Whether it is the best of times or the worst of times, individuals who experience this era cannot be ignored - "Jia Zhangke's Film Notes: Twenty-Four Cities"
The underlying narrative has always been the most obvious style in Jia Zhangke's films, and the realistic shooting in the form of a documentary has added a rare picture tension to Jia Zhangke's films, so that the scenes focusing on the toiling masses are presented, and Jia Zhangke is always aimed at people who are struggling to live under the change of times.
This time, Mr. Jia's eyes are on a state-run factory that is about to be relocated after 50 years of vicissitudes, which will be covered by a new commercial building.
Factories are relocated, buildings are leveled, thick cement and hard steel have replaced everything that was once here, and all the stories here will be dusted off.
In the blink of an eye, the appearance of a commercial building rose from the ground, and the tall buildings hung with the words "Twenty-Four Cities", which is just a microcosm of countless urbanizations.
This unstoppable change of the times has brought people countless new things and material satisfaction, but also brought people an inexplicable sentimentality.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > from "individual" to "group image". </h1>
Like Jia Zhangke's previous films, "Twenty-Four Cities" still abandons the heavy commercial market, uses a realistic style to add truth to the story, and tells the ups and downs of a state-owned factory for half a century and the personnel changes in it.
Unlike Jia Zhangke's previous works, which focused on the rise and fall of the "individual" of the characters, "The Tale of the Twenty-Four Cities" focuses on groups under the change of times, and presents the "group portrait epic" of a generation on the screen.
For example, Jia Zhangke's debut work "Xiao Wu" reflects the impact of social development on people by focusing on a marginal person in the gap between the new era and the old things- Xiao Wu; the same is true of "Platform", which tells the story of three urban youth trapped in the inner swamp in a city full of changes, confused and hesitant in an increasingly complex world, reflecting the great impact of the changes of the times on young people.
Hou Lijun in the Twenty-Four Cities
But in "Twenty-Four Cities", there is no protagonist, all the stories revolve around a state-run factory, the main 8 characters in the film appear in turn, in the form of interviews as a bridge, connecting the past and present of this factory, looking back at the past that belonged to this state-owned factory, through the oral narrative of these 8 interviewees, a historical picture centered on a state-run unit is shown, in the plain lens language, it is a dramatic interaction between "people" and "history". Construct the "group portraits" of people in that era in three dimensions.
This is actually a profound reflection in the scene "workers attending a meeting" at the beginning of the film.
The scene begins with a close-up shot, first aimed at a group of workers wearing blue overalls who have successively come to participate in the relocation ceremony of the state-owned factory under the Chengfa Group, and then, the workers have formed a surging flow of people, the dense crowd paced forward, after the switching of the middle scene and the panorama, the picture stayed in the scene of "the workers sat at the venue to listen to the speech of the relocation ceremony", in this composition, the workers sat quietly under the field, under the unity of clothing and demeanor, as well as the lighting, environment, Catalyzed by events, a wonderful and chic "group portrait" of workers is formed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > factory="home"</h1>
After 1949, the unit became a system of reorganizing the Chinese structure, and all the people in "Twenty-Four Cities" fell into the social structure of the unit - Jia Zhangke's film notes
"Home" and "Factory".
The family is an important core for maintaining the interpersonal emotions of Chinese, and this traditional structural model is imprinted in the blood of each generation of Chinese, and the family is not only the cradle of children's growth, but also shoulders the heavy responsibility of inheritance and continuation.
In the "Twenty-Four Cities", with the needs of the country, the state-owned enterprises continued to relocate and stabilize, followed by the group of workers who were far away from home and dedicated everything to the factories, so that under the choice of history, all the state-run units and factories became another "home" for the people of that era.
Faith in memory.
As the plot of the film develops, the camera focuses on Song Weidong, the factory workshop director played by Chen Jianbin, who recounts his past in the factory to the interview camera with full of memories.
