In terms of the director and the play, Wang Xiaoshuai's "Long Time" did not reach the general level of his peers. Nor was he able to rebuild his reputation shattered by the "Hu Bo incident" through the film. What happened between the two, and what kind of person he is, we don't know and we won't talk nonsense, but if we look at this film alone, Wang Xiaoshuai's talent and creative sincerity are far less than Hu Bo, who was scolded by him. .
If Jia Zhangke has been criticized as having declined in recent years and has been accused of relying too much on the accumulation of symbols of the times, then after watching the new film "Long Time", directed by Wang Xiaoshuai, who is also the best in the sixth generation, you will sigh that in Chinese literary films In other words, in the field of art films, Jia Zhangke is still at the top of the list, and he cannot accept it.
Because even in the stacking of symbols, the high and low can be distinguished. This time, Wang Xiaoshuai used the cheapest way to present symbols to shoot a family-friendly TV series.
"Long Time" exposed all his past problems: he never lacked literary and artistic elements, but always gave people a feeling of pseudo-literary art. For example, say everything with literary lines instead of camera shots.
To give a few examples:
"The one that just passed was the former auditorium. It was demolished? Time passed so quickly, there was no shadow at all."
"He will forget."
"In her words, time has stopped and all that's left is getting older"
"Liyun and I are living for each other now, we can't stand the toss anymore"
"It's ridiculous, are we still afraid of death now?"
Not to mention the sentence "It seems like a big tree has grown in my body. When I grow up, the tree grows with me... The tree is about to burst my body."
Simply embarrassing.
As a movie, the meaning of these lines should be expressed by the plot text and the director's sound and picture means, rather than a dynamic scene of seeing pictures and talking. This is the trick of traditional TV dramas, and it cannot capture our hearts, because these delicate feelings are not felt by the audience through lens scheduling, photography, and paragraph arrangement, but are forced to the audience.
The ambition of "Long Days" is very ambitious. The story spans more than 30 years. You can clearly feel the narrative tone of "Long, Days". The situation and family fate of the people are unpredictable with the changes of the system, such as the sea duckweed, Sad and absurd. This is the director's intention that can be clearly seen, but the overall look and feel is not good. The film does not show the talent that matches its ambition, leaving only the symbols of the era and the sensationalism full of calculations.
From the return of the educated youth to the 21st century, the head of the family played by Wang Jingchun moved his wife from Inner Mongolia to the seaside because of the loss of his son and the inability to face the collective working environment. . But this sense of time and change is particularly weak in the film. Whether it is a collective factory in a northwestern city in the family planning era, or a small seaside town in the 21st century, it cannot resonate with people. Even if we compare Jia Zhangke's much-criticized "Old Man in Mountains and Rivers" and "Children of Rivers and Lakes", we can find that the events in Jia Zhangke's specific era were unfolded against the background of social group portraits. The shape of society unfolds as the plot progresses. And "Long Time" lacks the ability to create group portraits and specific events of the times. For example, you can't see why the hero Liu Yaojun has such a deep emotional foundation with his neighbors. This is not a scene of celebrating his son's birthday through a shared dinner. And the joke line of "did doll kiss" can make the audience recognize it.
The only event that can show the emotion and relationship between friends is "friend was arrested by the police because of the dance", but the story only shows what happened to the family, only tells us what happened, like showing us postcards, we see Not how the family and the whole society get along, what is the daily life, which makes the audience unable to appreciate the atmosphere of each era in the film. After 3 hours of exhaustion, you can only feel the length of the film, but not the length of time spanned on the screen, so the epic sense is out of the question.
In addition, in terms of scene scheduling, only indoor scenes are presented, and there are few exterior scenes, and there are also one or two scenes of people going off work perfunctory about the life scenes of the factory.
The audience cannot recognize the sense of the times, nor can they deeply understand the feelings and psychology of the characters in the era, and the emotions of the characters in the film will be like puppets. The extramarital affair between Liu Yaojun, played by Wang Jingchun, and his friend's sister, Shen Moli, is very weak, and this relationship has not established a rationality. Why would a free woman who wants to go abroad keep obsessing over a former factory master who is now a disgraced uncle? What makes them unforgettable, is it a revenge for that era of sexual repression, or is it because of the unique purity of collective life? We can't see it.
Even if we think about the love between Jasmine and Liu Yaojun, assuming it holds true. But more than ten years have passed, and the world has already changed. Why did Jasmine make a special trip to find Liu Yaojun for a one-night stand before going abroad, and after an unexpected pregnancy, she wished to help Liu Yaojun give birth to a child. Jasmine's reason was to compensate for the loss of her son that her brother and sister-in-law brought to Liu Yaojun. This obviously confuses the audience. It is no wonder that many female audiences say that this is Wang Xiaoshuai's patriarchal consciousness, and the movie is judged as a wretched patriarchal movie.
I am reluctant to judge this plot from modern values, I only care if the characters are true. And everyone reacted strongly to this episode, precisely because he didn't stand up the characters. We couldn't feel the extent of Jasmine's admiration and admiration for Liu Yaojun, the factory master, and we also couldn't feel the loss of Liu Yaojun's son. Why did this arouse Jasmine's lasting sympathy and resonance. In this way, the audience can only understand that the director's patriarchal consciousness is making trouble.
