Released on August 18, Director Zhang Yang's "Soul on a Leather Rope" is a film that is well worthy of going to the theater this summer – provided that the audience has enough patience to listen to Tibetan dialogue and sit for two hours – the box office success of "Kailash" proves that these concerns, at least for a considerable number of viewers, do not constitute an appreciation barrier.
The biggest challenge for the audience of "Soul on the Leather Rope" is the narrative rhythm and narrative technique. Although filmed at the same time as Kailash and adapted from two short stories by Tibetan writer Tashi Dawa, "Tibet, the Soul Tied to the Knot of Leather Rope" and "The Way to Lhasa", "The Soul on the Leather Rope" is not suitable for the Tibetan theme films that audiences usually think of, but more like allegorical works by fifth-generation directors about the national spiritual map, such as "Yellow Land", "Red Sorghum", and "The KnifeMan of Double Flag Town".
From this perspective, "Soul on the Leather Rope" is not only different from "Kailash", but also very different from "Tharoo" released in 2016, in terms of temperament and narrative ambition, but closer to a Chinese film released in 2016 , "Ren Leshan, Wise Man Leshui", the Tibetan mountains in "Soul on the Rope", just like the rolling river in "Yangtze River Map", not only the scene of the story, but also plays a role in carrying and highlighting the character's emotions and souls.
The early publicity of the film emphasizes the concept of "magic realism" and claims to "burn the brain", of course, there is an element of marketing, but it is not exaggerated.
The film adopts a three-line narrative, and compared with the single-line narrative or double-line narrative used in commercial films, the extra writer's Gedan narrative line constitutes a test of the audience's understanding ability, and it is also the boldest, most artistic and most brilliant part of the film.
Although this narrative line is carefully conceived from the original novel "Tibet, the Soul Tied to the Leather Rope Knot", it can be almost completely visualized in the film, and the director should remember the first merit.
In fact, if you remove this narrative line of the writer, "The Soul on the Leather Rope" is not only not difficult to understand, but also very typed: the male protagonist Tabe came back from the dead, through the living Buddha's point, escorted Dzi all the way to the Lotus Peanut Master Palm Print, and joined the maiden Qiong and The Young Pu on the way, which is a typical setting of road movies - although they are walking on the mountain road of Tibet; the brothers Zhan Dui and Guo Ri, seeking revenge for their fathers, traveling far and wide, chasing and fighting Tabe, is a crime action film, and can also be said to be a typical setting of ancient dragon-style martial arts films.
Although the scenery of Tibet adds color to the film, in the final analysis, it is mainly the creation of visual wonders; the Tibetan dialogue enhances the audience's perception of the wonders from the auditory sense - with a little alienation and strangeness.
The introduction of the writer's narrative line has enabled "Soul on the Leather Rope" to transcend and enhance commercial feature films, and advanced to the exploration of the narrative itself, becoming a narrative about narrative, or "Meta Narration".
The film's promotional poster highlights the role of the writer, which is an emphasis on the "meta-narrative" characteristics of the film.
Poster of Souls on a Leather Rope
The poster's close-up is with the writer's back facing the viewer, the right leg taking a step ahead of the left leg, the body leaning forward, as if about to walk into the golden story canvas everywhere; the long-range view is Tabe and Joan side by side, trailing behind at a distance.
This poster design guides the viewer to first focus on the writer in the close-up, reminding the viewer of the writer's heavy position in the narrative; and then guides the viewer to "self-substitute" the identity of the writer, looking at the three people in front of tabe and other three people at a distance of an outsider.
The poster is informative and has a vast atmosphere, and if the audience only notices the small words "Best Cinematography Award of the 2016 Shanghai International Film Festival" above the poster, it is inevitable that it will be a big loss.
The beauty of the film on the screen is beyond words. However, although it is easy for the audience to appreciate the benefits of photography in "Soul on the Leather Rope", it may not be easy to perceive the film's intentions in sound processing.
Guo Ri and the Zhan Dui brothers seek revenge on Tabe, and the frequently blown bone flutes, as well as the Za Nian qin carried and played by the teenager Pu, are all musical elements that are easier to identify and are also rich in Tibetan flavor.
However, the biggest feature of the sound design of the film is the heavy bass that appears with many empty shots, almost white noise, rumbling, from far and near, like a plateau wind and thunder stirring back and forth between the wild valleys, making people feel like returning to a pre-modern society full of wildness and uneasiness.
Like Hou Xiaoxian's "Assassin Nie Yinniang", the sound effect design of "Soul on the Leather Rope", which is "better than sound in the silent place", is natural, and the only possible drawback is to make the audience feel "stuffy" and "sleepy", especially in the passages where some plot progress is stagnant.
The storyline of "Soul on a Leather Rope" is not dense. Even if the plot of the two short stories is incorporated, it is still slow-paced. Audiences who rely on subtitles to understand The Tibetan dialogue are bound to slow down their thinking speed and have a deeper impression of the film's narrative "slow swallowing".
This "slow swallowing" is necessary. The audience's attention is limited, and the plot that is too complex and compact will only make people overwhelmed, and they will not care about the long-term concern and thinking about the fate of the characters in the film.
In many places in the film, Tabe and Joan are gazed at in slow motion, and the strong light illuminates the facial ravines of the characters, the characters are silent, and the four fields are quiet, and the treatment effect is precisely to arouse the audience's sympathy and examination of the characters' spiritual difficulties.
