Lou Ye's "Lyceum Theatre" has finally arrived.
2 years ago, it was silent and evaporated.
The Golden Rooster screening was cancelled first, and then when it was about to be released, it was announced that it would be withdrawn.
Although the article claims that the new fixed time will be announced at a later date, there is no following.
First withdrawal
The original intention has not changed, and the reunion can be expected.
2 years later, it brought a windfall.
As the closing film of the 11th Beijing International Film Festival, it announced with a high profile:
On October 15, he reunited with movie fans.
Lyceum Theatre
Saturday Fiction
2021.10.15
"Lyceum Theatre" is a spy movie.
It is based on two novels, Hongying's "Death in Shanghai" and Yokomitsu's "Shanghai".
In the winter of 1941, the French Concession in Shanghai.
Hong Kong-based actress Yu Yan (Gong Li) flew to Shanghai alone and was invited to star in the stage play "Saturday Novel" directed by the old love Tan Na (Zhao Youting).
Actress, just one identity of Yu Yan.
Behind this skin, she is also a highly qualified female spy.
This time back to Shanghai, acting is just a cover.
She needs to complete the tasks arranged by the upper organization, to obtain the top secrets of the Japanese army, and to find out the targets that the Japanese army is preparing to sneak attack.
From the Chinachem Hotel, to the performance stage Lyceum Theatre.
In just seven days, spies from the Allies, the Japanese army, the Wang puppet government, and the Chongqing government continued to wrestle.
Yu Yan, a woman who was bound by war and the times, fell into the clouds and waves.
What is her real purpose inside and outside the play?
Rescue the ex-husband who was arrested by the Wang puppet government? Help the Allies gather Japanese intelligence? Fleeing Shanghai with old love, away from the war?
World War II, the isolated island of Shanghai, human history...
Everything, pulled by a small Lyceum Theater, a woman...
>>>> is based on real history
Watching "Lyceum Theatre", there is a certain threshold.
The story takes place at a time, before the pearl harbor incident.
Since the July 7 Incident in 1937, Japanese imperialism has been mired in the quagmire of the Chinese battlefield and has been unable to escape for a long time.
Due to the oil embargo and economic sanctions, Japan's own economic environment has also deteriorated.
In order to seize the resources of the war, first taking advantage of the defeat of France by the German Nazis, it occupied northern French India, and then went to war against Britain and the United States, occupying the Philippines, British Malaya, British Borneo, the Dutch East Indies and other Southeast Asian colonies.
Provocation after provocation, the contradictions between Japan and the United States have been intensifying.
Knowing that it could not defeat the United States, Japan wanted to force concessions and promote peace talks between the two countries through small victories in local wars.
As a result, Yamamoto formulated a battle plan for a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Japanese army went to Pearl Harbor and the return route
December 7, 1941.
The Japanese Navy sent six aircraft carriers and more than 300 fighters to attack Pearl Harbor in two waves.
It has severely damaged 8 US battleships, 3 cruisers, and 3 destroyers, destroyed 188 fighters, and killed 2402 people and injured 1282 people.
Battle of Midway
At the time, while some U.S. military officers thought that Pearl Harbor might be attacked by Japan, not the Philippines, they believed that Japan could not immediately launch an attack on Pearl Harbor.
Strategic mistakes, eat the first blow.
In order to fight back, the United States abandoned isolationism, declared war on Japan, and the Pacific War officially broke out.
Pearl Harbor became an important turning point in World War II.
News image of the United States at the time
West Virginia and Tennessee burn after being shot Image from theatlantic.com
In the context of real history, "Lyceum Theatre" fictionalizes the story of a woman who changes the trajectory of World War II.
Screenwriter Ma Yingli interpreted his own creative concept in this way.
"I wanted to tell a story about how a small thing can really affect history, about a certain role we all play in life when it comes to things around us. It's a great metaphor for people living on and off stage with different identities and choices. ”
Therefore, she arranged the storm before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and placed it on an actress at the Lyceum Theater in Shanghai.
Coincidentally, the Lyceum Theater is the place that director Lou Ye himself is most familiar with and misses.
His father was an actor in the Shanghai Youth Repertory Theatre and his mother was a teacher in the acting department of the Shanghai Theater Academy, and he was immersed in the atmosphere of drama since he was a child.
To borrow his original words.
"I am a product of the world of theater. Back in Shanghai, shooting this film in that area was a very special experience. ”
Lyceum Theatre, real.
The English name Lyceum is taken from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's school, which was translated as "Lyceum" by the modern thinker Wang Tao, in order to imply that art is as elegant and pure as an orchid.
Since modern times, this place has been an active place for Chinese artists, often full of venues, and it is difficult to find a ticket. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Mei Lanfang made a comeback, and her first performance was at the Lyceum Theater.
Photographed 1931-1939
Photographed in 2012
In the movie, the stage play rehearsed by Yu Yan and Tan Na together is called "Saturday Novel".
