Most of the films of the Cultural Revolution period are regarded as "forbidden films", but this Cultural Revolution film is a special existence, not only grandly screened at the Shanghai Film Museum, but also won awards at major domestic film festivals.
Audiences who have seen it praised it as the best Cultural Revolution film after "Alive" - "Village Drama"
The film is adapted from Jia Dashan's novel of the same name, "Village Drama", directed by the well-known director Zheng Dasheng, which took a total of three years from shooting to trial, telling the story of the rural rehearsal and land division in Jingxing, Hebei during the pilot period of production to households.
The film did not adopt the traditional cinema distribution method, but through continuous screening activities for screening, after the start of the screening, it has been praised by many film critics and audiences, and got a good score of 8.2 points on Douban.
The background of the story takes place in the 1980s, the household contract responsibility system is about to be implemented, and the old drama is rehearsed again in the village, and a family and country drama is also staged.
The beginning of the movie is the whole village organizing the rehearsal of "Hitting the Golden Branch" hand-picked by the superior leaders, and after the village drama, the land will be divided, the production will be contracted to the household, and the people who sing well can also share the land smoothly.
The old crane in the village is in charge of all the matters of the rehearsal, the daughter Ah Fen is a flower in the village and is also recognized by everyone as the heroine, and the male protagonist is selected from two young boys, Zhigang and Shuman.
The old crane has a crush on Zhigang, has strength, can cultivate the land, even if he can't sing opera, he has his own teaching, he can still go on stage, and his daughter Ah Fen is full of trees, can play the flute and can sing, is his favorite person, but the old crane has always been opposed.
On the surface, he chose the male protagonist, but in fact, he was choosing a son-in-law for Ah Fen, and the reason why Shu Man was not welcomed by the old crane was mainly because he had a crazy father, and the old crane had a clear attitude and would never let his daughter marry the son of a madman.
Shu Man's father is a famous Kui crazy man in the village, does not know people, can not speak, the only thing he cares about is the peanuts grown in his nine and a half acres of land, the film uses interludes to show us the past of Kui crazy people.
Now in 1982, Kui Crazy is crazy, the color of the film is also black and white, and in 1972, Kui Crazy is not crazy, the world at that time is still color, but whether it is black and white or color, the story of Kui Crazy is not beautiful.
In 1972, Kui Crazy was also called Wang Kuisheng, a capable general around Wang Zhishu, whose main task was to watch the crops and prevent anyone from moving the collective grain.
On this day, a group of children came to steal peanuts, Wang Kuisheng rushed over, caught a little girl, let the girl spit out the peanuts, in a hurry the girl was choked alive, and this little girl is no one else, it is Wang Kuisheng's own daughter.
Wang Kuisheng personally watched his daughter die in front of his eyes, leaving eternal pain in his heart, which was originally a complete tragedy, but the village turned this tragedy into a comedy.
The village portrayed Wang Kuisheng as an "advanced element in protecting collective property" who was righteous and selfless, and pushed him to the top to receive praise, so as to exchange it for relief grain in the village.
In this way, Wang Kuisheng became a militia company commander at the cost of his daughter's life, but his personality was artificially torn apart, and over time, Wang Kuisheng went crazy, and there were only peanuts in his eyes, which took his life.
And now, Wang Kuisheng, who has become a kui crazy person, is forced to become the "big hero" of the villagers, and everyone wants to drive him out of the village in order to occupy his nine and a half acres of fertile peanut land.
Only Wang Zhishu still remembered Wang Kuisheng's goodness, and when he chased the peanut stealers all over the village and made a lot of noise, Wang Zhishu shouted "militia company commander."
At this time, Wang Kuisheng did not seem to be crazy, his waist was straight, his expression was serious, and he walked out of the crowd with a neat step, but the villagers who were watching shouted "one two one" to laugh at him, and no one cared how he was driven crazy.
At first, Wang Zhishu intended to defend Wang Kuisheng and said to the villagers: "People have to talk about love", but the villagers shouted: "No matter how big the feelings, they are not reasonable", Wang Zhishu did not want to set himself on fire, so he gradually compromised.
From beginning to end, she was full of kindness to Wang Kuisheng, only Ah Fen, the daughter of the old crane, and when everyone hated to laugh at Wang Kuisheng, she cried out one by one "Uncle Kui", and when she saw Shuman beating Wang Kuisheng, she said: I will not marry a person who beat her father.
Wang Kuisheng had a brief recovery of consciousness, when Ah Fen enthusiastically brought him to Zhishu and Lao He, he was still able to walk in the forced old house, but in the end he was stimulated by Lao He to go crazy again.
Wang Kuisheng was driven mad twice, once as an advanced pacesetter because of the maintenance of collectivism, and once because of the division of the field, he was once again driven crazy by people's selfishness.
At the end of the film, Kui Crazy is driven out of the village, at this time he regains his clarity and calls out the name of his daughter who has not been shouted out for ten years.
In the past few years, he could not show his miss and guilt for his daughter, and he had to stamp her daughter as a sinner with his own hands, and take her death as his own credit, and his world was half crazy and half dreamy, full of sins.
As the movie poster says: There is no bad person, and there is no innocent person. Everyone has a selfish nature, and in the name of the collective, they push the Qui-Madman to the altar and eventually pull him down again.