"Jincheng Boy" film review

"Jincheng Boy" Film Review (1): Watching Jincheng Boy in the Wilderness

It was my first time to go to the Wilderness Bookstore and I looked around. There were already many people inside. Not long after the start, teacher Guo Xizhi came. Although it was the first time I saw it, it was pretty much what I imagined.

The film tells the story of a painter who returned to his hometown, Jincheng, Liaoning, to paint the friends he grew up with, including laid-off workers, farmers, bosses,... For the painter, he wants to use pens and colors to express This group of forgotten people are the remnants of the countryside being swallowed up by the city.

After reading it, most of them dispersed, while the rest sat scattered around. Teacher Guo said that Hou Hsiao-hsien's pictures were too artistic. Documentaries should be eye-level, or better yet, below life, not above life like this, a bit sentimental. The music, especially, is very pretentious. The perspectives of the director and the painter are staggered. Documentaries like this can be broadcast on CCTV.

I started by asking a very detailed question: the war Shujun participated in and the sand on his body. Teacher Guo raised the issue of grasping the documentary as a whole, as no one can fully understand it. I think I have the overall picture, now I need to delve into the details. Of course, the teacher has his own reasons for saying this, because it is impossible for everyone to have an overall perspective. Teacher Guo mentioned the issue of art commercialization mentioned at the beginning of the film. He said that the only things that are not commercialized now are poetry and documentaries because they don’t make money.

The sentence I remember the most is (to the general effect) that this has happened from generation to generation, and it won’t be too far apart. So why do we need history? We need to know history. Because there is history, there is you. A person's living habits and personal temperament are closely related to the hometown where you grew up. Therefore, how can we not understand our hometown, our relatives and our childhood friends?

Since I watched Shinsuke Ogawa’s Makino Village, I have felt a sense of mission to understand my hometown. Teacher Guo said that the homework he assigned to his students was to go back and take pictures of his hometown. He said to start by shooting one thing, not from a very grand angle. It's like a little bit of refreshment to me.

Film review of "The Kid" (Part 2): The Old Boy on Canvas

■One sentence review: When hearing the theme of Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", Hou Hsiao-hsien's local memories seem to be The continent came to life again and had life. Similar urbanization processes are equally touching.

In Victor Ellis' "Quince Sunlight", the painter waits for the best sunlight to fall on the fruiting quince tree. After a long and hopeless wait, he abandoned the unfinished oil painting and chose sketching. The painter explained that the same is true in life, things can't be perfect, you have to give up something. Among the many films about the painter's creation, this film has always been unavoidable. At the end of "Jincheng Boy", the shed Liu Xiaodong built for painting was deliberately destroyed, and the unfinished paintings inside were also destroyed. Seeing this, I somehow thought of "Queen Sunshine". Liu Xiaodong hopes to regain something he has lost through painting. He chose many familiar characters and various backgrounds. Don't you know that some things are destined to be given up and slowly forgotten. He is looking for some familiar feelings from the past, but some things can no longer survive in the present.

When filming a movie, one waits for the clouds to arrive. When a painter paints, one waits for the rain to stop. Weather changes are all too common. But in the eyes of creators, it can influence their inspirational impulses. This is a group of observers walking on the track of time, traveling by light and shadow. Time in paintings is static, time in movies has length, and time in life is endless. The three are each integrated into one, and in "Jincheng Boy" they show an interdependent and inclusive relationship, connecting the past, present and future.

In "East", Liu Xiaodong is a professional painter. In "Jincheng Boy", he is not only a painter, but also the son of his parents, the playmate of his friends, and the collaborator of the Taiwanese team. Liu Xiaodong explained that painters only have one angle to paint, and the object needs to be placed there, and it is best not to move. It's different when making a movie. The director can choose the best angle and record it in all directions. He painted his aging friends in his hometown, and Hou Hsiao-hsien photographed him as he aged. This was an exchange of positions. He chose to return to his hometown to paint, some of which were inspired by something he had experienced in Beijing. The old man holding an X-ray film reminded him of his childhood friends. When watching movies, we will also be touched, smell the local flavor of Taiwan's new movies, and think of our own hometown complex.

