Written by | Beijing News reporter Shen Hexi
"I'm like a mourning goose
I'm like a dragon swimming on a shallow beach
I'm like a fish swallowing a hook line
I'm like a ship in the waves."
In the easter egg at the end of the movie "Passing Zhaoguan", the old man Li Fuchang heard the news of the death of his old friend Han Yutang on the phone, and sang the words of "Shilang Visiting Mother" in this Peking Opera alone in the face of heavy snow. Before this Easter egg appeared, the subtitle was typed: Dedicated to Grandpa.
This is the director Huo Meng dedicated to his grandfather who died during the Spring Festival in 2011. One day at the end of the second year, while walking on the road, it occurred to him that Grandpa had spoken to him when he was alive, and that one day he had received a call from an old friend and wanted to see him.
The movie "Passing Zhaoguan" tells the story of an old man In a village in Zhoukou, Henan Province, the old man Li Fuchang accidentally got the contact information of his old friend, decided to ride a motorcycle tricycle, and took his little grandson who came to the countryside for summer vacation to visit his old friend Han Yutang across thousands of miles. When Li Fuchang was young, he was beaten to the right and survived with the help of Han Yutang.
"Crossing Zhaoguan" was positioned as a "Chinese rural road film", and at the beginning Huo Meng wanted to make a road movie, he thought, if his grandfather really went on the road, what would happen and who he met.
At the 2nd Pingyao International Film Festival in October 2018, "Passing Zhaoguan" won two awards, Fei Mu Honorary Best Director and Best Actor.
Director Huo Meng, actor Yang Taiyi, and Founder Jia Zhangke of The Lvliang Literary Season were at the scene of the pre-screening exchange meeting of the movie "Passing Zhaoguan"
At the inaugural Lüliang Literature Season on May 9, "Over the Sky" was the first film to be screened. From May 20, this small-budget literary film was released nationwide. During the "Lvliang Literature Season", director Huo Meng and lead actor Yang Taiyi were interviewed by a reporter from the Beijing News.
Invest 400,000 yuan, and sometimes making movies has little to do with money
On August 7, 2017, Huo Meng drove a car with a photographer and an executive director to see the scene, took a trip from Zhoukou to Sanmenxia, and then began to look for actors. Before selecting Yang Taiyi, a 77-year-old farmer, Huo Meng interviewed several villagers, and an important reason for choosing Yang Taiyi was that he was the head of the village's amateur theater troupe.
For Huo Meng, even if the investment in this film is far more than 400,000, he will not consider professional actors, because this movie is not that number. Yang Taiyi has stage performance experience and will not be afraid of the stage, but because of this, when he first started shooting, his performance would have a sense of stage. Huo Meng's method was to shoot more than one shot over and over again, slowly nibbling, letting Yang Taiyi find the rhythm of speaking by himself, and then constantly adjusting. He will also let the staff use his mobile phone to secretly take pictures of Yang Taiyi's private state, and then show it to him, so that he knows how to walk in life and how to walk when filming movies.
Huo Meng was on the set
For a 77-year-old non-professional actor with no acting experience, the big lines in the movie are a challenge. But Yang Taiyi has a good memory, and he is serious and hardworking. During the interview, Yang Taiyi spoke to me in a thick Henan dialect and told me endlessly about the plot of the play of "passing through Zhaoguan" for more than ten minutes.
Huo Meng's last play was also his first feature film, "My Fox Dog Friend", which suffered a box office fiasco and lost millions. The lesson he learned from it is that he can't do something that he can't control completely, such as an accident such as a broken capital chain, and you have to be able to cope with it, and you can't hope for luck. When filming "My "Fox Dog Friend"," there was a company willing to invest money, and as a result, when it came to start-up, that company withdrew. Huo Meng did not want to give up on this, so he filmed during the day and called everywhere at night to borrow money, five thousand, ten thousand is not too little, and if there is, he will quickly take it. In the end, the film was barely finished, but the box office failed.
The total investment of "Passing Zhaoguan" is 400,000 yuan, and huo Meng is also cobbled together by Huo Meng to find relatives and friends, and he has no money after filming "My "Fox Dog Friend".
