Recently, the movies "The Party at South Station" and "Manslaughter" were hit, the themes are crime drama films, the former is original, the latter is remade, reflecting a completely different creative concept, but it is equally wonderful. "The Party at South Station" makes everyone feel the aesthetic concept of director Diao Yinan full of personal color again, how does this director, who has been quite mature since the early stage of creation, establish his own narrative style? The following review will take you deep into the world of his films.
Diao Yinan, who started from the screenwriting movie "Love Spicy Hot", "Carry Love to the End", "Bathing" and "Walking to the End", can't see at all that he is a believer in black puzzles and poetic violence.
As a director of artistic expression and image control, Diao Yinan jumped out of the limitations of the screenwriter's transformation into a director at the beginning - the mindset of emphasizing the dramatic setting of the story and light image presentation. Diao Yinan's respect for the image itself and the aesthetic concept of "de-plot logic" determine that he is a mature director at the beginning of his creation.
Stills from "Uniform"
Although his debut film "Uniform" is not mature enough, and "Night Train" is not amazing enough, these two works have more completely practiced his grasp of senior director cognition and creative skills such as "time alienation film space", "wandering discrete character setting", "inner emotional tension", "linear story dissolution" and so on.
So that to the poetic bloom at the end of "Daytime Fireworks", the gilded image texture of "The Party at South Station" (hereinafter referred to as "South Station"), and the skillful space scheduling, he has always been able to achieve the aesthetic positioning of modernity that integrates genre, author and style with strong control of the lens "abacus" ability and complete extension of the aesthetic "chess game".
Stills from "Daytime Fireworks"
In addition to Bi Gan's cultural myths about time and dreams, the few directors in China who have a strong personal style and highlight the complete creative concept are Diao Yinan and Cheng Er. Regardless of whether they have developed new philosophical concepts in their respective video expressions, from the perspective of directing art, they all have different degrees of creative positioning of people in drift and dilemma and their living conditions from an international perspective, which deserves full recognition.
In particular, Diao Yinan, who abandoned the linear narrative of popular films that he was familiar with, drew creative nutrients from the "appearance is the truth of reason" of modernity art, and formed a rare aesthetic turn of modernity in Chinese film culture.
If we trace this modernity, from Huang Jianxin's "Black Cannon Incident" through the story creativity of black humor, implicitly expressing the national character in the transformation of the times, to Jiang Wen exerting this to the extreme, and then adding a very private aesthetic of "The Sun Also Rises"; and then to Lu Chuan's "Looking for a Gun", Li Dawei's "Walking and Seeing", Guan Hu's "Bullfighting", "Killing", Ning Hao's "No Man's Land", Zheng Dasheng's "Village Drama", etc., one by one, a small number of texts with excessive weight. With the black metaphor of history and the absurd reflection of the times, the spiritual picture of modernity of Chinese film culture is outlined.
Poster of Jiang Wen's "The Sun Also Rises"
In the debut works of Zhang Dalei, Xin Yukun, Yang Jin, Li Ruijun, Bi Gan, Zhou Ziyang, Cai Chengjie and other new generations of directors who have continued to come out, a kind of original and poetic expression still continues this kind of modernity's inquiry and thinking.
Such films, which are mostly outside the mainstream cinema line and can frequently enter and exit major domestic and international film festivals, have gradually been released in the market and entered the "Art Federation" (National Art Film Screening Alliance) special line or national cinema line screening. What is more impressive is that the total box office of Diao Yinan's "Daytime Fireworks" exceeded 100 million, and the box office of "The Party at South Station" exceeded 100 million in three days, indicating that the international brand of the director and the film text has fulfilled a part of the commercial appeal, but in any case, such a consumption volume shows that a new round of young audiences' film sensitivity is undergoing metamorphosis.
So, how did Diao Yinan become one of the first-class directors in China?
If you only measure it from "Daytime Fireworks", it is far from it. "Daytime Fireworks" continues the steady composition and single-shot thick ideographic space he formed in "Night Train", and the story level does not make suspense and human nature complex, slightly better in the classic film noir of the international vision, but the viscous literary temperament of "Daytime Fireworks" and the multilateral description of survival in the real dilemma go beyond the cognitive logic of habitual life, providing the audience with an imaginative space between human original sin and confessional redemption.
Screen of "Daytime Fireworks"
In particular, the regional image scenery has created two kinds of "cold and warm" opposition imagery of "snow" and "fireworks" in the bone cold, which are full of the ultimate tragic sense of "white" death and disillusionment, and this sense of tragedy enhances the audience's strong poetic feeling in the scene atmosphere and musical rendering in the last scene.
