The author of this article is @Snow of the Xiaowan family
The last snow is because of the movie
Nowadays, it is important to evaluate the value, market and box office of a movie.
But cinema is also the seventh art, and beyond box office performance, it has its own value and meaning.
So today's year-end inventory • the second bullet of the 2021 special series, let's talk about the 10 domestic niche masterpieces worth paying attention to this year.
There is no eye-catching market performance, no hot discussion and pursuit, but these small and beautiful works should not be forgotten in the corner.
When looking back on 2021, they should have their place and brilliance.
"Xiao Wei"
As an author film adapted from personal experience, "Xiao Wei" ("Mu Ling, Yi Ming, Wei Ming"), released at the beginning of the year, has no grand issues of the times, no stereotypes about diseases, and no deliberate sensationalism in commercial genre films.
Huang Zi, a post-85 director from Lingnan, only excavated the details of his own growth memory, and looked at the hasty transformation of the world from the three perspectives of women, children and patients.
This kind of work, which is permeated with a sense of truth and sincerity, is relatively rare in the current film market.
Whether it is the problem of children's further education or the illness of relatives, they are all a haze that lingers in the protagonist's heart.
When the darkest moments of great pain in the family are opened to the audience, what is reflected is the person, the relationship between each other, and the dilemma and hope that all of us share.
At the end of the film, when the camera suddenly changes from fixed to handheld, and the objective perspective changes to the subjective lens, a sense of relief that has been reborn is also born.
When the "undead" father pushed up the position of a protector, it is also the most intriguing stroke of the film.
"Xiao Wei" only has a box office of 2 million yuan in the entire 2021 film market, but if you have seen it, I believe many people will like it.
"Auspicious Ruyi"
Dapeng is not the first director to turn from commercial to literary art, and certainly will not be the last.
After the fires of "Pancake Man" and "The Sewing Machine Band", he turned the camera on himself and his family in tohoku and presented it to the audience in the form of a "pseudo-documentary".
The short story "Auspicious" explores the reality of traditional family concepts in rural China, while "Ruyi" tells the various thoughts after Dapeng became famous, and the two short stories echo each other, allowing the audience to contemplate the ambiguous intertext of film and reality.
The box office performance of more than 13 million yuan is actually eye-catching enough in the literary film market, but the 7.9 rating of Maoyan still shows that the audience is not friendly enough to films that are too personal.
Overall, "Auspicious Ruyi" is a movie worth paying attention to, but it is by no means a "good movie" in the true sense, after all, in the face of the world's great right and wrong, it is difficult for everyone to feel empathy.
Perhaps the only thing that can be praised is the frankness of director Dapeng.
"See You Again nara"
Although "See You Again Nara" involves a heavy theme of Japanese orphans, the director's angle is particularly novel.
Director Peng fei starts from the true story he heard in Nara and uses the encounter of three lonely people as the main line to portray an emotional and touching journey of family search.
Under the seemingly simple story, the director wraps extremely complex emotional information through the slow and restrained lens language: there is a home country, there is history, there is a family, there is a nation, there is culture, there is love, and there is the kindness and friendship of strangers...
And the sad and sad ending of the film seems to also tell the audience that the most important thing is never the result, but the process of searching.
"See You Again Nara" only grossed 5 million yuan in the mainland, and this soulful work is worth watching.
"The Eleventh Time"
After "A Spoon", "director" Chen Jianbin brought another of his experimental works, "The Eleventh Time".
This time, the director moved from the criticism of reality to the criticism of history, not only wanting to make a more obscure conceptual expression, but also carrying forward the stage art.
Therefore, when the audience sees this movie, a sense of drama and real life wandering is born.
The film once again confirms that Chen Jianbin is an "interesting" director with a unique personal style, and his works can combine suspense, black, love, allegory and other elements in one, with a strong avant-garde consciousness and experimental nature.
It's just that the story is always his short version, and the obscure plot of "The Eleventh Time" makes this absurd style only affirmed by a few people.
The box office of 73.97 million is not bad, but it can't reach a larger circle, because most viewers still think that the style of the film needs to serve the story.
"White Snake Legend"
As the first 4K panoramic Cantonese opera film in China, "The Legend of the White Snake" is rooted in traditional Chinese culture, while skillfully combining classical opera with the big screen, bringing countless surprises to the audience.
The picture of the film is clean and textured, not only blending the freehand of the opera with the realism of the film, which is refreshing and also allows people to see the scenes and atmospheres in our own culture.
In particular, the classic scene "Water Flooding Jinshan" is a clever combination of imagination and technical power.
