praise at a low cost of only a few hundred thousand, so that Bi Gan's second feature film "The Last Night of the Earth" won an investment of 50 million, and invited Tang Wei, Huang Jue, Zhang Aijia Wait for the star to star. This time, it was shortlisted for the "Un Certain Regard" section of Cannes, which was described by the filmmaker Fu Mao as "inheriting the style of Hou Hsiao-hsien and David Lynch".
After the premiere, "Last Night on Earth" stunned foreign media, and many compliments to Bi Gan appeared on the Internet, resulting in a sharp increase in the number of journalists queuing for the second screening. Bi Gan's creations rooted in the local area (Kerry, Guizhou) have made him more international potential. Although he was not selected for the main competition unit this time, he appeared in the "One Kind of Concern" unit as a newcomer, and he did not need to cooperate with him. Many big directors are competing for each other, but it will make his evaluation more pure.
The special mode of front 2D and back 3D, one hour long shot stunning foreign media
This time, "Last Night on Earth" uses a fresh viewing mode. The film is 2 hours and 10 minutes long. The first half is in normal 2D format, but in the middle, there is a rather ceremonial scene. Huang Jue, who plays the hero Luo Hongwu, enters the theater and sits down and puts on 3D glasses. "Night" subtitles appeared, prompting the audience to put on their glasses as well, and officially begin the 3D part of the film, and the entire 3D part is an hour-long shot.
It is worth mentioning that under the screening conditions in Cannes, the 3D depth effect is still relatively obvious, but because it is a night scene lens, I am afraid that it will be a test for domestic audiences to watch movies in the future. As expected, on the other hand, whether the audience can understand the way of watching movies from the middle into 3D, there is also a question mark.
Interspersed back and forth between memories and dreams, the joys and sorrows of a lifetime
"The Last Night on Earth" has about 44 shots, and has the same memory theme and narrative method as "Roadside Picnic", but the images are more gorgeous and dreamy, and the immersive dream experience is more powerful.
At the beginning of the film, the actor Luo Hongwu played by Huang Jue and the confidante played by Qi Xi decided to leave after a happy night, because he never forgot his beloved woman Wan Qiwen (played by Tang Wei) in his heart. In the first half of the film, he always Looking for traces of Wan Qiwen, from her friend's prison to her ex-husband, but there is no whereabouts of her. At the same time, the memory of meeting and falling in love with Wan Qiwen in the past, and being retaliated by Zuo Hongyuan, the boss of Wan Qiwen, emerged scene by scene in his narrative. The dispositions and words of the male and female protagonists have poetic rhythms and are full of imagination. "You can fly into space with a gun/rotate a racket", "If you kill people in the theater, you will not be discovered if you shoot at the same time as the movie characters", etc. Paragraphs have produced a bizarre effect.
The second half of the film can actually be seen as Luo Hongwu's dream, which was presented by the hour-long shot that shocked foreign media. From entering the inside of the cave, scheduling to following the cable car down the mountain, landing to the billiard room at the bottom of the mountain, and then floating into the air with the characters, then entering the square where the performance is being performed, and walking through the stairs at the foot of Miaoling Mountain, Luo Hongwu misses the people. This time, he appeared in a new image, and spelled out the joys and sorrows of his almost life. In the end, the scene fell on the deep kiss of Huang Jue and Tang Wei, and then slowly left, walking to a cluster of fireworks symbolizing the short-lived, making the audience feel like a dream. Wake up.
The wandering hero is always thinking about whether the human body is made of hydrogen gas, and whether the real memory of the heroine exists. As the lines in the film say, "The less you remember, the less you forget" "Debris flow is not terrible, but living in memory is terrible", Bi Gan seems to want to convey a kind of philosophical speculation on memory. At the same time, he also combined his own aesthetic style with the audience's viewing experience, because when watching the movie, the audience will involuntarily project the memory of the previous plot and character lines into the later dream, which is consistent with the protagonist. Feichi's thoughts coincided.
Self-contained aesthetic logic, magical and ambiguous space creation
Today, Bi Gan is considered to be the most promising candidate to be promoted to the best art film director in China among young directors. This is inseparable from his own aesthetic logic. Within his aesthetic logic, the presentation of light and shadow is almost inextricable. Can be picky.