Diao Yinan is writing about the state of this "dilemma person", breaking through the visual expression of Chinese films on the survival instinct of individuals and giving a sense of form, and finally peeling off the looming moral veil and entering the artistic exploration of the true inner taste.
If "Daytime Fireworks" is not thorough enough to express this kind of "troubled people" and "multilateral encounters", "The Party at South Station" allows Diao Yinan to truly enter the sequence of first-class directors in China. This title mistook the audience for a romantic and nostalgic story, but it is actually a different kind of "blood romance", and it leads to an ancient concept of "blood reward", that is, "exchanging life for money". Thus, "gathering" means "going to death", that is, risking oneself and fulfilling oneself, but this is not a novel concept.
Escape scene from The Party at South Station
The "law of blood reward" of the people is often a temporary confrontation in some kind of interest confrontation, in which one party seeks out a skilled killer or helps to provide clues to eliminate the other party as soon as possible in the form of a reward. Driven by interests, the dark side of human nature begins to riot, all order is shuffled and rebuilt, and the plot and issues of the story have broken through the established boundaries of various ethics and morality. Because the victim is often just a victim, the "blood reward" of his life may not necessarily be delivered to the stakeholders, but will also cause greater infighting and more senseless deaths.
Many films do not take the original blood reward as the core concept of the story to develop the main plot, but through expansion, deformation and extension, and then wrap up the upper layers of social or cultural connotations. For example, the motif of "Jing Ke Thorn Qin" was written by the right in Zhang Yimou's "Hero". The nameless final "redemption" in exchange for the peace of the world, its blood reward as an abstract "peace" is delivered to the equally abstract "people"; in "Witness to the Whole People", when the driver finds out that he has advanced lung cancer, he is willing to bear the guilt of the boss's daughter, and his "blood reward" is to repay the boss for giving him excess salary and gratitude.
The general blood reward is basically done by a third party, and few individuals are willing to take the initiative to die for the sake of unrealistic blood rewards. But the ingenuity of Diao Yinan's narrative chess game lies in the fact that he sets up a choice for the protagonist Zhou Zenong with no way out, a small marginal figure who has been a thief and a jerk in the past five years, although he has a strong hand, but at the moment when he accidentally injures the police, he does not choose to flee alone, but opens a journey of soul redemption.
Zhou Zenong, played by Hu Ge
This innovative story setting is full of strong dramatic tension, so there is no longer a need for too many branches to stretch the logical details of the story and the prehistory of the characters. The act of "coming back" without hesitation is enough to drive the power of all parties associated with the protagonist to jump, thus forming a narrative "situation".
It can be seen that Diao Yinan is well versed in the setting of dramatic situations, and the whole story revolves around the station and the 80s slab building near the station, the solemn texture, the multi-space divided laneway and the peeling wall skin, which constitute the spiritual ruins of an outlaw ready to die at any time - born in a damp city well, also died by a wet river.
And even the last supper has not been eaten, and the sudden death threat has aroused a greater empathy effect on the protagonist of the audience. Zhou Zenong flashes the light point of human nature, adding to the tragic meaning of the story, just like "Killer Leon" and "Daisy", the protagonists are professional killers who committed original crimes, but in the evolution of the plot, they have become the object of empathy of the audience, and this charm comes more from the shaping of the character image of the story.
However, in "South Station", Zhou Zenong's past is not rich or even a little blank, which is triggered by his insistence on "coming back" to redeem his life, so that the audience can independently fill in everyone's psychological feelings about the protagonist's similar situation, which is the biggest highlight of Diao Yinan's character.
Generally speaking, until the desperate situation, no one will take the initiative to give up their lives, Zhou Zenong is also, this is the survival instinct of people, so in the end he also wants to trap the beast fight, rather than tie his hands. But Diao Yinan will not give a reason why the character insists on returning to redeem his life, because for a bastard, it is not a complete reason to wake up and realize that he owes his family.
If Zhou Zenong's hands were to flee all the way, it is estimated that the police would not be able to catch him for a while and a half. But the characters in the film are meant to create concepts, so a reflexive artistic setting is needed to complete a high concept. Just like the protagonist in "Hacksaw Ridge" goes to the battlefield without a gun; the protagonist of "The Legend of Ben Hall", as the leader of the thieves, is forced by the police to have no way to escape, and also holds a certain belief that does not fit his identity and does not kill people, and is killed; in "Doll", the gangster in his twilight years risks his life to meet his old lover, and is killed... Wait a minute. These specific settings reinforce the artistic charm of the film's characters.