"I owed a lot of money at the time, and I couldn't sleep all night, and I kept wondering, should I continue to do movies or change careers to do something else?" Huo Meng said. Although a bunch of rotten projects came to him later, he refused.
The resident crew of "Passing Through Zhaoguan" has a total of 12 people. Now Huo Meng remembered that if "My "Fox Friend" was not a regular crew of so many people, but also a small crew like "Passing Zhaoguan", looking for a group of brothers from their hometown to act, perhaps the effect would be particularly good.
In 2016, he was an executive director in the crew of director Zhang Yang Dali, which had less than 20 people, all of whom were real people in the real environment, and shot very slowly. This way of filming suddenly inspired Huo Meng, "Making movies sometimes has little to do with money. ”
The last time you go out in your life, you must have a sense of ceremony
For the title of "Passing Zhaoguan", many people's first reaction is "passing Through Shaoguan". The title comes from Huo Meng's experience when he was in college when he was helping people shoot videos at the Mei Lanfang Grand Theater, when the stage sang excerpts from "Passing Zhaoguan".
Guo Zhaoguan is related to Wu Zixu, the grand master of the Chu State, and it is said that when King Chu Ping ascended the throne, he listened to rumors, and Wu Zixu's father and brother were killed, and he escaped by chance. On the way to escape, passing through Zhaoguan, which was a place with dangerous terrain and heavily guarded, it was difficult to cross Zhaoguan in the sky, and Wu Zixu was white in the night.
"Life is like passing through Zhaoguan, passing through Zhaoguan, passing through Tongguan, passing Through Tongguan, and Jiayuguan Shanhaiguan, and it is difficult to pass through." This is Li Fuchang's line in the movie "Passing Zhaoguan". The characters in this movie are all in the "Zhaoguan" of life, bankrupt youths, drivers of trucks that break down, beekeepers who rely on voices to make sounds, and old friends on sick beds.
Huo Meng said that Wang Hongwei, an actor who has played many Jia Zhangke films, told him after watching the film in Pingyao that the old man played by Yang Taiyi was a very real Chinese image that he had not seen on the screen for a long time.
For example, last year's Pingyao Film Festival was his first trip, and in April this year, he followed Huo Meng to Beijing for the first time, and at the opening ceremony of the Lvliang Literature Season on April 9, he recited with famous artists such as Xichuan, Ouyang Jianghe, and Zhao Tao for the first time.
Yang Taiyi
In "Passing Zhaoguan", the main plot is that the grandfather Li Fuchang rides an electric tricycle to take his little grandson to Sanmenxia to meet an old friend. The electric tricycle is reminiscent of David Lynch's The Story of Uncle Stryt, and the setting of the grandson is reminiscent of Takeshi Kitano's "Kikujiro's Summer.".
In the movie, Li Fuchang thought of meeting an old friend from decades ago, and immediately decided to go. In Huo Meng's view, this setting that does not drag mud and water does not need to give any motives. "What motivation is greater than wanting to do something you most want to do before you die?" Huo Meng said.
I asked Huo Meng why Li Fuchang was going to Sanmenxia to see his old friends, so why didn't he let him go by bus or train, but drove an electric tricycle himself like in David Lynch's "The Story of Uncle Stratt". Huo Meng explained that in fact, there are a little hints in the movie, which are related to the little grandson's motion sickness, but more importantly, this road is what he walked back from. Originally, the script was written about 500 kilometers of six days and seven nights, but it was deleted when editing.
Another reason for not choosing a more convenient means of transportation to visit friends is that for the elderly, he is not a greedy person, and when he walks slowly, he can think and can calm down to reminisce. On the first day, Li Fuchang rode a tricycle to Sanmenxia, the car broke down, and he comforted his grandson: "I can't go today, I can't go tomorrow", he is never in a hurry, slow and rational.
"Nothing is more important to his heart than this," Huo Meng said, "if he goes to Zhoukou City to see his second grandson, he will definitely go by car, because it has nothing to do with him looking back at his life, it is just a very clear purpose." Then why this old man in this film has to go so far is very clear. He needs to walk slowly through such a road and look back on his life. ”
"Maybe this is the last time he's going out, and he's going to have a sense of ceremony." Huo Meng said.