The root cause is in the play, the director did not explain the particularity of that era and the imprint on people clearly, and it was sloppy. Why did a factory master in that era become a hero in the eyes of female apprentices, and this image will not be erased for a long time? Why does the loss of a child cause so much harm? The neighbor's sister is so big that she is willing to sacrifice her future. What was that era like, and was the harm to individuals in that era just the denial of reproductive rights?
The sense of the times is the biggest flaw in this film. There are still many questions raised by this, such as why Liu Yaojun was so generous in the face of his son being indirectly killed by a neighbor, why Liu Yaojun's family resolutely escaped from Inner Mongolia, and so on.
There will always be people who say that this is the reason why it is irresistible. In fact, this film has already been filmed to this point. Since it has been released, will the sense of the times be laid out in place and the characters clearly shaped, will it really prevent it from being released? It's hard to say, I don't think so. And it's not 20 years ago, I don't think it's so easy to touch the safety line for a subject of this scale.
Since I chose to shoot such an epic drama, it is obviously not enough to pile up the symbols of the era only in the light of the light, and lack of powerful events and characters, nothing else can be talked about. This is a problem with the director's talent, or the drunkard's intention is not drinking.
In fact, talent and purpose are the same thing. Since Wang Xiaoshuai's famous work "17-year-old Bicycle", his films have been full of TV dramas. His directing style is not strong, and the penetrating power of his works is not as good as that of Jia Zhangke, a Shanxi postgraduate who also belongs to the sixth generation of directors. And his talent is not comparable to Lou Ye, who is also known as the "sixth generation leader".
Although Wang Xiaoshuai's films are not short of little characters, there are always cruel reality and tumultuous changes in the times. But he just took these as skins and took a route to sensational drama. This is his purpose and his ceiling. "17-year-old bicycle" is like this, and so is "Long Time".
If there is any other way for this movie to make people watch it, there is only one technique left: forcing sensationalism. These literary and artistic lines, which are difficult to say even in TV dramas, are precisely the way he uses to sensationalize.
It can also be seen from the title of the film that in the face of mainland audiences, the director chose a more reunion-oriented concept to explain the film: as time goes by. And the real core of this film is already pointed out in the third long shot of the film's opening: a child left his seat and went to the sea, and another child sat in that position again, replacing him. "Replacement" and "return" are the themes of this film, just like his English name: "so long, my son". If you focus on expressing this well, the temperament of the film may be clearer, but the current thinness and clutter stems from the fact that there are too many things to talk about, but there is no subconscious mind.
I have to say that the performances of the two actors, Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei, are really excellent. This movie is completely supported by the performance of the two actors, so that people will not fall asleep halfway.
But in the end, the couple's tomb-sweeping scene lost to Ge You and Gong Li's tomb-sweeping scene in "Alive". Not in the performance, but in the audience's empathy for the characters. Although they are also suffering and smiling, they can't really resonate. They can only feel that the two old people in "Long Time" are really miserable, but you can't feel the "length of time" that Yu Hua said. The performances of Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei are exactly the same as those of Ge You and Gong Li, and they are indistinguishable from each other, but the results are thousands of miles apart. The director can only bear the blame. With two best actors at the Berlin Film Festival, a good hand, a weak one.
In fact, "Long Time" is not an attempt without artistic means, such as Haiyan's cry of the kettle when she is arguing with the children. This is one of the few passages that let me see a little bit of the director's thoughts, but unfortunately, I have seen it in Jia Zhangke's "Platform", but it is not comparable to the platform. The cry of the kettle in "Platform" has rich intentions behind it. And Wang Xiaoshuai's cry of the kettle has only one function, to set off the anxious atmosphere. Think about it, is it a bit too harsh to criticize Jia Zhangke's decline?
Finally, I have to talk about the ideology of the film. In fact, ethical and moral criticism should not always be involved in evaluating the quality of the film, but there is no way. The fifth-generation director has not solved the problem of crime and punishment The sixth generation is not resolved yet. It is still necessary to bring it up.
There is a rule, as long as it is a movie about "the greatest love", it is often easy to choose to avoid the issue of "responsibility division". At the end of the old friends reunion paragraph, Haiyan, who killed Liyun's son, confessed before her death: "We are rich, we are not afraid, we can give birth." Everyone left bitter tears, and everyone reconciled.
This paragraph stealthily changed the concept, turning "cannibalism" into "national justice", making it reasonable to force others to have an abortion (killing the child in Liyun's belly), because the country is poor, and it is necessary to focus on the economy and planning Giving birth is impossible. But this sentence is unsatisfactory. This is not the way of redemption that a happy ending should have. The most basic "I'm sorry" must be there. Otherwise, how can friendship last forever? The political environment cannot be changed, but there are good intentions and bad intentions in personal choices. Whether you secretly protect or fall into trouble is the touchstone of human nature. Human nature can't stand experiments? That's right. But you owe her an apology. Therefore, this paragraph hides the "evil" inspired by the deformed society, and instead uses helplessness as an excuse. The original sin of the dark side of the human heart just disappeared, and no one seemed to be responsible for it.
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