Tabe was "punished by heaven" for killing deer, came back from the dead, and embarked on the road of escorting the Dzi, somewhat reluctantly. The film adds companions to Tabet, first the young woman Joan, and then the young Pu, which is a common plot writing method in road movies.
The brutal and fierce element of Tabe's personality, which is gradually tempered by the inspiration of women and children, is also the usual supporting role arrangement in feature films focusing on character shaping, "transforming" the protagonist with character defects.
The character of the young woman Joan has a stoic and tenacious side, but her relationship with Tabe is somewhat abrupt, but the more in the later part of the movie plot, the more real and believable the characters are.
The role of the young Pu is more vivid and vivid in the early stage, and the symbolic meaning in the later stage is strengthened. Pu's mask is certainly a Tibetan custom, but it is also a symbolic role played by the role of the side-tapping audience in the plot.
general
Tabe's self-redemption in the film relies more on personal awakening and enlightenment, of course, a relatively simple worldview, but also mainly stays in the observation of his own destiny. Similarly, the role played by Joan and Pu in the transformation of Tabe's temperament comes purely from subtle guidance, rather than the Teachings of the Buddha, which do not conform to the status of the characters.
Although "Soul on the Leather Rope" still has a living Buddha who speaks "warning words", it is not Tabe who "awakens", but the writer Gedan. At the end of the film, a dialogue between the living Buddha and Ge Dan, the lines are refined, and by the way, "solving the puzzle".
As a branch line of the plot, Zhan Dui and the Guo Ri brothers, although the story of revenge is typed, the character design is not mechanically similar, one positive and one negative, forming a contrast.
Zhan Dui and Guo Ri have their own obsessions, which cannot be resolved, and they will rest until they die. The personalities of this group of characters run through the whole process, and they are also in sharp contrast to the before and after transformations of Tabe's personality.
However, the design of several tangled martial arts scenes is too deeply influenced by western films, and although the style is prominent when extracted, it is somewhat off-topic with the main theme of the film. Similarly, a scene in the film in a tavern is written more for the entertainment and pleasing of the audience, unfolding to another "New Dragon Gate Inn" (1992), a Tibetan boss lady who is good at perceiving colors, and is also a ready-made gold inlaid jade (Maggie Cheung).
writer
The suspense of the film in the first half of the narrative is not a doubt, and in the second half, it slowly closes the net and explains it one by one from the perspective of the writer GeDan. At the beginning of the movie, the young Ge Dan failed to help the girl who fell off the cliff, resulting in a knot in his heart, obsessively appealing to the pen end, turning into Tabe, Qiong, Pu, Zhan Dui and Guo Ri; obsession cannot be explained, so that Ge Dan's characters can not get a reasonable home for a long time, and struggle with fate, which constitutes the main plot of the movie; at the end of the movie, the adult Ge Dan finally understands, all are relieved, complete themselves, and also complete the Tabe people.
The writer walks from the real dimension into the virtual dimension of the pen, meets the characters in the work, and completes the detachment from fate and reincarnation, the atmosphere of this scene is extremely difficult to grasp, and the film shoots a sense of presence that is full of shadows, seems to be fake and true, and shocks the soul.
The film has also completed its self-referentialization so far, achieving the effect of multiple time and space nesting. Even if the audience is once lost in the plot, when the movie enters the end, following Ge Dan step by step into the palm of Master Lotus in the shot, it is difficult not to feel the solemnity of religion, and the purity and clarity of the mind brought about by it.
The twists and turns created by "Soul on the Leather Rope" in the concept of time and space are not the time and space travel style in science fiction, but the reincarnation fatalism in religious beliefs, and with the rough and wild scenery of Tibet, people are even more confused about the geometry of time.
The film deliberately does not allow the audience to implement the plot to a specific time and space, the pre-modern society in which the Tabe people live and the modern society in which Gedan lives, cannot be seated with the real era in the development of Tibetan areas, but also to make the story of the film more like a parallel virtual time and space, lifeless, immortal, not increasing or decreasing.
The "magic realism" elements in Souls on the Rope are not Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" style, but Borges's "Garden of Crossed Paths". The original work "Tibet, the Soul Tied to the Leather Rope Knot" actually writes about the influence and modification of modern society on the traditional way of life in Tibetan areas, but it is not as ethereal and transcendent as the imaginary time and space of "The Soul on the Leather Rope".
"Soul on the Leather Rope" has a strong literary temperament, but it does not relax the requirements for narrative. As a well-structured feature film, "Soul on the Rope" integrates the genre elements of Westerns, road movies and martial arts films, and it is rare to be able to try and break through on the road of "de-typing".
In the Chinese films of the new millennium, the narrative skills of commercial films have become more and more "Hollywood", and some films, even if they have grand narrative ambitions, are often many constraints and lack of effect. "Soul on the Leather Rope" swims against the current, taking the old road and bitter road of serious literary adaptation, and the theme points directly to the national spirit and the redemption of human nature, which is like a collective "return of the soul" of the fifth generation of mainland directors' film works in the 1980s and 1990s.
Such a "de-typed" genre film is destined not to be the mainstream of the current film market, and it is rare that it is more worth cherishing.