The purpose of the Zishan Fish Recipe is not to use Western learning to disparage the old learning, but to throw out the mysteries that have been entangled in human society for thousands of years and seem to never have an answer—what is knowledge, and who has the right to define knowledge? What is the purpose of human inquiry? Is it more knowledge, or is it more power?
Wen | dwarf wood
1
Although the 2021 progress bar is more than two months away, in the minds of some, the best Asian film of the year should be awarded to the very small and unpopular And difficult to define Korean film "Zishan Yubi".
Completely different from the "Thief Family" and "Parasite" that shined in the previous two years, "Zishan Fish Recipe" is not a realistic narrative that cuts to the current, and completely jumps out of the shackles of genre films, but puts the story in the Joseon Dynasty more than 200 years ago, telling the story of a reader named Ding Ruoquan, who was exiled to an isolated island called Montenegro. Coupled with the limited budget of the film, it finally chose to shoot in black and white, and various elements were superimposed, so that "Zishan Fish Recipe" has a quiet and distant temperament, which consciously avoids the present, avoids the noise, and provides us with another possibility for long-lost image expression.
This kind of long, distant, aimed at the presentation of those eternal characteristics in the spiritual world of people gives "Zishan Fish Recipe" a magical magic that spans language, race and even time and space, many Chinese film fans think of Su Dongpo for the first time after watching "Zishan Fish Recipe", Su Dongpo was relegated to the rear of Hainan to know that oysters are delicious, Ding Ruoquan also arrived in Montenegro, was dragged into the door of the new world by a meal of spotted ray sashimi, with a curiosity about the ocean world, in octopus, abalone, yellow mackerel, bluefish, stingray, In the variety and delicious taste of the fish, he was liberated from the decadence of exile, and finally wrote the book "Zishan Fish Recipe", which is regarded as the first fish encyclopedia in Korea.
This is really too much su Dongpo's story, Professor Dai Jianye of the College of Literature of Central China Normal University talked about Su Dongpo, Su Dongpo this guy, humorous, open-minded, kind, people love, he has wine to drink and meat to eat every day, happy to die, he is happy, he wrote a lot of good articles and good poems in Huangzhou, "Former Chibi Fu", "Later Chibi Fu", and there are many poems, what great rivers and east rivers have come, making his class enemies angry to death.
And Ding Ruoquan this guy, also in the harsh environment, isolated from the world montenegro Lotte knows the fate, re-anchored the direction of life, determined the self-worth, yi indulgent, with the fish barbarian birds as a couple, no longer with pride and nobility, octopus abalone plus some shiitake mushrooms and other wild game stewed fish soup can return the soul, stingray with rice wine is a delicacy in the world, the villagers originally used to feed the pig's mussel to deal with it is even more delicious than the pufferfish.
Before leaving for Montenegro Island, Ding Ruoquan told his brother that he was more excited about the difficult and strange place in front of him than fear. Later in life, Montenegro Island really took in everything about Ding Ruoquan. He was solid day by day, and he basically achieved wine, drinking and meat, and was happy to die.
Leaving aside for the time being the rough way of distinguishing human beings in the real world, we can certainly regard Ding Ruoquan and Su Dongpo as a kind of people, who are the creations of the typical Oriental Confucian tradition, but because of their indelible nature, they cannot become great talents who can be used through the ages. Inevitably, they suffer in their respective times because of their respective natures, but an incorrigible optimism in their personalities eventually helps them escape the desperate situation.
Because of the defense of nature and self, because of the optimistic and open-minded character, coupled with the unborn talent and talent, they were finally able to transcend the limitations of physical life and gain the respect and fairness they deserved in an eternal evaluation system created by time and the human heart.
