"Twenty-four cities of hibiscus flowers, Jinguan since the past called prosperous"
Jia Zhangke once said: My dream is to make the face of the laborer, every pore, projected on the huge screen in the dark cinema.
In 2004, The World became his first release. At the end, the two men are gas poisoned and carried into the snow, leaving only the last two lines.
"Are we dead?"
"No, we're just getting started."
That is the voice of Jia Zhangke, and it is also the beginning of Jia Zhangke's beginning to go to the Chinese film stage.
After four years, 2008's "Twenty-Four Cities", are you looking forward to it?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > here was their running youth and faith</h1>
Jia Zhangke used the camera to record the changes of chengfa group (420 factory), a state-owned military factory in Chengdu. If it weren't for this movie, maybe no one would have noticed this factory. The narration of 5 real experiences and 4 actors will truly present the rise and fall of this factory, human emotions, and the changes of the times.
"Twenty-Four Cities" switches back and forth between different artistic mediums, breaking the traditional narrative method of film in many ways, such as deliberately appropriating the form of documentary, transforming the role of the film director into the role of an interviewer, such as the leap between inside and outside the camera.
His record of the current society and his calm and calm narrative shock every witness and bystander.
Once people's spiritual home Chengfa Group wanted to become a high-end residential area in the eyes of developers "Twenty-Four Cities", what kind of story is happening in this place that accommodates their lives? Why make a story like this?
Among the sixth generation of directors, someone once said something like this:
"There are a lot of gaps in the movie right now that no one has filled. What is the life of the Chinese people who are very conventional, very common, and representative, and what do they want from those who can best represent the living conditions of the Chinese people? What are you looking for? What do they want to do? Imagine what? This is very important. To focus on this is to focus on China's future. China is made up of such a group of people. Such a concern is a concern for the entire destiny of China. ”
In "Twenty-Four Cities", the audience sees the attention of fate in this.
1) Interviewee Hou Lijun told the story of her mother and herself
Her mother came to Chengdu from Shenyang in 1958 to support the construction of Chengdu, and it was a great honor to work in a state-run military factory like 420. Her mother left home in 1958 and did not return to Shenyang for the first time to visit her family until 1972. Exactly 14 years later, the flesh and bones were separated, and the family met and cried. The efforts of this generation cannot be understood by those who have not experienced it. With the rapid development of society, many people will forget the story behind that era.
In 1994, Hou Lijun was laid off from the factory at the age of 41, and there was a child in the sixth grade of primary school at home, with only 200 yuan of living expenses per month.
"Whether it's a good situation or a difficult situation, I have to move forward." This may be a sentence that people who have similar situations to her, encouraging themselves in their hearts. There is no choice but to move forward, and life goes on.
Looking at the brightly lit city in front of her, she said: People have something to do, and they have to grow old slowly.
2) Lonely factory flower who came to Chengdu from Shanghai: Gu Minhua
As a factory flower of "standard parts", she was assigned to Chengdu from Shanghai in 1978 at the age of 20. At the age of 20, I have never loved. Although I came to Chengdu and experienced feelings with high-ranking cadres and disciples, I had broken up and ended. Don't want to fall in love, looking forward to who to adjust back to Shanghai, who knows that after 1984, the efficiency of the factory is not good, no one wants to come to Chengdu. In this way, I also singled it out.
It is particularly uncomfortable to see this period of heart, which is the fate of a "factory flower" and the fate of women who have similar experiences with her. My mother once told me a similar story, and she sighed in her heart, is it a creation?
Is it okay to be alone?
"It's good to be alone, that's it." Why does she look at the TV screen and lose her mind?
Jia Zhangke searched for and discovered a kind of poetry in a very real reality. He said that behind the film, underneath the surface of the documentary style that seems to be handy, there is a form that is actually carefully structured, excavated from everyday reality, and behind such a world, you can feel that there is a completely metaphysical, very spiritual thing jumping in motion — a mental state of man that is highlighted through the details of everyday life.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > two If I could, I would like to fly like a pulley</h1>
In his films, I am always amazed by his capture of details, the in-depth development and application of props, and more importantly, his calm and superb observation of the world' human condition, which seems to be careless, but is actually unique. He embodies a demeanor that is neither kitsch nor flattering in his expression.
1) 21-year-old Dali accidentally lost her 3-year-old child on a steamer from Shenyang to Chengdu
This story is sad, 21-year-old Dali, who received the order in 1958, and her husband and children, traveled on various routes for 15 days, and when they were about to reach their destination, the ship docked for everyone to get off the ship for 2 hours, but they accidentally lost their children in these 2 hours.