The director of "The Golden City Boy" is Yao Hongyi, a young member of the Hou Hsiao-hsien clique. We generally count people who are related to Hou Hsiao-hsien's works and later work alone as Hou Hsiao-hsien clique. Hou Hsiao-hsien usually gives more care and help to these people. For example, "Jincheng Boy" was supervised by him himself, and he also has a fixed team composed of Liao Qingsong, Du Duzhi, Lin Qiang and others.

This documentary presents a closed structure, with the beginning and end of the story being about a short-lived old man and a talkative old mother. When it really cuts into the small town of Jincheng, the film begins to undergo earth-shaking changes, showing an amazing nostalgic atmosphere, thus echoing Liu Xiaodong's creative intention. Only beautiful things will trigger creation. He loves this land and the people living on it. people.

The film uses chapters from Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" in many places. Fans familiar with Taiwanese movies should know that there is a story behind the music.

When filming "The Man from the Fengkuei", Hou Hsiao-hsien used Li Zongsheng's film, and the film was quickly withdrawn after its release. Later, Edward Yang suggested that it might be paired with a version of classical music. He suggested using Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons", so "The Man from Fengkuei" had a different feel. In Hou Hsiao-hsien's words, it "came back to life and had life". It was even more popular abroad, and Hou Hsiao-hsien also initially established his personal style. "Jincheng Boy" excerpted this piece of music, which must have some reference. The past youth is not directly shown in the film. Instead, the painter himself mentions and gestures about it from time to time. From Fengkui to Jincheng, decades separated youth. People have changed, but the feeling conveyed by the picture has not changed.

Fast or slow trains, beautiful fields and reed marshes, no one is disturbing. Is this the past or present, or is it a memory disorder. From time to time the film jumps into nostalgic tones, directly filtering and beautifying reality. I have seen too many dilapidated towns and cities, including my own hometown, where there are idle people and the environment is dirty and messy. Time seems to be cracking there, and there is a gap. It is neither the expected present nor the past in memory. In the movie, Jincheng is too beautiful to look like it is today. The disappearing hometown and the friends reunited, in the fading time and vague memories, they grow old slowly.

As for the karaoke section, Hou Hsiao-hsien finally couldn't help but ran out from the crowd and started singing a Hokkien song - like Assayas' "Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien". After the singing, everyone sang along. Cheers to the past. Liu Xiaodong said that his paintings are about human stories and human collapse. "Jincheng Boy" is a supplementary explanation, faithful to the creator's self-discovery. Its subjects are the painter himself and his changed hometown. Beijing Youth Daily

"Jincheng Boy" film review (3): Jincheng Boy is rich

Many years ago, I saw an interview with Liu Xiaodong, in which the newly rich painter was in the camera Said: An artist will definitely become very rich after becoming successful, but this does not affect him from continuing to be an artist. Like Liu Xiaodong, who was still young in the camera at the time, I took this for granted.

Time passed like this day by day. As a successful artist, Liu Xiaodong did not become rich but became very rich. The auction price was often tens of millions. Fortunately, he continued to do the serious work of an artist, painting, being a teacher, and making movies with his former friends. The characters in the picture range from friends around me to migrant workers in the Three Gorges and a young lady from Thailand. The method of painting has also expanded from the studio to the real scene. Over the years, Liu Xiaodong's live paintings have always been accompanied by documentaries, becoming another voice outside the canvas. Until one day, he said that he wanted to draw pictures of his childhood friends, those Jincheng boys.