At the same time, the reinterpretation of the White Snake in the form of opera also made most of the audiences who did not often listen to the play refreshing, in order to be close to the mainstream audience, the singing segments in the film were also popular adaptations.
The final film's box office of more than 20 million yuan is still slightly insufficient for such a film that can not only promote traditional culture, but also bring visual enjoyment.
Dragon tiger martial artist
As one of the highest-rated documentaries this year, Dragon tiger martial artists bring together the most authoritative martial arts masters in Chinese films such as Hong Jinbao, Yuan Heping and Qian Jiale, and tell a comprehensive story about the ups and downs of the golden age of Hong Kong action movies.
It turned out that the big scenes we saw in Hong Kong films in those years were all "fighting" with their lives by these low-born martial arts stuntmen who dared to fight.
Through "Dragon and Tiger Martial Artist", the audience can not only see the rise and fall of Hong Kong action movies, but also see the "city spirit" that belongs only to Hong Kong movies.
Whether it is a Hong Kong film lover or an ordinary film fan, they can be moved by this group of people with professional fighting spirit, but the film only has a box office of less than 1 million, making this touch a little nowhere to rest.
"Swim until the water turns blue"
After three years off the big screen, Jia Zhangke returned to the audience's vision with a documentary.
"Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue" takes us to our hometown with the dictations of four modern literary authors, and understands the rapid changes of this society in the form of literature and video.
The all-encompassing perspective not only makes the film a vivid personal growth history, but also shows their deep feelings for local literary and artistic creation from the perspective of writers.
The box office performance of more than 6 million yuan is not too bad for Jia Zhangke ("Three Gorges Good Man", which won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, only 304,000 yuan at the box office), and in this era, perhaps only he is still insisting on his own expression.
"Five Splashing Boys"
"Five Splashing Teenagers" met with the audience in this year's National Day file, but in the end it only grossed about 62 million.
The "youth film dark horse" that was optimistic about by all parties before the screening did not succeed in the counterattack in the end, and the hot-blooded teenagers left the scene in and out of the play.
In the movie, five ordinary high school students mistakenly hit and stumbled to learn synchronized swimming, but what awaited them was the pressure of no venue, no coach, and obstruction from all sides;
In addition to the movie, this youth film with no well-known actors, no schedule advantages, and no gimmicks is also facing the dilemma of "no one knows".
Even if the film's Douban score rose from 6.8 to 7.4, even if the director personally opened a live broadcast of Lianmai to promote the movie, and even on weibo hot search (#Five water-throwing young directors Lianmai was rejected nine times), the final result is still not ideal.
But fortunately, director Song Haolin was not discouraged by this, and his new film "Nest Waste" still focuses on small people with hot blood, and is still a small and beautiful youth film.
Lyceum Theatre
Despite the gathering of gong li, Zhao Youting, Oda Chejang and many other well-known actors at home and abroad, Lou Ye's new film "Lyceum Theatre" finally grossed only 21.7 million.
"Lyceum Theatre" may be lou Ye's most confusing work dealing with reality and illusion, stage and identity.
The film dissolves the inside and outside of the play from the beginning of the introduction, throws the audience into the front and back of the stage to judge, the stable time continuity and the flickering space scene, the two have been ambiguously pulling.
What we finally enter is a career drama in which Yu Yan herself can never distinguish between false feelings and sincerity, she is a pawn, and as the situation tightens step by step, she is destined to be in this turbulent era.
And such a film with the director's personal temperament and quite avant-garde nature is definitely a treasure in the current Chinese film market.
Years later, director Lou Ye is still unabated, and he is still at the forefront of Chinese films.
"Wild Horse Mane"
In addition to "Five Splashing Teenagers", the most regrettable youth film this year is "Mustang Mane".
The film integrates various styles such as youth rebellion, realism, comedy nonsense, etc., and through what young Ah Kun has seen and heard, it highlights the vigorous vitality of young people at present.
"Wild Horse Mane" has a rare charm, it does not have a story, but through a series of external behaviors to present a person's psychological state.
The director captures a state of boredom and idleness, so a lot of details and supporting characters in the film are more vivid and real than most youth films.
However, the box office performance of 11.74 million and the "dismal" score of 7.2 points of Maoyan reflect the "distance" between this talented newcomer's new work and the current market.
But it's okay, the future is still promising.
The above is the 10 domestic "unpopular" masterpieces recommended by Xiaowan, I don't know how many you have seen?
Looking back at the year that is about to pass, which of your personal best works is your personal best? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section
In 2022, let's continue to use the movie romantic reality!
Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from Douban and the Internet, if there is infringement, please take the initiative to contact us.
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