The name, it's a bit of a mouthful to pronounce.
As everyone knows, "Saturday" is a genre of modern Chinese literature, the Mandarin Duck Butterfly School.
Thirty-six mandarin ducks with the same fate bird, a pair of butterflies poor worm.
It is mainly for ordinary citizens, using vernacular language, mainly love, and writing more about talented and beautiful people.
In the early years of the Republic of China, Saturday Weekly was the main magazine of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect, and its influence was enormous.
Therefore, the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect is also called the "Saturday Sect".
Saturday novel
Of course, the stage play "Saturday Novel" is not the style of the Saturday school.
Its basic plot is that, under the White Terror, the workers organize strikes against the exploitation of the capitalists.
Tan Na only used the name of "Saturday" to satirize the exploiting class and praise the bravery and fearlessness of the revolutionaries in the face of white terror.
Judging from this point, Yu Yan and Tan Na seem to have a left-wing literary and artistic style.
>>>> Lou Ye, or that Lou Ye
Although "Lyceum Theatre" is a spy film, it is by no means an ordinary and common commercial genre film.
From beginning to end, it exudes the temperament of a literary film.
The design of the play within a play intertwines the stage and reality.
The multiple identities of the characters, spies, and actresses in the play are switched in an instant.
In the last second, the male and female protagonists staged the opponent's play on the bar set on the stage.
The next second, the two people are in a real bar, reliving old feelings.
In the last second, she was Miss Qiulan, who mobilized the masses of workers and went on strike against the capitalists.
The next second, she returned to the identity of actress Yu Yan.
Between the millimeters, the combination of virtual and real is also true and illusory.
If you are not careful, it is easy to be dizzy.
The way of photography is still Lou Ye's favorite style.
Handheld photography, zoom lenses, plus flowing water and natural scene scheduling.
Like a wandering ghost, free.
Usually, I am used to watching fixed shots, and once I watch "Lyceum Theatre", it is easy to be thrown up by the camera.
Image source Douban
The final rainy shootout pushes the film to its climax.
Heavy rain, fierce gun battles, black and white images.
This gives the film a little more of a film noir flavor.
The bullets strafed at the audience directly broke the fourth wall.
For a time, the structure of the play within a play was completely penetrated, and it was impossible to distinguish what was real.
In addition to retaining personal style in film techniques, the core theme of "Lyceum Theatre" is still Lou Ye's best -
Human love and the softness of human spirituality.
If society is a lush tree, love is a leaf of this tree.
A leaf can allude to the state of the tree and the state of society, so why use a huge historical narrative to express it.
The book "New Feeling Movie" summarizes the core appeal of Lou Ye's film very reasonably and accurately.
"Love and desire are the priority choices of natural human nature, the free pursuit of both is the value of life, and sex is an indispensable aspect of free people and natural people."
Therefore, the strong love desire in Lou Ye's films is not so much an emotional state as a state of life, which is the embodiment of the high degree of personalization and subjectivity of his films. ”
Misplaced love, marginalization, reunion, separation... The love trajectory of Lou Ye's films is like this.
Lyceum Theatre is no exception.
In the play, Yu Play plays a strike activist.
Outside the play, she is an ex-wife, lover, adopted daughter, and spy.
We need to unmask the layers of complexity to understand this woman.
She is strong and cold on the outside, soft and lonely on the inside, and longing for love.
This is the softest and most spiritual part of a character.
>>>>后记
"When I'm in the creative process, when I'm focused on making films, I'm just focused on this thing, I don't think about censorship at all."
Lou Ye, a sixth-generation director with a very special resume, is jokingly called a difficult household by film fans.
"Weekend Lover", released 2 years later;
"Suzhou Creek", not released, was fined 2 years and was not allowed to shoot;
"Three Words", not released, was fined 5 years and not allowed to shoot;
"The Mystery of the Floating City", allowed to be released, and the violent scenes are gradually darkened;
"There is a cloud made of rain in the wind", 4 days before the premiere and 7 days before the release, it is still changing;
"Lyceum Theatre", from the withdrawal to the re-release, waited for 2 years.
"A Cloud Made of Rain in the Wind"
These 2 years, really did not wait in vain.
Gong Li did not hide her love for "Lyceum Theatre" to the media, "I think this is a film that can go down in history. ”
After reading it, I think that Emperor Gong did not say anything big.
To be fair, in many domestic films, whether it is artistic processing or script design, "Lyceum Theatre" is unique.
From the Douban score of 7.2, a little increase of 7.4, it can be seen:
It was recognized by most fans.
Suddenly, I had a feeling.
We, the audience, have vision, can understand right and wrong, and distinguish between good and bad.
However, sometimes, it is easy to be obscured by the haze of the prosperity of bad films.
Sunlight will eventually dispel the haze, and good movies will eventually be appreciated!
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