film

The same background in the 1970s and 1980s, the same typical northern town of China, the same cruel youth and growth, and even the same application of medium and long shots made me unconsci

The same background in the 1970s and 1980s, the same typical northern town of China, the same cruel youth and growth, and even the same application of medium and long shots made me unconsciously compare Gu Changwei's Peacock with Jia's Platform, which once brought me the same shock. Although compared with Platform, the investment of Gu Changwei Film15 million is astronomical. The slightly rough picture quality of Platform is more like an experimental work that dares to try, but what makes me admire and excited is that in this noisy and impetuous era, filmmakers like Jia and Gu Changwei are clinging to their own artistic ideas, shooting such films with a sincere attitude, capturing the social development of China and the life growth experience of ordinary people, and making a record for themselves, for that era and for people living in that era.

Everyone's life is like a peacock in a cage, while watching others, but the real prosperity and excitement, beauty and sadness are often inadvertently missed in this process. Looking back suddenly, all the experiences, whether flashy or lonely, have become a thing of the past, and it is unbearable to look back. Just like what Zhang Ailing felt when she wrote about looking at old photos in her novels-'photos are just the shell of life; As the years passed, melon seeds were swallowed one by one, and everyone knew the taste, leaving only black and white melon seeds scattered all over the place. "I won't introduce the plot, so as not to spoil the fun of people who haven't seen the film. Tell me a few scenes that particularly moved me.

1. On a quiet and lazy summer afternoon, housewives were walking in twos and threes with food baskets. Suddenly, the music began to play. My sister, a puritan idealist, dreamed of becoming a paratrooper and appeared in the street with a homemade parachute tied behind her car. The parachute raised by the wind looks so awkward in the monotonous and simple streets of Anyang. My sister's surreal behavior brought a small climax to this plain and restrained film.

Second, the family was playing honeycomb briquette in the yard, and suddenly it rained heavily unexpectedly. The whole family watched the coal cake and untreated coal surface being washed away by the rain. The desolation and helplessness of life are vividly reflected at that moment, just like the heavy rain in the movie;

In front of the whole family, the mother put the poisonous rat poison bought by her brother into the glass, and then caught the goose raised by her brother for testing, to show that she knew that her brother wanted to poison his brother because he disliked his mental retardation and was jealous of his parents' love for him. The poisoned goose twitched violently. With the mother's tears and twitching face, the frightened eyes of the whole family were shown by slow motion and sad music, which made people realize the cruelty and sadness under the surface of a quiet life.

Fourth, my sister saw the young soldier who was once in high spirits in the street. At that time, he was already a hero, honed by life into an ordinary middle-aged man. My sister came up to him and said,' I just told my brother that you will love me forever.' The man was shocked by his sister's words, swallowed the steamed stuffed bun in his mouth and asked in surprise,' What's your name? My sister smiled and left, and soon she hid her face and cried at the tomato stand. Zhang Jingchu's performance was wonderful, and her crying expression was too beautiful and cruel, which deeply touched me.

In the cold winter, in the empty zoo, the peacock opened a beautiful bird screen in the empty zoo after passing through three brothers and sisters. The audience looked at the peacock's ass for a long time until they finally turned around and let people see its beautiful feathers.

Wang Shuo, known as Wen Pi, once said,' It's beautiful to be complacent, and it's an asshole to turn around!' Life is much the same.

-

Brilliant moments after the collapse of proud as a peacock.

If you think that young memories are sunny days, please don't watch Peacock-because there is no sweat of fighting and trouble of newborn calves, no ambiguity of boys playing with condoms, no laughing and cursing, only childhood dreams hidden in their hearts and that first love.

So, when you see my sister (Zhang Jingchu) laughing wildly while riding a bicycle with a rotten parachute in the film, you will know that it is our love and dreams that fly in the sky. Maybe, it won't land, or even crash, but when it flies over our heads, it is so beautiful, beautiful enough to make people miss their lives.