2
The story of the "Zishan Fish Recipe" begins with the XinYoujiao Prison Incident in Korean history, when the west wind was gradually moving eastward, Catholicism was gradually becoming popular in the Korean Peninsula, and a group of people who actively promoted Western studies and sought to improve politics appeared in the Lee dynasty' scholar-doctor group. In 1801, the political situation in Korea suddenly changed, the queen of Jeongchun, who listened to the government, ordered the purging of Catholicism, a large number of Catholics were executed or exiled, the three Ding brothers who were known as the national talent were implicated and imprisoned, and in a set of fast shots at the beginning of the film, Ding Ruoquan, as the eldest brother, was actually not a role in the scenery, the younger brother Ding Ruozhong was martyred, and another younger brother, Ding Ruoyong, also showed his determination to die. Ding Ruoquan lacked interest in this posture of preferring to be crushed by jade rather than for waquan, or that he had instinctive doubts about the suppression and discipline of people in the confucian traditional order, and it was not himself who was wrong, so why should he die? This allows him to show a certain cunning and rebellion at the beginning of the story, and at this time, I am afraid that even God has abandoned me, or it is still important to live.
In the end, Ding Ruoquan and Ding Ruoyong were exempted from the death penalty and exiled to the island. In the real history of North Korea, Ding Ruoyong is the most praised talent among his brothers, and he wrote books and lectures during his 18-year exile, including the "Chronological Legacy Table" that studied how to operate the state's tax and fiscal policies, the "Shepherd's Heart Book" that studied how local officials should formulate policies for the people, and the medical book "Hemp Science Huitong" containing measles and smallpox therapy. In contrast, Ding Ruoquan has completely entered the world of self on an isolated island, and the doctrine he wants to study may once again harm his wife and children, so forget it, crabs, fish, shrimp, sea vegetables and seaweed, it seems to be useless to the real world, but zi is not Ding Ruoquan, how can he understand his happiness?
Director Li Maoyi once joked when talking about the choice of the protagonist of the film, it should have been easier for people who wrote more books to leave their names in history, but he chose to tell Ding Ruoquan because the book "Zishan Fish Spectrum" is really mysterious, and this book completely contains Ding Ruoquan's philosophical concepts. In the words of the film, from now on, I intend to abandon those obscure and abstract habits and instead begin to study objective, simple and clear object creatures. Ding Ruoquan withdrew from the controversy of doctrine, placed himself in a trivial and down-to-earth concreteness, and finally rescued himself.
Lee's most famous previous work is "SuYuan", after "Su Yuan", he turned his creation into a historical theme, in 2015, in the film "Si Mourning", Lee Mao-yi used the Korean royal family's Yingzu murder incident to show the ancient tragedy of the inevitable destruction of the royal family under the feudal monarchy. The suspicious and ruthless emperor, step by step, forcing the only son of the world to be destroyed, the fear of losing power gradually devoured the emperor's humanity as a father, he regarded his son as an enemy, but the son from beginning to end, just wanted to get a moment of warmth that an ordinary father who did not exist in the imperial family could give his child.
Shizi eventually became the opposite of his father, he failed to become a threat to his father, and naturally he was not his father's pride, he gave himself up, self-destruction, and the arrows flying into the air were so righteous, and I hated myself. I don't want to live like that.
In this sense, "Zishan Fish Recipe" continues Li Maoyi's inquiry and reflection on the traditional Confucian order, "Si Mourning" is a royal lament that wants to resist and cannot be resisted, "Zishan Fish Recipe" is lighter, it solves the question of not wanting to live so much, Ding Ruoquan used his choice to answer, how do I want to live? And how can I live?
3
Another line in the Zishan Fish Recipe is the fisherman Changda.
After Ding Ruoquan arrived in Montenegro, he wrote a letter to his brother Ding Ruoyong, and I gradually became satisfied with this place of exile, for me who was naturally curious, there was no more interesting place than a completely unfamiliar environment. He wrote about the impact of knowing Changda, I met a man on the island who was familiar with fish, but this boy gave me a heavy blow, and until now, I have studied sacraments, LaoZi, Zhuangzi, and Western studies, regardless of category, all of them are hard work, in short, it is to realize the way of survival. But now I actually found that I realized less than he knew about fish.