At the beginning of Jincheng Boy, Liu Xiaodong said on camera: He has always been afraid to go back to his hometown to paint his friends, because he knew that with his current worth, these paintings would have high commercial value, and In our Chinese concept, the friendship between friends does not seem to have anything to do with money. This passage makes me feel a little sad. Time changes everyone in this way, and those things that are taken for granted have quietly changed. We can no longer say that money is money and paintings are paintings. The creation of art ultimately conveys the artist’s feelings and understanding of life itself. We are all carried forward by the times, and we will leave traces no matter what. Jincheng Boy had such an opening, which gave me more expectations and worries. But when Liu Xiaodong's friends appeared on the stage, those vivid Jincheng Boy immediately dispelled all doubts. They are so real. , with his own story, frank and sincere.

It is actually very difficult to shoot a documentary like "Jincheng Boy". There are too many painter parts, and it becomes the artist's autobiography; there are too few painter parts, and there is a lack of a special subjective perspective. Hou Hsiao-hsien's team did it appropriately and thoughtfully so that the subjects could hardly feel the presence of the camera. The Jincheng boys are able to show their natural and vigorous vitality, and their respect for reality and people is both on the canvas and in the images. Being a painter is just Liu Xiaodong's profession. In Jincheng, he is no different from his childhood friends. We see everyone’s story, and see more real people and lives outside the canvas. They are more vivid than the things frozen in the gallery.

The emergence of photography and film once had a great impact on the development of painting. There are many scenes of Liu Xiaodong painting in "Jincheng Boy". These two different carriers overlap and appear on the screen when facing the same life scenes, producing a very wonderful chemical effect. As Liu Xiaodong himself said, "Sometimes movies are better than paintings. The camera can record more perspectives. When painting, you won't be able to see more."

In short, this is a film A documentary full of emotions, beautiful and warm, not dull at all. It is the humor and power of life itself that create the moving temperament of the film. It records the yesterday and today of Jincheng boy, and also depicts the portrait of the entire era. We are not young people from small towns, and we are not old yet, but as Director Wu Yigong said in his acceptance speech at the opening ceremony of the Shanghai Film Festival, movies are so charming and tell you without hesitation that life is or has been like this. . We are so different from Jincheng boy, but we can also be so similar. Life is not as colorful as fashion blockbusters. They are real and sharp, without so much pretentiousness.

Just like the tattoo on Asahi's arm, it is a dragon that is only half tattooed because it hurts too much.

"Jincheng Boy" Film Review (4): Jincheng Boy

"Worker Classes were submerged, and we suddenly discovered that we are all city dwellers, our hometowns are all occupied by buildings, and we are all city dwellers without a hometown," the painter Liu Xiaodong wrote. In 2010, thirty years after leaving his hometown of Jincheng, Liaoning, he returned to his hometown to paint his old friends. 26 paintings were also made into a documentary, "Jincheng Boy", directed by Yao Hongyi and co-produced by Hou Hsiao-hsien.

The small town of Jincheng was once famous for its paper mill, but it is now in decline. Liu Xiaodong's former friends have all become middle-aged people who have experienced the vicissitudes of life, but they have no choice but to live happily and contentedly with their fate. The relationship between art and rough reality, which cannot be separated from commerce, and the painter and the painted, has become more subtle, perhaps simpler, or more aesthetically distanced in his childhood and hometown. The camera, like Liu Xiaodong's "Third Eye", attempts to capture how the painter captures the history of life with his brush as a way to the past. The boundless sea of ??reeds dancing in the wind has an eternal poetic quality. In Hou Hsiao-hsien's words, it is a bit like time standing still. It also reminds me of the quiet and clear miscanthus in Jiufen, with mountains and sea views in Hou's movies; the train transporting reed poles reminds Hou Hsiao-hsien of the sugar factory train in Tainan, and the movement seems familiar.

