When the French film theorist Metz discussed the cinema mechanism and movie-watching psychology in his book Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and Cinematography, he highlighted three key words: identification, voyeurism, and fetishism. If we do not hesitate to compromise the complexity and profundity of Mytz's theory, we can popularize these three keywords - the audience's pleasure in watching the film comes from the following aspects: being attracted by the personality, situation, and fate of the character in the film, or having recognition and appreciation of the actor who plays the character (identification); the satisfaction of watching spectacle scenes or hidden and taboo content (peeping); the obsession with artistic skills, stars, and film derivatives in the film (such as posters, movie peripherals, star signatures) and so on (fetish). Under the illumination of this theoretical vision, the artistic gains and losses of "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" are very obvious. "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" revolves around the characters' wishing and medicine in the play against the Tang Dynasty Mingtang Jade Buddha head, mixed with elements of treasure hunting and adventure, with suspense and comedy, the ending is the wish representing justice and smoke unveils the shocking mystery, smashing the usurpation conspiracy of medicine or not. The film shows us the unfathomable depths of the antique industry, the open struggle, the subtlety and delicacy of identifying antiques, and the development of various people and rivers and lakes around the identification and sale of antiques, which is enough to satisfy the audience's voyeurism. The eye-opening antique artifacts in the film, various organs and code words, and the stars with high popularity can somewhat soothe the audience's fetishistic psychology. However, the psychological pleasure of the audience watching a film is first based on identity, that is, the audience has empathy for the characters, a sense of substitution, and can be immersed in the plot of the film, and will not question the logic. Unfortunately, "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" has done little to summon the audience's "identity", the characters lack appeal, the plot leaks everywhere, and the audience's viewing experience can be described as alienated and resistant.
The jade Buddha head in the movie
The biggest highlight of the film comes from two aspects: first, when looking for the real Buddha's head, Wish and Smoke need to decipher many codes and piece together various clues, which is a test of the character's INTELLIGENCE; second, when Wishing and Smoke are "according to Tu SuoJi", they need to face the vicious competition of medicine, deal with the old treacherous giant Fu Gui, get rid of the pursuit of soldiers sent by the old Dynasty, and fight with Zheng Guoqu's counterfeiting gang endlessly. It is reasonable to say that the film can use this to provide the audience with the dual enjoyment of intellectual surfing and action wonders, and create a relaxed plot rhythm, however, when the film is structured with empty character images, confused character motives, and scrawled plot logic, the audience seems to be caught in a fog, and is overwhelmed by various overwhelmed characters.
The protagonist of the film, Wish, travels all the way to treasure hunting, needs to understand Morse code, be proficient in seal writing and ancient Chinese culture, have a treasure of Go knowledge and history, and of course have a high degree of achievement in antique identification. The problem is that when He was 7 years old, his father did not quit, he sent people to the fence, has always been trained as a home appliance maintenance worker, without his father's words and deeds and ears, and live a muddy life, how can he establish such a broad and profound knowledge system? The father of the wish is anonymous, hoping that his son will live a simple and plain life, but he has left countless clues to guide his son to find the Buddha's head, which in itself is contradictory. After experiencing hardships and even escaping death, Wish learned a "shocking" secret: his grandfather wrapped the head of the real Buddha in a fake Buddha head and gave it to the Japanese. The audience waited for two hours, and the characters completed the rush and adventure along the way, and the film brought out such a crying and laughing "bombshell", and this sense of loss in the air was frustrating. Because, even though the outside is false and the inside is true, the grandfather who made a wish still gave the head of the real Buddha to Rikou and was shot. Wish's shocking hammer in the venue, but the fact that he sat down to confirm his grandfather's crime, I am afraid that it is contrary to the original intention of wanting to give the audience a reverse surprise. When Wish uses astonishing insight and superior intelligence to decipher the clues left by his father all the way, the audience should be full of admiration. But this deciphering process relies on a large number of "accidents" to barely maintain, and after deciphering, more "coincidences" are used to promote the development of the plot, which is tantamount to building a house on the sand, the foundation is not solid, and the story building will capsize at any time. For example, when Wish sees a mixture of true and false antiques in his father's room, he instantly thinks of Morse codes. Due to the lack of pre-preparation, this brain circuit of the character is somewhat abrupt. After he spelled out "Fu Gui" from the Morse code, the smoke on the side immediately said that she knew Fu Gui, and this coincidence was a godsend. After he cracked the Morse code left by his father, he did not destroy the scene to mislead the latecomers, so that the medicine could be tracked all the way, which seemed too unprofessional. When he got all the information of the bronze mirror but did not know the key information, Fu Gui, who was eavesdropping on the side, immediately said that the core password was to find Zheng Hu, and he just happened to know Zheng Hu... The arbitrary setting of the film's plot and the fragility and far-fetchedness of the plot chain are obvious.
Ge You plays Fu Gui in the movie
The title of "Antiques Bureau" is equivalent to signing a contract with the audience, that is, there will be unexpected reversals and subversions in the character image and plot development, and some seemingly ordinary scenes may hide amazing scams and calculations. However, the "bureau" in the film is too few, the ingenuity is insufficient, and the pattern is not large. In the crucial treasure hunt passage, the characters are not caught in a mystery and do not know how to get out, not because of the conspiracy of others, but face to face with the enemy gangs, and even a fierce gun battle breaks out in the cave. A movie with "making a game" as the selling point, the dispute settlement actually relies on the unreasonable gunfight, which has fallen behind. The audience did not see the breathtaking "Zhenlong chess game" in the layout of the plot, and naturally could not be overwhelmed by the psychological surprise of the unexpected and reasonable reversal. At the beginning of the film, there is a private auction in an abandoned factory, reflecting the social background of the restructuring of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s; the alley where the home appliance repair shop was opened by The Wish, which is shabby and dilapidated, vividly showing the embarrassing situation of the laid-off workers in that year; when the wish appears, he is depressed and drunk. These scenes give the audience the illusion that the film wants to show humanitarian concern for the living conditions of ordinary people, or to write the step-by-step breakthrough journey of the frustrated. However, the film soon allows Wish to leave this obscure environment and embark on a thrilling treasure hunt. This shows that the creators are very clear about the market positioning of the film as a commercial film. However, since the film marks the time coordinates of "1992", it should reflect the keen capture of the people's hearts of the times, and the performance and excavation of the more textured style of the times, rather than creating a realistic atmosphere of the times and a rich atmosphere of the city on the one hand, and on the other hand, immersed in the narrative pleasure of the background overhead, and even hoping that the unfolding of the plot is not constrained by the logic of reality, and it is not imprisoned by the atmosphere of the times, which is inevitably a bit self-divided. This also explains the reason why the film's narrative is out of control and the audience is out of control, because the film is in the dilemma of planning and implementing the opposite at the beginning of creation.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Huang Wei Text Editor: Xiao Yawen
Source: Author: Gong Jinping