"We Are All Wooden Men" is a hit at this year's Berlin Film Festival,
Shortlisted for the Cenozoic Unit and received the Special Mention Award,
More popular than the main competition unit film,
The box office is sold out, and the media field cannot enter without queuing up in advance.
The Shanghai International Film Festival in June quickly invited this film,
Five screenings in total over five days.
Stills from "We're All Wooden Men"
This is a Japanese version of "Guess the Train",
Mixed with a little bit of kore-eda and the shadow of "Thief Family",
Four 13-year-old boys and girls meet in a funeral home.
Car accidents, suicides, murders, gas explosions took away their parents.
But they didn't shed a single tear.
Instead, he took this opportunity to start wandering around in pairs.
The film is full of typical Japanese elements:
Red and white machine games, Japanese manga, otaku...
The 35-year-old director Chang Yun has been shooting commercials before,
It was his first feature film.
"I like to focus the lens on minors,
They are the way people are supposed to be. ”
Self-description Chang Yun Editor Chen Xing
"We Are Little Zombies" tells the story of four 13-year-old boys and girls who meet by chance at the crematorium and find that they have lost their parents and become orphans for various reasons. Since then, they have come in and out together, and have formed a band called "Wooden Man", playing music to pin their emotions.
Xiao Guang's parents unfortunately died in a traffic accident while on vacation. A gas explosion occurred at ishii's house, killing both parents. The Takemura family is very poor, and his parents chose to commit suicide because they owed too much money. There is also a girl, Ikuko, whose parents were brutally murdered by stalkers.
Little Light at his parents' funeral
Having suffered such a major blow, several young people did not shed a single tear at the funeral. People look at them sideways, but they laugh at themselves as "wooden people", which is the source of the title.
The film won the 2019 Sundance Film Festival Jury Special Creative Award, and also won the Berlin International Film Festival Special Mention Award, which became a small hit.
The film cost 200 million yen (12.79 million yuan) and took about 60 days to shoot. In fact, in Japan, the average movie is about two weeks long, and 60 days is a long, long time.
Make a movie with the idea of making a game
At first glance, the movie looks like an RPG game. The four protagonists are the four characters in the game, each with different skills, distinguished by color: Light is blue, Character is Warrior, Ishii is green, Character is Eldest Son, Takemura is red, Character is Fighter, Ikuko is white, Character is a bit like the Virgin Mary, healing everything, saving everything.
The main plot of the first half of the film is that the four people roam the road together on an adventure. After the death of their parents, they were both homeless, and they did not want to be adopted by the social shelter, or bound by the guardian, so they escaped together, and from then on they no longer went to school, wandering around aimlessly every day.
Their adventures are designed to resemble the game's monster playthroughs. The protagonist must pass through one level after another, and complete the corresponding tasks in each level before proceeding to the next link.
These tasks are related to the personality and experience of each protagonist. For example, Xiaoguang likes to play games, and the content of the first level is that Xiaoguang evades the guardian's surveillance and returns home to get his pocket game console.
Ishii's family owned a Chinese restaurant, and after the fire, the home was reduced to rubble, and from the ruins he found the wok that his mother usually valued.
Xiao Guang went home to get the key prop: the pocket game console
Ishii gets the key item in his home, which is already in ruins of the fire house: the iron pot
Game consoles or woks are all objects they cherish. Some are the relics of the family, which is a kind of sustenance for the protagonists to miss their previous lives.
I used a lot of overhead shots, which may not be common in movies, but it's actually the dominant visual in RPG games. Many times, I put the camera in a very high corner, or set up a camera in a place where I don't usually put a camera, and the audience looks like watching this group of boys and girls in the game playing monsters.
The "weirdness" they want to fight, in the movie, becomes the "adults". I portray adults as the enemies of children, the objects of their rebellion and elimination.
Although the plot is set, these children have both parents died at the beginning, but in fact, in the process of their roaming, the previous experiences are constantly flashing back, and their relationship with their parents is revealed.
We see that the parent-child relationship of four people is questionable. Takemura has been suffering from domestic violence, and his father often punches and kicks him. Xiao Guang has been confused about whether his parents, who are loved by colleagues, bosses, and friends, have ever loved themselves. They didn't even inform him of the plan in advance before they went on vacation.
Ikuko's mother said to her, "I hope I never gave birth to you."
Ikuko's dad insists on buying balloons for her, even though she feels like she's grown up. Her mother was always dissatisfied with her, saying, "Hopefully, we've never given birth to you, and if you hadn't been born, we'd be better off." Ikuko feels desperate and finally even jokes that she wants her parents to disappear from this world forever.
I think the attitude of adults towards children is often problematic. An adult, in fact, does not become an adult by making enemies with children. Adults are often trapped in their own contradictions and unable to extricate themselves, and their distress is often bland or even worthless in the eyes of children. I hope adults will realize this after watching the movie.
Life is too heavy and I want to make a joke
When looking for an actor, about 200 people came to audition. In addition to Komitsu being very famous in Japan (he once played Kore-eda's "Like Father Like a Son"), the other three young actors are all vegetarians. Nakajima, who plays Takemura, usually paints portraits and illustrations, and Nakajima, who plays Ikuko, is a model who has just debuted.
When I was shooting, I told them that they didn't have to think about anything, just read the lines out. I like this simple feeling and it is closer to the concept of "wooden man".
"Zombie" literally translates to "zombie" — no emotion and no perception. What I am referring to here is not really the inability to feel, but to face life with a very calm attitude.
Hikari attends his parents' funeral
For example, Xiao Guang did not cry at all when he went to the morgue to recognize his parents, and when he lifted the white cloth covering the corpse, he tried to imagine that this was just a TV station's tricky program, and a group of film crews and hosts congratulated him, "This is a tricky show, congratulations on your plan!" In this way, he used it to dissolve his grief.