The painter walks out of the studio, or in other words, restores the studio from a fixed and closed architectural space to a flowing and open daily environment. The original scene can be a field, a quarry, or a billiards hall. The so-called sketching and realism , the same goes for movies (for example, in Japan, it is called "event photo"). This layered frame: reality, brush, camera, digital high-definition and 16mm camera; different textures: canvas, photo, two-tone image on the screen... like a hall full of mirrors, reflecting each other.

"Jincheng Boy" Film Review (5): The Miracle of Life

In today's era of information garbage, we really don't know what else to watch. Perhaps only documentaries are the most authentic.

The film recalls Teacher Liu Xiaodong’s hometown in a very loose way. The entire atmosphere of the film is filled with a strong sense of nostalgia. Nothing flashy, just plain and real everyday life. However, the artist's paintings are touching. Those portraits are not just pieces of canvas, but are burning in those brushstrokes. You will feel that you are also affected by what those painters want to express. I'm surprised why someone painted such a character, which is even more real than reality. They are living human skins that belong to the present moment.

Teacher Liu Xiaodong’s hometown is charming, a simple northeastern town. I always thought that art had to be an expression of the extraordinary. But I found that no matter what, life and the world will not change, only the understanding will change. Truth is charming, and art can only become true if it is rooted in the times and life. Sometimes people may not care about anything and stay away from everything, only then can they feel the truth. In the fields, in the hills and streams, in the wheat fields, in the fragrance of the rice after the harvest, even in the forgotten time.

Teacher Liu Xiaodong said: Actually, I am just a painter.

I think this is not his modesty, but an artist’s most real life perception. What can transcend everything, transcend life. Everything is a miracle of life.

Film review of "Jincheng Boy" (6): Two dimensions of reality: the reality of performance and the reality of image

The first dimension:

Question: How Achieve the authenticity of the performance?

Answer: The alienation of the image, the performance of the actors, and the fiction of the story.

——The alienation of images: Duras, Antonioni, Ozu Yasujiro, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Ceylon, etc.

——The performances of actors: Lu Le, Abba "Legal Copy", etc.

——The fiction of the story: Abbas, Gomez, Fellini, etc.

"The Golden City Kid" film review (7): "The Golden City Kid" 》: Oil Paint Time Machine

Small town nostalgia, urbanization changes, youthful memories, "Jincheng Boy" uses a diary narrative method to record the painter Liu Xiaodong's return to his hometown - Jincheng, for his neighbors and friends , relatives, and painting stories. This seemingly dull film is like a pot of wine, intoxicating a stranger and bringing back past feelings. It turns out that those days no longer exist; it turns out that those faces are unfamiliar. At the beginning of the film, Liu Xiaodong expressed his true feelings of shyness in his hometown through voice-over. The author believes that this "cowardice" actually established Liu Xiaodong's observation perspective.

Just like Liu Xiaodong's monologue in the movie, "The viewing angle of a painting is fixed and has boundaries." Therefore, the oil paintings Liu Xiaodong made for others in turn reflect his own view of the world. Observation – a multi-dimensional perspective. Each person in the painting is experiencing a different life journey. Among them, some have been laid off, some have opened KTVs, some have become quarry workers, and some have nothing to do all day... For this reason, the appearance of these characters - a brief introduction with black characters on a white background , accompanied by sketches - constitute the narrative structure of the entire film. Also, it is the real-life experiences of these characters that constitute the spiritual complex of contemporary Chinese people.

As an audience, we can always see the shadow of ourselves or our parents in them. In other words, a shadow of a way of life.

"Time is the greatest art" Liu Xiaodong said. How to embody the art of "time", "Jincheng Boy" uses two narrative techniques that are mutually reinforcing. First, just like the opening shot of the film, in depth, the top of the screen is a newly built highway, with farmers riding bicycles and city dwellers driving vans, and there is a bustle of people and cars; the bottom of the screen is a barren rice field, which has not yet been opened. developed. Second, the previous shot is an in-depth shot of a rural scene - matched editing, and the next shot is a small town street with buildings on both sides. What is particularly worth mentioning is that there is a towering chimney deep in the frame of this pair of matching clips. This chimney is like a switch that opens a space-time tunnel. Magical realism axially symmetries two different lifestyles. Talking about contrast, on this side of the street are scattered migrant workers standing in a row, taking a rest; on the other side of the street are neat rows of hotel ladies waiting for guests.

