Binglaoshi photography

Among the fifth generation directors in China, Zhang Yimou created his own magical story in the film industry from the late 1980s to the early 1990s with his unique way and film narrative. They cooperated with other "fifth generation directors" to create "ethnographic" films, and at the same time created "mythical" miracles for themselves.

During his film career, Zhang Yimou was particularly keen on "national stories from a grand perspective", and at the same time summarized our national culture and history through the peak of deep cultural concepts and traditional personality patterns. Zhang Yimou's unique thinking is reflected in Red Sorghum, Hanging Red Lantern and Chrysanthemum Bean, which he directed in his early years. His unique mythical thinking is ritualized under his unique audio-visual language, symbol, metaphor and irony. This makes the national film directed by Zhang Yimou with the color of national fable, leaving a much-told story on the world film stage.

The concept of documentary has also been popularized and accepted under the impetus of "the fourth generation of directors in China". In 1980s, the fifth generation directors, represented by Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, began to force documentaries to fade out by "creating individuality and reflecting on traditional culture". If it weren't for the group of "China's Fifth Generation" directors, China's films would have stayed in the period of "World War II films". It is the combination of their academic school and local traditional folk customs that makes the films interesting. In 1990s, Zhang Yimou once again shouldered the banner of documentary with Story of Autumn Chrysanthemum, and realism and film aesthetics reached a reconciliation. The film "None Can Be Less" released later is extremely realistic and more meaningful in the history of movies.

Zhang Yimou has quite experimentally stripped off the formal features of light orange in his documentary style. All the actors in the film are non-professional actors, and their real names and identities are kept. This is an unprecedented reservation and avant-garde exploration in China's film history. Even before this, in The Story of Autumn Chrysanthemum, Zhang Yimou only chose some unprofessional actors. When shooting, in order to achieve a sense of presence, Zhang Yimou recorded at the same time at the shooting scene, using only a small amount of music and sound as the emotional narrative of the film. These performances do not expose photographic traces at all, but achieve the effect of "returning to nature".

This extreme realism is a great test for the production of No Child Left Behind, but it also brings an unskilled skill in film production. The film is adapted from Shi Xiangsheng's nonfiction novel There is a Sun in the Sky. This is not a hypothetical film, and the story in the original is not completely true. In his creation, Zhang Yimou is essentially based on the self-report of the third person, without restoring the stories one by one according to the original works.

Zhang Yimou, who has returned to the realistic local theme, may want to recreate the real myth in reality, but this is still his wishful thinking. The light and shadow of the "national epic" film with "ethnography" as the main body has quietly faded. Although Zhang Yimou tried his best to reconstruct the film with this technique in No Child Left Behind, when the "truth" became extremely true, the documentary was destroyed. This style of pursuing art and expression, in addition to authenticity, will also leave a lack of "thought and depth".

Andre bazan said: "In front of the theme, all skills tend to be self-eliminated, which is almost transparent." The words constructed by literature are straightforward, and it is easy to lose infinite imagination and formal beauty in front of movies, which also makes the original literature become a simple and transparent material when it is adapted into movies, while movies become another narrative form without formal sense.

Strictly speaking, Nothing Less is divorced from the original work, and it is a story about feelings and thoughts. This is a film dominated by Zhang Yimou's subjective thoughts, and Zhang Yimou's contradictory structure, color aesthetics and film narrative are inevitably integrated into documentary narrative.

At the beginning of the story "No Child Left Behind", Zhang Yimou began to target a border village, a shabby house, a teacher and 28 students in a certain area, 1 mixed class for grade 4. The bell is based on the pillars on the roof. Even so, they still love life so much and cherish every piece of chalk.

When the only teacher was going to visit her seriously ill mother, the village head could only hire a temporary teacher who had just turned 13, which became her sacred purpose. But Zhang, 1 1, forced her to walk hundreds of miles to find the student who lost the book. Behind the rough and peeping lens, it points to the mountains.

From the strong in the countryside to the weak in the city, Wei Minzhi has experienced many puzzles, strangeness and intense loneliness. This also turned Wei Minzhi's initial practical purpose of getting 50 yuan into a noble love and care. A child who needs to love and take care of herself and another child is great, but at the same time she is ignorant.

Faced with the question of "Why did the mountain village students lose" in TV and radio interviews, Wei Minzhi could only answer with the words "their families are defective". This simple and sincere answer is fearless to the ignorant. Emile Kusturica, a famous director of the former Yugoslavia (winner of two Palme d 'Or Awards and chairman of the jury of the 56th Venice Film Festival), also commented on Wei Minzhi's role in performances and films: The moment when Wei Minzhi appeared on the TV screen in the film was one of the most touching moments in film history, and this alone touched the whole film festival.

Throughout the movie story, the audience accompanied Wei Minzhi from "country" to "city". Although he walked hundreds of miles, the jump was in vain. Wei Minzhi can't change the gap between "open, secular and indifferent" cities and "closed, backward and simple" villages. Can only be filled by the mainstream groups in the city. Just as at the end of the film, the TV station sent the materials donated by mainstream social groups to Shuiquan Primary School, which conveyed the caring spirit of the city and the people, which also brought the film closer to a balanced mentality.

Although "No Child Can Be Less" has its narrative form, clues and subjective limitations, it is difficult to make a big impact in breadth and depth, but it is still an excellent and representative film.

In a letter to Cannes Film Festival, Zhang Yimou wrote: "No Child Left Behind" expresses our love for our children and worries about the present situation and future of our nation's overall cultural quality. In the end, Zhang Yimou's "Hanging the Red Lantern High" won the Silver Lion, and "No One Less" won the Golden Lion Award in the main competition unit of the 56th Venice Film Festival and the best feature film in the 22nd Hundred Flowers Award.

Zhang Yimou himself commented that "no one can be less":

After the film was a great success at home and abroad, the National Copyright Administration also issued the copyright protection rules for the film No Child Left Behind, which was the first time that China officially protected the copyright of domestic films. Many filmmakers and audiences finally realized what Richard Kiquille, an American film historian, said: "Exciting themes are far more important than stars and genres themselves."

It's just a pity that the "stimulus theme" has been dispelled with the increasingly complex consumerism and entertainment spirit. Fortunately, with the emergence of Nobody and Wolf Warriors 2 in Life and Death, this kind of "exciting theme" seems to be increasing.

Andre bazan: What is a movie? ",translated by Cui

[2] Bela Balazs: Film Aesthetics, translated by Li He.

[3] "No one can be left behind": "looking for" structure and enlarging personality, freezing.