In his eyes, this state-owned unit called the 420 factory is already a world isolated from the outside world, for Song Weidong, who lived and grew up in the factory, this state-owned factory has long become his spiritual sustenance, he is not only the factory's 50 years of ups and downs and the pain experienced, but also the most loyal believer in this factory.
Obviously, this state-run factory has a more extended symbolic meaning, in addition to the role of connecting the workers' human relations and life, it has become the existence of faith in their memory, and is the spiritual residence of countless workers and peasants.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > false and true</h1>
In "Twenty-Four Cities", through interviews with eight workers who once struggled in the front line of the factory, 8 stories of different time and space are introduced, slowly outlining the personnel changes of this state-owned factory, and the uncertainty of memory itself adds a rare artistic tension to the film, Jia Zhangke also confessed in the interview, three of these eight stories are fictional, and the other five stories are real.
False memories of youth.
In the film, the story of the three factory flowers is fictionalized, and the appearance of the three generations of factory flowers tells the story of three different eras and different time and space.
The first generation of factory flowers represents a generation of selfless dedication. As the first generation of factory flowers, Dali is the first batch of workers to relocate to Chengdu with the factory, Dali experienced the most difficult period of the state-owned units, Dali's personal honor and humiliation, youth memories are gradually tied to this factory, the change of the factory at the same time, but also affect the fate of Dali. For Dali, the factory at this time is gradually replacing the original "home".
The second generation of factory flowers represents a generation that is fully integrated into the factory and has become inseparable from the factory. The small flowers under the lens tell the love story in the factory that year, reveal their own concept of love in the language, and the gossip and anecdotes of that year, and reflect the impact of institutional work on people's lives under the process of the times.
The third generation of factory Hua Nana is a new generation of workers in the new century. Nana wanders between factories and trendy cities, at the junction of the old and new centuries. On the one hand, the world of flowers outside the factory makes her feel like a fish, and on the other hand, as the child of the workers' parents, Nana has a constant connection with the state-owned factory. Nana symbolizes people who are confused between the new state of being and the old moral values.
Authentic humanistic landscape.
The other five stories of the film are real, from the changes in life to the pain of reform that they have experienced with the factory, and the five narrators sincerely and meticulously recall the past with the factory.
Chief of the Factory Security Section
The five interviewees included ordinary low-level operators, security section chiefs, and high-level workshop directors and managers, who were in different eras and told stories that belonged to them and the factory.
On the one hand, the independence of the five stories expands the boundaries of the film's creation, together forming a blueprint for the 50 years of change in this state-run factory, and on the other hand, all their youth memories, work past, and growth experiences have also laid the cornerstone of this city of faith, becoming the memory of a generation, reflecting a real and touching humanistic landscape.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > everything is gone. </h1>
With the advent of a new era, this state-owned factory that has stood in Chengdu for 50 years is about to be demolished, and under the impact of great changes, all traces here will be covered up.
The lost home, the lost love, the affection, the lost youth, all the joys and sorrows that have happened here are gone.
Under the banner of consumerism and the clarion call of the industrial age, the old units and old things that were once remembered are quietly disappearing from people's sight and dusting in the years.
The state-run factory in "Twenty-Four Cities", after 50 years of wind and frost, it has left an indelible memory for countless workers, this memory has become the inner past of the workers, and the changes of the times have brought changes to the factory and deeply affected generations of workers, who regard the factory as another "home" and become a spiritual belief.
The advent of the new century will gradually erase the story of the factory, and the new building will soon be located here, and in the sadness of the past, the eternal proposition between "man" and "history" remains.
epilogue:
Rather than a history of remembrance, it is rather a biographical history, pushing every famous and surnamed figure to the position of "witness" and "witness" of history in the form of a novel form of interview dictation, a state-run factory, a home, and a faith on which many people sustenance, under Jia Zhangke's romantic technique, unfolded one long-held memory after another.