Korean Drama "Human Disqualification"
◎ Summer land
Cheerful and light guitar music covers the background, warm color on the screen, a man and a woman come to the fashionable lover's hotel, the camera quickly switches: young men skillfully operate the open room on the screen, middle-aged women open the mobile phone chat software to send messages to their daughters, the two look at each other from time to time... Then snuggled into the room, the man's smiling and absent-minded face, the woman's ruby earrings and heels taken off... In the course of all this, a delicate and calm female monologue runs through it, telling what appears to be a letter: "Teacher, are you doing well?" From the last time I met my teacher, I have been thinking about my qualifications as a human being, not whose family, not whose friends, not whose colleagues, but simply as a person's qualifications..." This is the first three minutes of the Korean drama "Human Disqualification".
"It seems like no one is here to make a TV series"
"Human Disqualification" has nothing to do with the japanese writer Osamu Dazai's novel of the same name in terms of content but has the same tone, and is "the story of a 40-year-old woman who goes through a downturn in her life and feels that she has achieved nothing, and a 27-year-old man who is afraid that she will achieve nothing." In terms of creative lineup, it is not too much to say that it is a collective of outstanding Korean filmmakers: written by Kim Ji-ji, screenwriter of "Suyuan" and "Introduction to Architecture", directed by Heo Qinhao, director of "August Photo Studio" and "Spring Death", and starring South Korea's first Cannes film queen Quan Duyan - these three people have won more than a dozen trophies at the three major Korean film awards of Qinglong, Baekwan and Dajong. Although Liu Junlie, who played the male lead with Quan Duyan in the play, is well known for playing the role of Dog Huan in the TV series "Please Answer 1988", the focus of his career has always been on the movie, and he has a Best Film Newcomer award in hand. In addition, Kim Ji-ji and Heo Qin-ho are both creating TV dramas for the first time, Jeon Do-yeon and Yoo Joon-yeol are also returning for the first time in five years of violating TV dramas, and even the soundtrack Cho Sung-woo is a heavyweight who has won three awards for best music several times.
This group of people who "seem to have come to make a TV series" did make a completely different TV series, as can be seen from the opening part of the foregoing, they gave the whole drama a kind of literary film temperament. For audiences who are accustomed to the standard Korean drama routine, it takes time to adapt.
Taking the entry into the drama as an example, we are accustomed to seeing the scenery of the protagonist before the debut of a TV series in the first three minutes of the show, or the occurrence of an abnormal event as a primer, in short, it should be a formal beginning for the audience to set up the tea and melon seeds, adjust the mood, and look forward to the protagonist's appearance. However, "Human Disqualification" seems to randomly throw the audience into a certain point on the timeline of the character's daily life without warning or greeting, and the narrative of the two lines of sound and picture is misplaced and parallel, and the amount of information is doubled in the unit time, even if the scene is very simple, the monologue comes out, plus the monologue mentions other people, the relationship between the characters may be many times more complicated, and the audience can't help but be busy thinking about the connection between them... This seems to bury a thousand and one complicated openings, and it is indeed more like a movie that can instantly enter the situation when the field lights are dimmed.
In addition, the audience who often watches literary and art films may have experienced that the monologue that is properly handled is very infectious, and can even reach the level of dominating the senses, making the specific plot become blurred, making people immersed at the same time have a sense of withdrawal, so that what happens is no longer important, and even the picture is scattered into a floating light, leaving only emotions to dominate everything. Therefore, although it is unknown, it does not prevent the faint sadness from being captured from the expression of the man and the tone of the female voice that haunts the ear. This kind of monologue pressure picture treatment is not the "showmanship opening" of director Xu Qinhao, who is good at literary and art films, but a feature that runs through the whole play, and the monologues of the male and female protagonists are even more than the dialogue between them, which is also the director reminding us that what sets the tone for this TV series is not the plot, but the emotions.
When the audience arrives
They are already like this
Most TV drama routines are plot-driven emotions, and the protagonist of the little white and the audience have experienced great changes in temperament after experiencing mood and sorrow in sometimes very bizarre plots, and have also grown. But "Human Disqualification" is completely counter-attacking, it does not want to ink on those events that make people emotional, but tries to realistically depict the subtleties of emotions themselves and the details that provoke emotions. The sudden insertion of the opening seems to declare that when the audience arrives, they are already like this, if you can understand, okay, if you can't, forget it. For the vast majority of people we meet, all we can understand is how they feel at a brief rendezvous, their current state, the epitome of all their previous ups and downs. Therefore, it is not surprising that this drama instantly gains a group of good feelings and at the same time instantly dissuades a group of audiences. "The screenwriter must have experienced it, every sentence said in my heart" and "there is no plot at all, only endless sentimentality" are quite polar evaluations after the start of the broadcast, and they are also reasonable, so that some people sigh that "people who can't understand this drama may be truly happy."
The opening scene has been implicitly expressed, the 27-year-old man Kang Jae is the publicist of the wine store, is the person who "feels lonely in the crowd, at home will still want to go home", the 40-year-old woman Fu Qing was once a writer who caught knives for the autobiography of female artists, and is a person who is "used to being behind the scenes and is often treated as transparent". So we saw his face and a series of movements, but only heard her voice. This fits in with the background of the characters, the lonely are mostly confused but taciturn, and the writer's smoothest expression is at the end of the pen.