With the golden wheat waves, white mist, red light leaks (parts of the film were shot on 16mm film), and the oil paint wiped on the canvas, "Jincheng Boy" seems to exist in the author's memory. "Time Spectrum" exquisitely expresses the inner color of Liu Xiaodong, the outsider in the painting: things are different and people are different. It is rustic, and it is also poetic. The rust color in winter, the flooding in summer, the billiard room in autumn, and the continuous rain in spring are woven into a wordless poem that is lost in time.

From playing football, to egg-breaking, to playing cards, the characters in the film seem to be constantly playing games, unconsciously escaping into that forgotten childhood. Liu Xiaodong picked up the brush and painted it. In Liu Xiaodong's own words, "My paintings are becoming more and more simple." The author believes that this "simple" is not realism in the full sense. Because most of these works are staged. Liu Xiaodong throws real people from the real world into his fictional memory environment. For example, he accidentally chatted with a female neighbor all the way to the billiard room and painted her, which is a clear example. Moreover, the film also shows many times where he plays with the props around him in order to paint someone. These actions symbolically give these paintings a semantic density that reveals the culture, politics, and history of the “people in the paintings” in a broad sense.

In the dusk, the ears of wheat are astray. The train, bathed in the glow of the sun, passes by. Some people leave and some come back. Some people retire and return to their hometowns, while others have never been heard from again. The train, which appears many times in the film, has clearly become a time machine in the time tunnel. Climbing and sitting people, collectively unconsciously shuttle through the colorful time tunnel.

This article was published in "Oriental Morning Post" on May 24, 2011. Other media or individuals may not reprint it.

Film review of "Jincheng Boy" (8): A journey to trace the origins

"I saw two old people looking at an X-ray film by the smelly ditch in Beijing, and I immediately thought He is a kind of forgotten person, because we are very busy living in the city, and we are all too busy to even meet and say hello. Suddenly, when I see two people studying the body, by the smelly ditch, I will suddenly be aroused. An expression of desire for forgetfulness

I feel that these brothers are forgotten characters in my life trajectory. One is the entire working class. Under the great changes in China’s social background, The working class feels forgotten, and there is also an entire process of urbanization. Small towns are abandoned and will be annexed by cities sooner or later. Even if they have personal talents or personal qualities, they are just like being forgotten. Just like a group of forgotten people." - Liu Xiaodong's "Jincheng Boy"

After being away from home for thirty years, I returned to the original starting point, traced my roots, and recorded my hometown with a brush.

Film review of "Jincheng Boy" (9): When recording becomes an art...

The Chinese people's rural sentiments actually hide great contradictions. A place of birth or life contains the most primitive self-esteem of the soul, even if we don't really realize it. The sense of honor in life falls like this when we have no choice.

Since ancient times, "heroes do not ask where they come from", but why not? Have you ever thought about it?

"Heroes" are often afraid to mention it because of their low status and poor family background. It's not that they shouldn't ask about the source, but that heroes don't want to be asked about the source. "Jincheng Boy" really shows where he comes from? In the end, whether Liu Xiaodong is a hero or not, right and wrong have their own justice.

Every Chinese New Year, a large number of expatriates travel thousands of miles to return home. For most Chinese people, hometown is more than just home, it is a place of belonging that cannot be let go. You used to live there, develop habits there, make friends there, and complain about the troubles of life, the harsh environment, and the poor quality of the people, as if you would never want to go back if you left this area one day. Therefore, everyone strives for it, to work hard in the outside world, to find a pure land that is better than their hometown, to realize their dreams, to put it bluntly, to escape from this sea of ??suffering. Those who did so gladly left their homeland... and abandoned the place of their birth that did not want to be asked its name.