Yang Taiyi told me that when the Pingyao Film Festival presented him with an award last year, the host asked him what he felt, and he said where he dared to feel, and that making a movie and winning an award was something that an old farmer had never thought of in his life.
Yang Taiyi said that Henan TV station contacted him next and wanted him to act in a TV series. Asked if it was fun to make a movie, Yang Taiyi smiled and said: "Fun, hehe."
"Make a little contribution to China's film and television culture." When asked if he would continue to make movies after that, Yang Taiyi said very seriously.
"I hope he is in good health," Huo Meng said when asked if he would have the opportunity to look for Yang Taiyi to shoot a scene.
The experience of death in the countryside is completely different from in the city
In "Passing Zhaoguan", there is a scene of memory, Li Fuchang's cousin is a mute, when he was young, his brother had a quarrel with his father, and in a huff, he drank pesticides, and the person disappeared.
"This kind of thing is too normal in the countryside." Huo Meng took a puff of his cigarette and said.
Chinese New Year's Eve of the second year of high school, a woman under 30 years old in Huo Meng's next-door neighbor had just returned home from a bath in the township, and when she saw that her husband, who was good at playing mahjong, was still playing mahjong, the two began to lose their temper. The man said, It's so boring to live with you, I'm not alive! Then he took a pesticide bottle and drank it, but it was empty. The father and fellow villagers came, and a burst of soldiers and horses were in disarray, and they laid a quilt for him, and wanted to pull him to a motor tricycle to wash his stomach.
At this time, only the stunned wife was left in the courtyard. So far, Huo Meng didn't know what the purpose of that aunt was, was she afraid or sad? Suddenly, she opened a bottle of pesticide and drank it. Huo Meng remembered that it was about eight o'clock, the Spring Festival Gala was about to start, he and his sister were at home, and they saw the aunt who had drunk the pesticide walking in front, shouting the name of his younger son as he walked, which was a voice with a penetrating sense of panic.
"I didn't drink it, I scared her to come!" The man said. The aunt was immediately pulled out of the village, but it wasn't long before it was cold.
Huo Meng said that what happened next he might put into his future films. That night, the young people in the village all went out to help move the man's TV set and other valuables to another empty house and lock them, afraid that the woman's family would smash things. At the same time, two people at each station at the east entrance of the village and the west entrance of the village informed this side at any time whether the family of the deceased's mother had come.
Stills from "Passing the Zhaoguan"
A family suicide of a oolong nature turned into an incident of two villages.
Men, women and children in the woman's village of the woman who committed suicide came in two or three tractors, shovels in hand, and the scene was tense. The whole village here can only bring them tea and pour water to compensate. Fifteen-year-old Huo Ran back and forth, and he saw the dead woman's father-in-law in the hall, combing the dead daughter-in-law's hair.
"I think you still saw her in the afternoon, said hello to you, and disappeared at night." The suddenness of this death made Huo Meng feel absurd.
"Your experience of death in the countryside is completely different from that in the city. Because you're always going to face the funeral directly, the coffin, the graveyard. You go down into the field, and you may have several graves in your own home. In the city, where you have seen knives, the dead are all in the funeral parlor, everyone is far away, and there are people who have died in the community, you don't know at all. Huo Meng said.
In Huo Meng's memory, he had too many moments of directly facing a corpse. For example, he saw his grandmother's dying moment, how the eyes were blind, and the process of running out of oil and light. In the years of preparation for "Passing the Zhaoguan", he happened to encounter the death of his grandfather and best friend, prompting him to think about the problem of life and death, and he felt that he should put these death experiences into the movie.
In Huo Meng's view, it was impossible not to be afraid of death, but because he pondered a lot of things about death, it made him more determined and more clear about why he wanted to live. For example, do you want to live to make commercial films, or do you want to shoot things that are related to your heart?