Stills from Hacksaw Ridge
However, "South Station" only presents a consequential setting without retroactively attributing the cause of the process, throwing the characters from one situation to another, but it is always inseparable from the atmosphere of the dramatic situation. At the same time, at the key turning point of behavior, a completely open emotional resonance point is presented, making the characters silent but full of attraction. As for the unreliability of women's de-moralization and de-ethical anxiety in the film, it once again strengthens the director's setting in "Daytime Fireworks", and also becomes a stylistic mark in Diao Yinan's films that is close to the setting of female images in mainstream Western film noir.
The above is the main value embodiment of Diao Yinan in his film narrative chess game and ideological transmission, but the biggest highlight of "South Station" is still the director's "abacus" ability to the camera - exquisite light and shadow manufacturing and space scheduling.
Trailer for "Daytime Fireworks"
Since "Uniform", Diao Yinan has consciously paid attention to the development of steps, corridors, underground passages, old houses, stations, wires, reservoirs, smelters, workshops and other spaces, single lens is very prominent in photographic modeling, especially like to use gilded warm light, highlighting the texture of oil paintings. Night dramas are more spatial narratives than japanese dramas, allowing light and sound to create rich audiovisual layers in one or more overlapping spaces.
At the beginning of "South Station", under the pillar of the railway station, Liu Ai'ai borrowed fire from Zhou Zenong to smoke, and in her debut "Uniform", Zheng Shasha borrowed fire from the male protagonist Xiao Jian in the underground passage, and the characters all met on a rainy day, but Liu Ai'ai's smoking action was not as cool as Zheng Shasha's.
Liu Ai'ai, played by Gui Lunmeng, appeared
Obviously, the director deliberately removed the wind and dust that may flow from the actors to make the audience guess, but restores the psychological motivation of the heroine Liu Ai'ai to approach Zhou Zenong by reason - the appearance of Liu Ai'ai, who is not even known to the protagonist Zhou Zenong, immediately causes the audience to attract the suspense of the story. At the same time, the character setting of the same heroine who transitioned from "Daytime Fireworks", the audience already knows that as long as this woman appears, it means that some kind of danger has come.
And Gui Lunmeng's stiff expression and indifferent face are more in line with a snake and scorpion woman who is not traditionally sexy in appearance, but at key moments, she can always "help" the protagonist Zhou Zenong to realize her blood reward wish without mercy. This is compared with Wang Jiazhi's pre-existing change in "Color Ring", allowing the audience to exclamate and penetrate the heart beyond the usual ethical emotions, at this time, the characters created by the film art world have played a powerful cognitive contrast and lasting artistic light for the audience.
In terms of space scheduling, Bi Gan realizes the large series of space through the broken Kaili through a long lens, and time naturally flows and solidifies in the space. Through accurate lens scheduling (including editing scheduling), light carving and space tossing and turning, Diao Yinan handled the old house's extensive laneways and hollow corridors, from the panorama of multi-layer space to the accurate positioning of the group performance and the layered sound design in the space, which was handled to climax.
The protagonist escapes through narrow corridors, trapped in a situation of police and gangsters, can still escape alone, and finally in a relatively claustrophobic "L" space noodle restaurant, blocked back window, indicating Zhou Zenong's end of the road. This scene, filming the melee between the domestic film in the arrest of criminals and the fireworks of the city, restores a sense of documentary without martial law, but at the same time is permeated with inexplicable absurdity.
Secondly, in his four works, Diao Yinan always appears in a high-density spatial reproduction of smelters, old houses, reservoirs, stations and other strong shapes, allowing Chinese films to relive the timeless industrial atmosphere from the perspective of modernity, and also retaining the texture of the estrangement of the 80s in the 80s, which is buried by the rapid urbanization of China.
An industrial scene from Daytime Fireworks
This is not only because of Diao Yinan's personal growth background, but in this gray urban landscape, it is soaked with a layer of historical emotional attachments of the romantic era, and the externalized landscape corresponding to this emotion is especially suitable for entering oil paintings and film images. This is also why the current theme of "Young You" did not choose the fashionable space shapes in Chongqing, but filmed in the laneways of old streets and winding old houses.
The effect is that the texture of time creates a thick material reality, and entering the image can convey a heavy theme.
But "South Station" turns the tragedy of personal blood reward into a romantic poem that regards death as a homecoming. Therefore, the ending song begins with hu ge's a cappella singing, but soon enters the cheerful summer style, which is perhaps the best inner monologue of the silent Zhou Zenong, whose state of life is vigorous and must be romantic!