At the beginning of the play, both of them are at the bottom of their lives, confused in the increasing darkness, numb, and interested, but they have to continue to walk. We see that in addition to maintaining normal social functions, there are many words that can only be said to their own Kangzai and Fuqing, and their self-talk is also like a protective cover, which allows them to temporarily withdraw from reality and breathe a little, in addition to another function, that is, to let them finally find each other under the gaze of the audience's God perspective. However, the repeated jumps between the characters' inner monologues and external experiences often make the story seem broken and fragmented, which also makes many viewers who are accustomed to watching stories in TV dramas feel that the overall plot is too bland and boring, and after 10 episodes, they have never seen a lively story.
Most melodramas are eager for an event of ten minutes, a climax of half an hour, holding up the time to the fullest, without a moment's pause, as if only in this way is the efficient output of condensed life, the characters are thrown into a variety of ups and downs, and from time to time with scattered violent emotional outbursts make the audience clap their legs and shout. Although "Human Disqualification" still belongs to the melodrama in the official classification, it is "anti-plot" in presentation, which is to piece together the story line with some detail fragments under the limited fluctuations of the characters' emotions, with short flashbacks, narrative fragments, and even close-ups of objects. This is still a more suitable film shooting method, but this presentation is actually closer to our situation in reality, and it is also closer to the way we understand a person in reality.
There is no qualification as a human being
But try to maintain decency as a human being
The background of the characters of "Human Disqualification" is actually quite dog blood, Kang Zai's father committed suicide after a long illness, his mother remarried, Kang Zai has lived independently since then, but he cannot erase the knot left by his father, his friend borrowed a large amount of money from him and did not say goodbye and then suddenly sank into the lake and committed suicide, leaving a heavy burden and a bunch of mysteries; Fu Qing was beaten by female artists to cause miscarriage, and lost the job of the publishing house, hiding from her father, husband and mother-in-law to do cleaning women, her hatred for female artists has never diminished, However, it can only be expressed by leaving a message on the other party's social account, and it is therefore subpoenaed by the police. Both came from families that were not wealthy, Kang Jae's mother lived in a semi-underground hut, and fu qing's father picked up cardboard boxes to supplement the family.
According to the routine of typical bitter Love Korean dramas, it is inevitable to buy drunk and cry in pain, quarrel with all their might, and the chatter of people around them. However, in "Human Disqualification", at least so far, there are very few such externalized paragraphs, and the two protagonists seem to be only a little more "lost" than the people around them, most of the time "emotionally stable", probably have accepted everything they have experienced, and have no intention of struggling anymore, although they think that they may not be qualified as human beings, but they are trying to maintain that bit of decency as human beings. So Kang Zai helped his friend take care of the aftermath, and before leaving, he also stuffed a large bill into his birthday pocket, so that he would not forget to go over there; so Fu Qing came to the scene of the female artist's new book sale to queue up, did not make trouble, and left sadly.
A considerable part of the audience will feel that they who have reason to express resentment or despair are too weak when they are strong, and then they are not the style that the big man and the big woman should have. However, as the plot progresses, you will find that the various characters around them are almost no complete evil people. Friends who have died suddenly, cheating husbands, and mothers-in-law who love vanity are all kind people with various shortcomings, and even female artists who have been bullied have their hidden intentions, which are far from the villain-like characters in traditional melodramas. Often those who go to despair, in fact, what they really lack is the understanding of others, not the kindness of others. They themselves know this, so they would rather be angry with themselves than magnify their malice toward others. It sounds depressing and even confusing, but it's hard not to admit that it's also a deeper human reality, the kindness of desperate people, and their opportunity to find each other.
The kindness of the desperate
A deeper human reality
At the end of the first episode, Kang Jae is waiting for a train at the station when he hears Fu Qing tell his father not far away that he "feels like a failure". In the car, Fu Qing cried silently, and Kang Zai, who was sitting a few rows behind her, handed her a handkerchief, and Fu Qing suddenly grabbed his sleeve when he got up and got out of the car. This is the official first encounter of two strangers, their dialogue is no more than three sentences, even the reflection of the car window, at this time, they do not know each other's story, but out of the stranger's "seeing someone sadr than me, a little kindness sprouted." But the audience had already understood the director's parallel narrative before, so they were very pleased with this long-awaited rendezvous. Their empathy is not through talking, but by capturing the breath of sadness. Although this is an important moment worth writing about in the plot, it is surprisingly quiet in performance.
Since then, the two have met many times, the screenwriters have spared words like gold, and the director and actors seem to be more comfortable with the scenes without lines. Sometimes music fills the void of silence, sometimes it's breathing. There are also late-night buses under the camera, rooftops overlooking the city's sparks, knee wounds, Band-Aids in bags, coffee milk, expired tomato juice, a button that leaks, a red balloon, every element is silent, and can silently evoke those warm or heartbreaking moments. Quan Duyan presents countless emotional flows in every second, and the flashes of true feelings in Liu Junlie's cynical eyes are the treasures of this drama.
In fact, between Kang Zai and Fu Qing, there is a deeper buried story line, related to the friend of the sinking lake. These two people who meet in the dark may also have to face more difficult choices, whether to go to a darker place or wait for a turnaround in mutual comfort, we do not know. It's like two floating ice peaks on the surface of the sea, slowly approaching each other, the water is not alarming, and the undercurrents below the water are turbulent. They merge, collide, or disperse, all of which are equally touching. And this literary and artistic film-style Korean drama that violates the conventions of all Korean dramas also makes us realize that the melodrama that is no longer noisy and noisy, has no dog blood spilled, and lacks evil people to mess with can be so beautiful. More importantly, it shines more into reality in more detail, closer to our daily feelings, and allows us to better understand those who are trying to live in the dark.