I don't want to use the word "disillusioned" to describe this movie casually, even if my sister lost her unforgettable first love, brother? (Feng Ying) marries a cripple, and his younger brother (Lv Yulai) becomes a hooligan who eats soft rice, but the complacent scene at the end of the film seems to tell us that life may be getting farther and farther away from the ideal of childhood, but there is an eternal color behind it. Just as we all know that a peacock can open its screen, it doesn't mean that we can see its bright and open moment every time. Only when we suddenly look back, do we find the rainbow flashing on the road.

The three-stage narrative slowly tells the story of three brothers and sisters living in Heyang City in the late 1970s. As a female representative, my sister's story accounts for almost half the time of the film, and it is also the most lonely part. Perhaps this is related to the fact that a woman is an unrealistic dreamer by nature, and her sister's loneliness is closely related to her persistence. Zhang Jingchu, wearing a white shirt and a black skirt, is spotless, and her stubbornness on her face never stops. The girl who sleeps on the roof and dreams of becoming a paratrooper gave her first love to a man in military uniform, which seems a little far away from this world. Otherwise, how could she give the love of her life to an unknown person just because of a parachute and a uniform, and how could she almost give up her life because she could not realize her dream of being a paratrooper? Unlike the arrogance of sunny days ten years ago, my sister is as quiet as a glass of water, and her heart is under the glass cover. I can only see Shui Ying's silence, and every ups and downs in her heart can only be seen from her silent resistance. Even quiet people sometimes go crazy for their dreams. We saw the scene of my sister flying a homemade parachute on a bicycle, which was the most enjoyable moment in her life-a girl went crazy in the street of a small northern city in the late 1970s, with an unscrupulous smile on her face and a huge parachute behind her. In the end, her dream didn't come true, so she could only protect it with her only persistence. When she took off her pants and took back her parachute, and met her first love again many years later, her persistence surprised everyone. At this moment, we began to doubt that our dreams never left us, but we didn't insist on it.

My brother's story seems to be the happiest because he is a fool with incomplete intelligence. As the saying goes, fools are blessed with fools, which is probably not a lie. Parents feel guilty for their son's defects all their lives and just want to give him the best. Every night, my mother acupoints my brother on my head. Every new year, I leave the most candy for my brother. My brother has to wait on him when he rides a bike and takes a shower. When the brother of Seeds of Love took a fancy to a plump and beautiful girl, the virtuous and conservative mother found the girl without hesitation and forced her to beg her to meet her silly son. The girl broke her word, and her brother's first love and only love slipped away in a hurry. However, just because he will never grow up, his brother's "stupid things" are even more speechless, and these "stupid things" have become the only persistence in his life.

Fools are always the object of ridicule and insult in movies, and my brother is no exception. Although there are parents at home, society is not as kind as parents. A bunch of bullies always take advantage of their brother, play with him, throw him the heaviest work, and reward him with a pack of cigarettes when he is done. My brother didn't think it was a loss, but he was satisfied with earning a pack of cigarettes after a hard day. As a friend, he also smiled. With his brother's intelligence of staying in childhood, he couldn't understand what he had suffered, so when he proudly gave his father the "reward" he earned, he couldn't understand what his father's anger was for, so he had to secretly hide his father's cigarette case in a cardboard box and put it under the bed to save it-because it was his reward and wealth. Many years later, my brother married a cripple and opened a restaurant, and his life was "normal" and almost happy. At this time, the bully found him with his pregnant wife and humbly borrowed money from him to live. My brother smirked and agreed. He was very willing to help his former friends, so he decided to give his most precious wealth to his younger brother. He asked the bully to come and get the money the next day. That night, my brother dug out a dusty cardboard box from under the bed, which contained all the rewards of his work when he was young. He always thought that these cigarette cases were the most valuable wealth. The next day, he gave the box to little Wang Ba. My brother was very proud when the box was opened, but little Wang Ba's face suddenly lost its color. At this time, a thick sour taste rushed into my nose.