"You don't think about it, you're going to run all the money, you're going to hurry up and make commercial films, right?" But what is the ultimate appeal of your life? Your most important appeal is to pay attention to such a group of people, rather than to make that kind of scratching commercial film, that is not your value, nor is it your preference, you will not compromise in that regard, this is actually especially important for the living people. Huo Meng said.
Country life is boring, but you can't forget me because you're bored
At the end of the movie, Li Fuchang finally meets his old friend who is seriously ill at Sanmenxia Hospital. The content of the chat between the two was very simple, "Why did you come", "Did you come by car or how did you come", "I came to see you, my son is still waiting for me, I will come to see you tomorrow", three words and two words, the conversation that occurred during the visit to the old friend was stopped.
"It's enough that you really meet someone, in other words, just for a minute or two, but before he dies, he takes the initiative to tell his son to call you, which is powerful." You really want to live for ten days and half a month, but it's not right. Huo Meng felt that this kind of simple province was very real.
This short minute condenses the way that generation got along. On the afternoon of May 9, Huo Meng listened to the writer Ge Fei's speech entitled "What does the disappearance of the countryside mean" at the Lüliang Literature Season, and he suddenly had a new understanding of his film, and he found the value of this film that is particularly important. Previously, he had been talking about wanting to keep the image of Grandpa's generation.
Jia Zhangke said that his films focus on people who were knocked down by the train of the times, and the protagonist Li Fuchang in Huo Meng's "Passing Zhaoguan" is a group of people far away from the railway. The times are developing rapidly, many people jump on the train, become vested interests, tide, there are also many people who want to squeeze on this car, squeezed so much that the blood can not squeeze up, and people like Li Fuchang, watching this train roaring by, they may have also been lost, but still rush to their own carriage to sell oil and live their own lives.
"Those of us who are on the train, or those who are chasing this train, are staring at this train, and no one wants to stop, move out of this train to see the distance, and there are still a bunch of people, completely forgotten." Huo Meng said.
Captain Li Fu was forgotten, and there were no of them in the news. In Huo Meng's view, these people are the homeland and homeland of our spiritual feelings, and we actually all come from there, but we have forgotten them. Huo Meng felt that this was a particularly terrible thing.
Huo Meng's generation also had direct contact with Li Fuchang, but for his later generation, whether born in Beijing or Zhengzhou, the countryside of their hometown was not their home. "They have no idea that there is such a group of people who have lived in this world in this way and then lived their lives. In twenty or thirty years at best, these people may never appear in our field of vision again, completely forgotten, buried in the soil, how terrible. ”
Many viewers said that this movie is about ancestral love or the philosophy of life and death, but now Huo Meng feels that what is more important is actually looking back at some people who have been almost forgotten.
"Sometimes I want to break it, where do I beautify it?" Where did you tell me to beautify it? Just like the fate of the dumb, which is caused by the patriarchal system in the countryside, I have also presented this. Huo Meng asked rhetorically.
Rural life and ethics, in addition to the beautiful side symbolized by the paper windmill on the movie concept poster, also has its dark and cruel side, so some viewers criticized Huo Meng for beautifying the countryside.
In his view, many people do not understand the countryside, they use the countryside as a free space for themselves to smear at will, and then put the ugly distortion of human nature into it. When the creators explore human nature, they need a background, such as Lou Ye likes to put it in the city, and some people like to put it in the countryside. Although Huo Meng does not think that he is presenting a completely real countryside, he said that he has not seen any film closer to the rural style than "Passing Zhaoguan".
"Everyone feels as if the countryside is naturally associated with backwardness and ignorance, so once we shoot the human part, it seems that it is particularly right to put it in the countryside, and the village will be so ugly that it will be ruined." I don't think so, I went back to the village, I felt too comfortable. If that's the case (backwardness and ignorance), why do tens of thousands of people go to great lengths every year to return to the village during the Spring Festival? ”
Huo Meng's hair is small, many of them work in the city, and every time they go home, they feel that rural life is boring, but the emotional support is still in the countryside.
"It's definitely boring, but boredom doesn't mean you can forget me." Huo Meng said.
Author: Beijing News reporter Shen Hexi
Editor: Shen Hexi Proofreader: Zhai Yongjun