As an extremely rare realistic rural theme work in recent years, "A Piece of The North" has aroused strong repercussions since its release, why is it a rural magic film? In fact, it also has a name - "The Little Widow Becomes a Fairy".
Director Cai Chengjie's first feature film won the Golden Tiger Award at the 47th Rotterdam International Film Festival.
The film conveys realism through magical expression techniques and extremely absurd allegories of human nature, and the film tells the story of a rural widow Wang Erhao who loses three husbands in succession, and the trajectory of her life begins to develop bizarrely, and the final character ends with the tragedy of having nothing.
I feel that China's rural theme movies always focus on widows, on the one hand, because there are too many migrant workers, on the other hand, because from a female perspective, it will be more interesting. From the original title of the film "Little Widow into Immortals", we can see where the selling point of this movie is, but compared with "A Vast North", the former's perspective is broader, and it can also reflect the meaning behind the film, not only the process of the identity transformation of "Little Widow" Wang Erhao, but also the villagers' use and pursuit of "immortals" as tools, as well as the human nature and evil to be civilized under the vast snow of the countryside.
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Since China's reform and opening up, China's film market has begun to develop, and film and television works have gradually matured, but film and television works with rural themes do not seem to be too brilliant, and seem to have lost the trend of great popularity and the ability to occupy the market.
The difference between "A Piece of the North" and "Country Love" is that the former lacks harmony and joy, and it is completely different from the subject matter, but comparing the two together, or the countryside in "A Piece of the North" is more realistic and more magical, the film from 140 minutes in 2017 to the cinema release in 2018, of which 27 minutes were deleted, it is undeniable that the director has made a lot of efforts to successfully release this film, and the sense of reality under the censorship system. Although there is a certain difference from the real sense of reality, it is also closer to the imagination of the moviegoer, after all, in this world, the more full of real things, the more difficult it is to believe.
As the saying goes, the more folklore, the more terrible it is.
The heroine of the movie, Wang Erhao, from the broom star of "carving a shadow for Yan Wangye" to the living immortal of "Pudu sentient beings suffering, the fairy under the mortal dust", are the female images and image symbols covered in the film. The director portrays Wang Erhao as a kind, stubborn, and unwilling woman who is unwilling to give up her own moral code, which has also become the tragic root of Wang Erhao, who has never been able to stand idly by and stay out of the matter.
From the beginning of the film only mental consciousness of Wang Erhao was defiled by his cousin, Wang Erhao began to present a dominated image, with the development of the plot, she began to embark on the road of finding a home, after accidentally curing the deaf fourth master, let her have the aura of "God", but also gradually deviated from the life mode followed by women, at the beginning, the men in the village for Wang Erhao are pursuing the attitude, to the back of Wang Erhao also from the beginning of the forced to conscious.
With the development of the film, the audience also follows Wang Erhao's perspective and sees the dark side behind the villagers praying to God and worshiping Buddha.
Some have sold their daughters to support their sons; there are also little girls who have committed suicide by jumping into a well because they have been harassed... All this disappointed Wang Erhao, but also let the flame of "saving the city and helping people" in her heart slowly extinguished, and she also began to try to reverse, not knowing that she had been used as a tool, and in the end she could only become a stumbling block in the eyes of the whole village to seek benefits.
The film uses its own unique absurdity to reflect the real problems of the countryside, but it is full of mysterious colors of charm and glamorous fish, which seems to cast a layer of mystery on the relatively backward countryside, and after watching the movie, people can't help but have a sense of disorientation.
Magic realism is not produced out of thin air, it is self-sufficient in reality, beyond reality, using the appearance of magic to reflect the essence of reality, is the expression of many movies, virtual reality, can not distinguish clearly, this magic of virtual reality processing has a strong critical force, magic is the deformation of reality, is the use of artistic means to deal with the evil of human nature.
There are various religions in the film: runes, shamans, incense burning, witchcraft, immortals, etc.
In the first scene of the film, a white fox appears, the fox nests in the thick snow, in front of a green apple that should not have appeared there, and then the protagonist Wang Erhao and his dead husband slowly walk out of the woods, and the opening snow scene is four minutes long... At first, the beginning may be in the clouds, but we see that in the end, combined with the opening of the film, we understand the meaning: Wang Erhao "became an immortal" because he got the "enlightenment" of the "fox immortal".
The scene where the fox appears is also a preview of the director's magic of the whole story.
However, when the white fox appears again in the camera, it is already dead in the snow, surrounded by apples in a field, in fact, those apples are apple bombs set by hunters to hunt.
This picture also metaphorically depicts the tragic ending of the film and echoes the beginning.
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In the 1990s, the Chinese film market is not yet mature, but in the few film works, rural theme films still occupy a large part of them, in 1994 Zhang Yimou's "Alive", Zhou Xiaowen's "Er Yan" these two are fine works, is to reflect the rural reality of the image of small people in the countryside, although "Alive" is a good work, but not put in the domestic market, but very popular abroad, which can also see the plight of "The North is a vast expanse", after all, as a movie The sense of reality reflected needs to follow both the rules and regulations of the censorship system and the emotional needs of moviegoers, and the domestic film censorship is indeed strict, and many unpopular films have chosen to return to China after competing abroad and finally achieving good results.
There is a lot of room left for domestic films, and how to develop in the future depends on the environment and system.
And "A Piece of the North" is a good way to avoid some strange forces and chaos, but everything is so just right. The little widow can become an immortal, and it is certainly not "divine power", but it is not all accidental. What she relies on is almost the same as any fortune teller for thousands of years, that is, a pair of good eyes and "looking, hearing and cutting", plus a little reasonable deduction, and then prescribing the right medicine.
The director's success lies in the fact that he does not portray a god-nagging character, the little widow is not crazy or stupid, and even does things very smart, on the surface this is just a thin layer of heart, and there is also a pure and kind heart inside.
Despite the myths, the film also arouses hot discussions about rural realities: empty nesters, left-behind children, bullying of women, crowd gambling, son preference, child trading, unrestrained mining, animal hunting, etc. Films have their own moral and policy red lines, and being able to distinguish them from other types of films and literary and art films, and grasping the depth of reality will also become a problem that rural films strive to solve.
The filming of "A Piece of the North" took only nine days, and the choice of black and white pictures, a large number of long shots and metaphorical symbols are the characteristics of this film, and the film uses a large number of non-professional actors, all of which are aimed at better expressing the content. In fact, rural films that have entered a new era still have to overcome many difficulties, but these are both challenges and opportunities.
After all, films with rural themes belong to China.
Original text, figure network