Brother, he is the youngest child. Is the youngest child the most vulnerable? We can't just give this answer. My brother once gave all his money to my sister, which made her realize her dream of being a paratrooper. My brother had the cheek to buy a sex manual for his sister, but it was not on the table at that time. My brother once refused to admit his brother because he was a fool. When everyone attacked him, he rushed forward and gave him the most violent blow. Finally, my brother left home because his father forced him to drop out of school for a nude painting. After returning to his hometown, he became a man who made a living by singing with his wife. But I believe that all my younger brother's youth and dreams have collapsed in the blow to my younger brother. How many crashes we will encounter in our life is unknown until the last moment, but after the crash, proud as a peacock is brilliant. Maybe it's because we never guessed that we were so strong that we could walk through those sad days safely. After passing by, like the three brothers and sisters, they didn't even see the peacock with the screen open at the end of the film, but the peacock did unfold its feathers for them.

-

Peacock: a civilian epic full of humanistic care

The day after Peacock won the Silver Bear Award at the 55th Berlin Film Festival, I watched the long-awaited movie at the New Dong 'an Cinema. The film slowly unfolded in the life of a family of five civilians in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and described the living conditions of my sister, brother and younger brother and their emotional conflicts with their parents and society in a three-stage structure. The film is like a pot of strong tea with a long lasting appeal, which shows the civilian life of that era so completely and profoundly. The camera calmly and implicitly organizes the emotions, ideals, growth and conflicts of an ordinary family into an epic full of meaningful and true humanistic care, so that people who have experienced that era can easily recall and examine themselves through the film.

As expected, the film uses a lot of still long shots, which tests the actors' performance skills. Fortunately, all the actors did not disappoint, especially Zhang Jingchu's sister, Huang Meiying's mother and Feng Ying's brother. Their performances are very reserved and impressive. There are several long shots that are still fresh in my memory: my sister came back from the Woods to get a parachute, the family watched her mother poison a goose with rat poison, and rescued the coal pile that was about to be flooded in the heavy rain, and finally the long shot of waiting proudly. Gu Changwei showed the power of the long lens in such a plain scene, which seemed very enjoyable. The emotional power in the film is also very touching, especially the two scenes of my sister at the beginning and end of the film, which moved me to tears. First, my sister struggled to ride a bicycle against the wind, and the parachute she dragged fluttered with the wind, as if flaunting her ideals; Second, many years later, my sister saw her secret love of the People's Liberation Army, as ordinary as any passerby, squatting in front of the food stall and crying. This is also the moment when the ideal is completely shattered. Silent crying is really shocking.

In this era when movies are getting more and more eager for quick success and instant benefit, when people like Zhang Yimou are shooting so-called martial arts commercial blockbusters, Gu Changwei's Peacock has undoubtedly brought a high-level artistic blockbuster to China movies. It is said that the plot of the film was deleted for nearly an hour before the trial and during the review, including the homosexual and violent plot of my brother. In fact, in the current film, my brother's violent tendency has been completely highlighted in the process of trying to poison my brother and assassinate him with an umbrella, but I still think my brother's character can be tapped more fully. Gu Changwei said that the director's extended version will be released on DVD. While looking forward to it, I just hope that the DVD producers in the sixth district will not let us down too much.

-

Peacock: The Truth of Life

At the end of the movie, the peacock in the zoo moved its huge ugly ass and slowly turned to the camera. I suddenly realized what a bizarre and absurd creature this is. The huge and bright feathers that spread out make me a little scared. What's so beautiful about such a fancy ass? I was trapped in a chair in the cinema, lost in thought.

Gu Changwei's film Peacock ends with this dazzling opening. Although no cast members were present, there was still short applause in the audience, and the packed audience also made the best annotation for the people's hunger for domestic excellent literary films. The tone of the whole movie is calm and depressing. The camera leads the audience to stand on the sidelines and observe the life changes of an ordinary family cruelly, which makes people unable to breathe for a long time. However, the film can always be rational in the control of emotions, and there is neither a cheap tearing plot nor a forced arrangement of views. The color tone is cold, simple and natural, just like the sunshine in the suburbs in cold winter, which makes people look very comfortable, the composition is quite exquisite, the picture almost abandons all the decorations, and the emotions are deeply buried at the bottom.