In the second half of the film, the four protagonists form a rock band, compose their own lyrics and music, and even become famous.
Their costumes are made of junk fabric
They met a group of beggars in a dump, and the beggars were entertaining themselves to a concert, and they were invited to join in, and everyone sang a song together:
"Mom and Dad, me and you, and the girl in the red dancing shoes, we are not there." TV, radio, cell phone, blue sky, I don't want to watch it. The future, the money, the courage, the love, I don't know what the point is. I don't know if I'm alive or dead, we don't want to go anywhere, and we don't have the strength to walk. There are no vases to put flowers on, nothing, we are all wooden people. ”
They sang and danced and had a lot of fun. In fact, it is in this way that they vent their emotions and feel that they are still alive.
These children who have experienced the loss of their fathers and mothers, in the face of this world, what else can not be lost? They are actually fighting with themselves all the time, insisting on living. Just kidding, being humorous, can make life a little easier.
There is a passage where Xiao Guang is dreaming that he is bullied at school and has "to die and die" written on his desk. The Roman pronunciation of "to die" in Japanese is written "shine", and this word can also be seen as "shine" (meaning glow) in English. Slowly, one of the "shines" really starts to glow.
The Roman pronunciation of "to die" in Japanese is written "shine"
I think it's remarkable that he showed a sense of humor in the face of being bullied and used it as a weapon. I personally like this paragraph very much, although I have watched it many times, I will cry every time I watch it.
One of my favorite lines is "The momentum to be alive is so great!" The corresponding scene is when the children release a goldfish, and the goldfish is bulging vigorously. All things desire to grow, and a fish is still like this, let alone man?
My entire life experience is projected into it
It was my first time making a feature film, and the script was written in 2017 and took about a month. 80% of the script is the same as the final film.
A lot of the elements come from my own experience. For example, the protagonist Xiao Guang, in addition to the fact that both parents are dead, other characteristics are almost the same as my childhood experience: living in a high-rise apartment, both parents go out to work, from morning to night can only live alone, eat, play games.
I also formed bands when I was younger. I have always done jazz and formed punk bands. There are also many genres of music in this show.
They also went to the convenience store together to steal food
Several of the protagonists are set up without friends
Several of the protagonists are each set up without friends. I myself once had no friends. There is a confession in the play that even if there are no friends, life is very happy and enjoyable, in fact, there is no need for people to forcibly make friends.
The protagonist and I also have a common experience, that is, being bullied. In the film, Xiao Guang is locked in a locker by his classmates, and he is locked up, and the bully finally moves the entire cabinet to the playground. In fact, I have also been locked in the locker, and the sound of the whole scene - the locker door is closed, tied up by a rope, and dragged outside, is also recorded by myself.
In the film, Xiao Guang is locked in a cabinet by his classmates
I originally wanted to make this film because I often saw news of teenagers committing suicide in the news. Two years ago, a suicide game called "Blue Whale Challenge" became popular on the Internet, which has a 50-day mission with many self-harming, masochistic parts, and even eventually suicide, and many of the participants are teenagers.
When I saw this news, I was shocked and wondered if I could make a movie so that young people would no longer feel desperate.
I was also very decadent, and when I was in middle school, I was addicted to playing games, probably more than 200 games. Later, I threw away all these games, because I felt that it was really bad to be too homely, and I still had to return to the real world.
I actually grew up after the 90s of the bubble economy. In Japan's "lost 20 years", our entire society is thinking, how should we live without economic development? This also affected me, I am not very desperate, but I think it is good to maintain the status quo of GDP, not necessarily always to be self-motivated, rich, daily thinking is only how to live.
Young people don't despair!
Before We're All Wooden Men, I made a short film called "Just Like That's It, We Put the Goldfish in the Pool," which won the Sundance Film Festival's Popular Judging Short Film Award.
The story is based on true events, taking place in Saitama Prefecture, 1 hour from Tokyo, where four 15-year-old girls put goldfish stolen from a temple fair into their school pool.
The protagonist of "Goldfish" is 15 years old, and the protagonist of "Wooden Man" is 13 years old. Minors are really attractive to me... Even when I was auditioning, I interviewed the children all the time to find out what they were thinking.
Short film "That's it, we put the goldfish in the pool"
Children are always whimsical and imaginative. For example, in the film, the ashes burned in the funeral home are spilled out of the chimney, and the adults think it is just smoke, and the children will feel like cheese on pasta.
When people grow up, they will continue to gain a lot of common sense, but children have not been transformed by these "common senses", and I can feel a kind of authentic charm from them. I think that people should be like this, and should not be bound by anyone's established ideas.
Chang Yongyun participated in the 2019 Berlin Film Festival
I'm 35 years old, but I feel like my psychological age is only 13. I enjoy playing with small children. I have two daughters, one is 7 years old and the other is almost 2 years old. My 7-year-old daughter also watched my movies, and I also discussed the lines of "The Wooden Man" with her.
I will also communicate with my daughter and tell her that she will have conflicts with adults in the future, and there will be troubles with love and friends. This is the only way to grow, to learn humor and overcome it in your own way.
At the end of "Wooden Man", I let time pass quickly, all the plot is replayed again, and then the protagonist is faced with a choice: Do you want to live again? Then they firmly chose "No! "It was dawn, and the four men were separated, heading in their respective directions.
I paint it this way because I feel like life is like riding an elevator, carrying you in one direction, maybe a direction you never expected, but this process will bring real growth.
I don't know how Chinese audiences will feel after watching the movie. I hope that even a shot or a line in the movie can resonate with young people, and I am very happy.
Young people, don't despair!
Audio-visual materials and pictures were provided by Nikkatsu Corporation and Nagatsuyoshi of Japan