In China, you will never find such a "failed" director again.
21 years of directing career, only 3 films have been made, each of which is little known, and the box office is dismal...
As a producer, but he has been outside the show business for a long time, the film is banned, no one wants to sponsor him...
Even when questioning the award of a certain line of traffic actresses, she was directly besieged and insulted by her fans, calling her "nine-stream director" and "pheasant director"...
His name is: Li Yang.
You may not have heard of the name, or you may not have seen his movies.
Needless to say, he was a "failure" in terms of business and fame and fortune; but in art and film, he was absolutely successful, at least in the hearts of many fans, he is a conscientious director in China.
Because of the Chinese director camp, there are really few people, like Li Yang, who dare to speak out, dare to aim the camera at the remote corners of society, and expose the dark side of human nature.
And from 18 years ago, that shocking debut, just did it—
The Blind Well
At the end of the 1990s, datong in Shanxi, a region in the far north of China, developed coal mining.
Driven by interests, various private coal kiln factories came into being, some large, some small, some regular, and some "black kilns"...
But for coal miners, most private kiln factories are the same: no labor contracts, chase shops, pipes to eat and drink...
Even so, people who go out from the countryside to work every year, in order to earn quick money, squeeze their heads and want to go to the coal kiln factory to beg for work.
Yuan Fengming, a 16-year-old dropout teenager, also wants to make quick money, just got off the station, followed Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang, two middle-aged men, into a "black kiln factory"...
The coal boss said: 50 yuan a day, can do it, do not do well, immediately roll up the cover and roll the egg.
Yuan Fengming felt that he was very lucky, and soon he could earn enough tuition and go back to school.
But simply he didn't know.
Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang are ostensibly two ordinary miners.
In fact, they are doing unseemly things: making a fortune by killing people.
They squatted at the station, lured the migrant workers who were alone outside to work in the coal kiln factory, killed them, created the illusion of a mining accident, and then pretended to be the family of the deceased to ask the mine owner for compensation.
Take turns dressing up as relatives, friends, fellow citizens of the deceased... One cries, one asks for money.
After dividing up the pension, the two men directly flushed the victim's ashes into the toilet, treating human life as grass.
Every time you cheat a sum of money, you will find a new "relative", change to a coal kiln factory, and continue to cheat.
Yuan Fengming, who has just entered the society, entered the mine as the "nephew" of the two and became their newly captured "prey"...
The first day down the well, the bottomless darkness made Yuan Fengming frightened and shivered, and his heart began to retreat.
Song Jinming said to him unceremoniously: Scared, isn't it? Why is the guts so small? If you want to make money, then can't be afraid of death, do you know?
Gradually, Feng Ming gritted his teeth and persevered, adapting to the harsh mine life...
The next day, Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang finished receiving their salaries and took Yuan Fengming to the market, but after a while, Yuan Fengming disappeared.
The two thought that the man had run away, and when the duck that complained to the mouth flew, the kind Yuan Fengming appeared in front of them with a chicken in order to repay them.
Song Jinming, who was fierce and fierce, had compassion at this moment, but the two who had already been eroded by darkness did not intend to let him go.
On the third day, Feng Ming sat in the room quietly reading a book, and Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang finally got impatient and discussed the plan outside the room.
This time, the two decided to follow the old rules: once they went to the mine, they would kill the boy with the surname Yuan...
The film "Blind Well" is adapted from Liu Qingbang's novel "Shenmu", the theme is based on the 1998 China three-large mine fraud and murder gang case, released in Hong Kong in 2003, is the first work of director Li Yang.
In that year, he defeated Zhang Yimou's blockbuster "Hero", won the Silver Bear Award for Best Artistic Contribution at the Berlin Film Festival, and swept more than thirty international awards at other film festivals at the same time...
The jury of the Festival de Cannes said:
"This is a good film, it shows Chinese cinema in three dimensions, in addition to Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, it provides another side."
Wang Baoqiang, played by 16-year-old Yuan Fengming, also won the Best Newcomer Award at the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards for this, which was the starting point of his acting career.
The film tells a story about human nature and morality, the story of two migrant workers living in a mining area who make money by harming others.
But the most regrettable thing is that this film that has won numerous awards behind it and has been praised by foreign and film critics was banned Chinese mainland, and director Li Yang was banned for 3 years.
At the end of the movie, Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang trick Feng Ming into the mine.
Tang Chaoyang said: Feng Ming, missing home, right?
Feng Ming: I think, why don't I want to.
Tang Chaoyang then said: "Then let your second uncle send you home!"
This dialogue, like the black and white impermanence of two people in the local government, issued a death notice to the victim, vividly shows the evil and complexity of human nature.
In the end, because of greed, Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming clashed, and finally were blown up in the mine.
Feng Ming, on the other hand, escaped from the well because of the blessing of misfortune, and accidentally received the death pension of two "evil people"...
Under the sunlight, the bottomless mine is like an abyss of human nature, which is difficult to break free.
Compared with the artistic processing of the film, the real events in reality are much more terrifying.
In 1998, the three cases of "murder and insurance fraud" were very similar, in order to defraud the coal mine of tens of thousands of yuan in compensation, they did not hesitate to set up a gamble, tricked the workers into taking poison and died, and then received compensation as "relatives".
The lives of others become tools for getting rich, even if the other person is his own countryman, friend, or even classmate...
The total number of people in the last three cases has reached a staggering 176, which is terrifying.
In these criminals, we can't see the flash of human nature, we can't see the existence of the moral bottom line, we can only see the cruelty that destroys humanity, the bloody tragic reality, the bottomless darkness...
They are a group of people who live close to hell.
After filming "Blind Well", Li Yang has always been anxious about this moral chaos and the loss of human nature.
He couldn't understand: How can a man be so cruel? How can it be inhuman?
Unfortunately, a few years later, we still can't answer, and all we can feel is a chill to the bone.
I have always regarded director Li Yang as a recorder of the lower society.
In 1999, Li Yang happened to read a report about an abducted woman who went from victim to perpetrator and was sentenced to death.
The story made him wonder: Who turned a good person into a villain?
During the three years of ban, Li Yang threw himself into the investigation of cases related to abducted women, and gradually deepened the details and wrote the script.
7 years later, he mortgaged the house, smashed the pot and sold iron to make a second movie: "Blind Mountain"
Once again, the camera focuses on the human nature and life suffering of the bottom in the "abduction and trafficking of women" in the mountains.
But whether it is "Blind Well" or "Blind Mountain", Li Yang has never deliberately stood on the moral high ground to criticize anything.
Just using blank space and metaphors, Ping Ping deeply portrays the real and complex human nature.
Therefore, in the movie, in the heinous bad guys, you can see both the fierce heart and the remaining goodwill...
It is precisely for this reason that through the movie "Blind Well", we can see that behind the moral degeneration of human nature is the lack of social structure.
It reveals that many corners of our society lack law, fairness and justice are lacking, sin is rife, and life is humble and small.
"Blind Well" is seen by the well, and in that dark mine, the most terrible thing is blindness.
When there is a bad environment and conditions, man's evil becomes worse.
If there were no frequent mining accidents, if there was no opportunity to make money from mining disasters, there would be no real version of "Blind Well" repeatedly staged under the eyes of law and human nature.
The movie "Blind Well" is not only a movie, but more importantly, it is the epitome of countless "blind well" events in the past era, the current era, and the future era, which are really and cruelly happening continuously...
Blindness is a selective turn of the eye.
In the words of director Li Yang: they are "dead" in their eyes, which is not the same as "blind" eyes.
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