Liu Xiaodong has always followed his own path of "recording", whether it is his paintbrush or this film. His soul has a home, that is, the land where he grew up, and this is the source of inspiration in his art. Only this land made him realize that the most touching thing in human nature is not the gorgeous splendor, but It's primitive blandness. There is nothing in the world that can burn forever like a flame, because it is still ashes after burning, but the calm flowing water is a kind of solidified eternity.

Liu Xiaodong’s feelings about his hometown do not seem to have a large scope. Liu Xiaodong seems unwilling to locate his hometown in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province. He just places that small town deep in his origins. Jincheng is only half an hour's drive from Jinzhou. If it hadn't been for the Jincheng Paper Mill, even the people of Jinzhou would not have known about this place. But it was Liu Xiaodong’s home, a place that was not beautiful but profound in his memory. His unvarnished record is not a disparagement of it, and certainly not a praise. It is just a simple record of a place that is unlikely to be paid attention to in a rapidly developing society. This kind of record constitutes an element of his art and is something in his heart. Just like the tone of his voice, he still speaks Northeastern dialect after living in Beijing for so many years. Can't it be changed? I think he doesn't want to change.

We have studied so much Confucian thought and traditional culture, but how many of them can actually apply it? Benevolence, justice, propriety, wisdom and trust are interpreted as flattery and sophistication in the fierce competition. When you look back one day, you may find that the plain truth is so great and so difficult to face.

"One cannot forget one's origins", it sounds so plain, but it is the most difficult moral principle to implement.

Film review of "Jincheng Boy" (10): It's theirs and it's ours

This is a story from Jincheng in Northeast China. The painter Liu Xiaodong returned to his hometown to paint those friends around him. We always have a place to go back to. Even if you wander for a long time and turn a foreign land into your hometown, there is only one place where you were born. When Liu Xiaodong is searching for the past and is afraid of forgetting, we also see our part in this documentary.

One day the painting was destroyed, and the shed built by Xiaodong and his friends was deliberately hit by a car. It just so happened that the rest of the painting didn’t need to be colored. The color of the background and the outline of the characters form the final work, while the chaos and wrinkles left by damage create a new visual effect. From another perspective, this is a work that was "impacted" by reality. The vandal and Liu Xiaodong worked together to complete this work "Egg Breaking."

Liu Xiaodong used his paintbrush to freeze those living people into that moment. He used his paintings to re-show life, what he thought, and his modified reality. The sadness, helplessness, fatigue, oldness, innocence, and dullness on those people's faces are all familiar to us, and even belong to us.

A certain way of life in villages and towns has its own unique humor, and among the people who have escaped from the city and are said to have been forgotten by Liu Xiaodong, they have a relatively primitive determination and belonging. The peace of ordinary people. Just like the friend Xiaodong mentioned, all the things that can be seen in his house are family property and nothing else. There, people see the simplicity of material, and their desires are dissolved by this reality.

So, this is what Hou Hsiao-hsien likes. Here he can see his familiar "Childhood Past" and "The Man from Fengkuei". Therefore, he became the perfect choice for this film. In the KTV scene, we saw Director Hou show off his singing voice, just like a businessman in that small town. There was his innocence in the little movements of pulling his voice and making faces.

The most familiar humor often comes from the elderly. Xiaodong’s father is deaf. He said why his father’s ears are so good today? The old man replied that his teeth were good, so the audience was happy, but some also cried. I don’t know about others, but I remembered that my grandfather was so similar to Xiaodong’s father. Ever since he had a brain disease, he often made jokes and was deaf. There is something unbearable hidden here. The old man's mistakes make you laugh, but the reality behind it is that he is already very old, and one day, you will not even hear the wrong words, only memories, in When facing these, we must learn to resist sadness.