This time he was inspired by Chagall's paintings, Modiano's novels and Paul Celan's poems. Crimson and dark green form the main color of the film, which has both strong conflict and surreal feeling. In the composition, Bi Gan pays great attention to the use of props. There are round mirrors and lamps of various shapes in the interior scene, which are bright and dark, bringing different atmospheres. The important symbolic prop clock in "Roadside Picnic" is also present. It appears several times in this film; the exterior uses the Kaili landform to create a sense of space to travel back and forth. And his "ruin aesthetics" still exists, and the sparkling light reflected in the basement of the cave is ambiguous and magical.
The music of the film is completed by Lin Qiang, who has collaborated with Hou Hsiao-hsien many times, and Taiwanese musician Xu Zhiyuan. It uses a lot of electronic music elements, and the melody and texture are very catchy. As a post-80s generation, Bi Gan also used Wu Bai and Wu Bai. Karen Mok sang "Strong Reason", Chen Huilin's "Flower Universe", and the southern duet "Dark Green Night" and other well-known songs of her age.
Tang Wei gave birth to the most beautiful screen image, and star performance was integrated into the director's style
Since "Roadside Picnic" is mostly performed by non-professional actors, this "Last Night on Earth" invited big stars such as Tang Wei to play, which was once questioned to affect the director's original ecological mood. However, it turns out that Bi Gan has successfully integrated the star actors into his own style.
This is the most suitable film for Tang Wei. She plays two roles in the film. Wan Qiwen, a "movie fan" in a dark green dress, has the same name as a Hong Kong star. The source, erratic, symbolizes the rise of love from its peak to its end. The other is Kaizhen in a red leather jacket in an hour-long shot. As his name suggests, he is as innocent and lively as "Kerry's Pearl" and still has dreams about the world. It symbolizes the sweetness of the birth of love. This can also be called Tang Wei's most beautiful screen image, which is completely in line with her beautiful temperament.
Zhang Aijia also played the roles of the wild cat mother and the red-haired woman. The latter also appeared in the one-hour long shot. A few of her lines inadvertently broke the theme of the relationship between memory and dreams. The male protagonist Huang Jue is the narrator of the story and the leader who leads the audience into their dreams. His slightly heavy image provides a solid foundation for the content of the film. Li Hongqi, who plays "Wild Cat", doesn't make many appearances, but a long shot of crying while eating apples almost recreates his acting moments in "Drunken Life and Dream Death". Although "Brother Sheng" Chen Yongzhong has only two plays this time, the image of the unpredictable big guy has broken through the state of the past folk poets.
In addition, Qi Xi and Ming Dao also made cameo appearances in the film. Several other non-professional actors have their own characteristics, just forming a sense of correspondence with the hero Huang Jue, especially Luo Feiyang, who played the childhood wild cat, full of primitive sense of power at a young age.
Phoenix.com score: 8 points
Bi Gan took me on a slow and steady roller coaster ride with "The Last Night on Earth", taking us through memory, sadness, and his unique film and television magic. Even after the movie ended, the aftertaste was still lingering. And the 50-minute series of shots will be talked about for a long time in the film circle.
--Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
"Last Night on Earth" is a feast for the senses, everything in the film is deduced by atmosphere, impression, emotion. Although the plot of a man returning home after his father's death sounds mundane, in Bi Gan's eyes, no journey is flat. Under his lens, movies are dreams, and in dreams, even ordinary stories are bound to be dreamy and colorful.
—Mónica Delgado, Desis FIim
If I could lock myself in a small room and watch "Last Night on Earth" repeatedly until the Cannes Film Festival closes, I'd love it.
——Cedric Scccivali "ICS FIlm"
Bi Gan directed an original work that is unique in style, full of emotion, and beautiful. From the first minute to the last minute of the film, I was gripped by the story, and whether it was pacing, style, or originality, this was a work that couldn't be faulted.
- Papaya Films
"The Last Night on Earth" shows us its extremely high quality: from the actors, the color of the picture, the setting of the stage, to the director, they are all one-of-a-kind. And when Bi Gan finally shakes out his genius long shot, you know right away that this movie is pure magic.
— Caspar Salmon
Text / Qin Wan
Original reading: Catching the Shadows in Cannes ⑥: The long shot of "Earth" stunning Tang Wei's most beautiful image was born
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