Lost to find ah! No, at that time, the people who moved to Chengdu were militarized management, and when the time came, the whistle sounded and it was an order. Under the appeasement of the people, he was pulled onto the ship.
Now Dali's life is embarrassing, and she still needs help from her distant sister. And when she walked through the 420 workers' dormitory area, she went to the factory with a hanging needle bottle to find the director, and saw the small staff wearing exquisite makeup.
She said: "Now I am allowed to wear makeup at work?" ”
The little girl said: "Of course, foreign companies do not wear makeup, and they are not allowed to work." ”
Dali said: "Foreign companies? Isn't this a state-owned enterprise? ”
The world she once knew had changed a long time ago, everything that made her proud had long been behind the times, and everything she had clinged to had fallen apart. Lost the child, the family has collapsed, the pride of the past, can no longer resist the torrent of the times. Once paid, did she regret it?
2) The girl who practices pulleys on the roof
This little girl named Yang Mengyue, who is in the third year of junior high school this year, her parents are employees of Chengfa Group (420 Factory), and now she is happily learning pulleys on the roof.
"Have you ever been in that factory?"
"Never went in."
Simple words, speeding pulleys, an era always has to end.
In Song Weidong's mouth, this factory is a small world, there are schools, there are hospitals, personnel are stable, and everyone's eating, drinking, and sleeping are completed in this small world. They are proud, they are different from the outside world, their youth is different.
And this place that once made them, in the eyes of this little girl, was a place that no longer longed to set foot on.
In "Twenty-Four Cities", the scenes of that scene, the soundtrack, the interspersed and sung songs of poetry, and the vivid faces of the working people are interspersed in the narrative of the entire film. No one can say that they fully understand its connotations, but there are also thoughts churning in ignorance.
They tried to explain Jia Zhangke's style more precisely, hometown realism, or deep realism. All in all, Jia's films "exude the air of 19th-century Russian literature" and "those epic works bring many small and medium-sized characters to people".
A lot of medium and close-up shots are used in the film, making many shots look like a painting. Whether it is the master and apprentice who clasp their hands, the tears flashing in their eyes; the silence of a family of three standing in front of the refrigerator; or the reluctance in the eyes of the workers when relocating; or the helplessness of standing in the abandoned factory building and hearing the window glass being smashed.
An era has come to an end.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three The vanished side of you alone is enough to glorify me for a lifetime</h1>
Would you say That Twenty-Four Cities is a movie or a documentary?
When making feature films, I often want to maintain an objective attitude and focus on observing people's daily state. When making documentaries, I tend to capture the dramatic atmosphere in reality and express my subjective feelings honestly.
This is a new shooting method, a combination of objective and subjective, how you understand it is right.
He Xikun recalled that he once led his master, an excellent worker, who endured hardships and stood hard work, took the factory as his home, saved and cherished every raw material, and led by example, the true color of the workers of that era.
Born in 1982, Suna, standing on the high ground of the city, looking at the towering buildings, she said: "I must buy a house for my parents in twenty-four cities, I know that the house is very expensive, but I can do it, I am the daughter of a worker!" ”
Once a prosperous place, a second hometown where countless people traveled thousands of miles to build, it was once thought that there was a factory for a long time. One day, the efficiency will become worse, there will be people laid off, and they will be pushed by this era to become small. Some people are left behind, some people are reluctant to set foot, some people don't know the stories behind those who struggle.
Jia Zhangke came to depict the place that was once glorious, and there are too many poetic film language in this movie.
I myself chose Ouyang Jianghe's "Glass Factory" that has been adapted from the sentence "The whole factory that builds the aircraft is a huge eyeball / Labor is the darkest part of it" and a poem by Wan Xia. Yeats's poems were picked by Zhai Yongming for me, and when she provided these poems at that time, I was also very touched. The appearance of poetry in the film largely plays the role of a prophet, or a value judge. The poet's function of prophecy and judgment is restored by you, and this restoration of this function is based precisely on an omniscient and transcendent perspective.
He and Zhai Yongming are indispensable, and poetry makes this film have warmth.
"I want to use movies to care for ordinary people, first of all to respect worldly life, in the slow flow of time, to feel the joy or heaviness of each ordinary life." 」 Jia Zhangke said this and did the same. It would be appropriate to call him "the lightning-fasting light of hope of Asian independent cinema", after all, he was the film poet of his time.