Although the story has the background of the times (probably in the late 1970s and early 1980s), the content has no obvious characteristics of the times, mainly showing how the ideals of young people are gradually crushed by real life. Strangely, the film tells the story of three brothers and sisters in a three-stage way. I don't see any special benefits in this arrangement, and the beginning of each paragraph begins with the scene of the whole family sitting under the public corridor for dinner. Using my brother's voice-over, going back and forth three times seems a bit complicated.

This is a very ordinary and typical family in China. The relationship is complicated and chaotic. The lack of communication between parents and children may be due to guilt. They just gave all their love to their stupid son. Silly brother naturally regards himself as a family center. Although he is discriminated and insulted outside, he can enjoy the tolerance of his sister and brother and the doting of his parents at home. My sister is a typical idealist with an extreme personality, which is incompatible with real life. Until her fantasy was peeled off layer by layer, she could only be shot down again in the dust of real life, repeating her parents' routines. The younger brother is a child who is old before he has experienced youth. He went out for a few years, just like a dream. When he woke up, he was bored and old. The emotion between them is not simple love or hate, and their attitude towards life is not simple enjoyment or despair. All opposition and care, pain and disappointment, warmth and injury are intertwined in their hearts, which makes people unbearable to live a heavy life.

There are some seemingly chaotic plots in this movie. For example, my sister's parachute was snatched by a rogue boy's fruit. In order to get the parachute back, my sister took the initiative to take off her pants and show her white thighs. Guoguo was at a loss in surprise. She hurriedly turned around and shot herself in the foot with a shotgun, and the howl of pain resounded through the Woods. Such a plot seems incredible, but it shows a very real chaotic and pure mentality. There is also a deep impression that my brother tried to poison his brother with rat poison, but his sister found out and stopped him. The next day at dinner, my mother suddenly poisoned my brother's favorite goose with rat poison in front of everyone, and the goose twitched and twisted its neck. This is probably the most violent and cruel picture in the whole film. The director used this prank to stimulate the audience's nerves. The most touching passage of the film comes from the end of the film. The stories of the three brothers and sisters are intertwined again. My sister finally fell into a normal life, hoping to get married and have children. The last fantasy in my heart is that someone can really love themselves, even if they are not around. But when she met the fruit in the street, and the fruit didn't recognize her at all, her sister's last fantasy was cruelly shattered. When my brother and I were squatting on the ground picking tomatoes, my sister suddenly turned away, and the painful expression was really touching.

In the performance of the actors, Zhang Jingchu's sister was a little nervous, especially when she began to have a crush on male paratroopers. Many expressions seem exaggerated. Lv Yulai plays the role of his brother's silence and depression well, but his plot jumps greatly. I don't know if it's the reason for deletion, but I feel that his story can be more fluent. My brother is a role between silly and muddy, which can be understood as a spiritual hermit or an outsider. He avoided all complicated emotions and acted on instinct, eventually becoming the most successful role in the whole family life. Perhaps he can be regarded as the director's mockery of the times. It's a pity that the scene of finally digging out a box of cigarettes to help others smoke is a bit sensational.

Finally, I want to mention nostalgia. The director deliberately added a lot of symbolic things representing the 1970s and 1980s. You will be dazzled when you see tomatoes in drip bottles, preserved eggs made by yourself, honeycomb briquettes made, red ten-dollar bills with women walking tractors and white rabbit toffee. Although these tireless nostalgia can directly hit the hearts of people who grew up in that era, it is too late, and sometimes the purpose of nostalgia is too obvious. But I have to say, the costumes of this movie are very beautiful.

Basically, this is a self-conscious film, and the director's objective position enables everyone to find what they need from the film, either warm or cruel. In fact, the truth of life is that there is no truth.