But in Changda's eyes, the Ding Ruoquan in front of him was on the one hand a sinful person who believed in Western learning, on the other hand, his status as a scholar, and his talent and learning were what he longed for. As an illegitimate son of a two-class student, Changdae was a natural pariah in the hierarchical Joseon Dynasty, and he studied the Juzi doctrine and was eager to change his fate. (In ancient Korea, subjects outside the royal family were divided into good people and untouchables, and the two classes were the highest class among the good people, who could take the imperial examination, and the untouchables were the bottom of the whole society, could not be examined, and could not cross the class to intermarry.) ）
Imperial examination, entry into the army, and service to the royal power are the right way in Changda's world view. Before knowing Ding Ruoquan, all the troubles in Changda's life came from resentment of his origins and the bitterness of not being accepted by power. Under the domination of this world view, Ding Ruoquan is naturally an evil person and a traitor. He didn't dare or have the ability to think about those rebellious thoughts in Ding Ruoquan's head, these fish in the sea, why are you here to catch them, and we just eat them?
Zishan Fish Recipe begins with the convergence and collision of two very different worldviews, with Ding Ruoquan exchanging his Confucian knowledge for Changda to help him explore the mysteries of the ocean world. For a period of time, this fate of being a teacher and a friend allowed Ding Ruoquan and ChangDa to spend a rare period of pure time in their lives, which was the simplest happiness that the quest for knowledge itself could give people, but the fundamental contradiction between the two was that Changda longed for the world that Ding Ruoquan's brother Ding Ruoyong outlined in the "Shepherd's Heart Book", and this yearning was destined to part ways with Ding Ruoquan. After Changda visited Ding Ruoyong and received recognition, he had a conversation with Ding Ruoquan, and he asked his teacher why he could not write a book like Ding Ruoyong, and Ding Ruoquan replied that his ideas were different from those of his brother, and the world I expected was that there was no distinction between two classes and untouchables, no distinction between concubines and concubines, no distinction between masters and slaves, and no need for the world of kings.
Changda has never understood the meaning of Ding Ruoquan's enthusiastic consumption of life in the "Zishan Fish Recipe", or he does not want to understand, he just does not die, he stays on the Black Mountain Island with his eyes open, most of the days are accompanied by rotten fish and shrimp, the system where the teacher loses and loses interest, is there really no place for him changda?
4
Not really.
In "Si Mourning", Shizi's obedience is also wrong, disobedience is also wrong, active participation in politics is wrong, game people are also wrong, revealing self is wrong, destroying self is also wrong, and finally the old emperor twists his aging and terrifying face and roars to Shizi who does not know where to go, your existence itself is a rebellion!
The pure innocence that Changda learned in the simple black mountain of the people, as well as the truths of saving the people in the world that the sages believed in in the doctrine of the saints, were not tolerated by the official reality of fainting and corruption at that time.
Changda entered the order as he wished, gained the approval of his biological father and the status of two classes, and his small family also ascended to heaven with the chicken dog, and everything that had been pursued for many years was close at hand. Changda thought that the quid pro quo for all this was ten years of hard study, his own talent, and the resolute implementation of zhuzi's theory, but reality told him that the quid pro quo for all this was the removal of his own nature, that he could not be kind and could not sympathize, that he had to learn to merge black and white without distinction, to learn to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the people, and to learn that although learning was the stepping stone of that system, what that system really wanted to strangle was, in fact, like what the old emperor in "Si Mourning" finally destroyed, was a free, natural, and pure human being possessed.
At this stage, the purpose of "Zishan Fish Recipe" is not to use Western learning to disparage the old learning, but to throw out the mysteries that have been entangled in human society for thousands of years that seem to never have an answer - what is knowledge, and who has the right to define knowledge? What is the purpose of human inquiry? Is it more knowledge, or is it more power?
At the end of the story, Changda returns to the isolated island where he set out with his family, but Ding Ruoquan has died in writing. He did not wait for Changda's return, but he foresaw Changda's return early, because he knew that with Changda's character, in that system motivated by the strangulation of the heart, he would lose the battle like himself, and he would be thankful that he could live well. Ding Ruoquan confessed to Changda in the letter, Changda, when I first heard about Montenegro Island, I was afraid of this name. But I met you, lived together, and the fear faded away. My intense curiosity, which had been tormented and disappeared by the sin of exile, was ignited again. But in Ding Ruoquan's view, losing in the Career System is obviously not a failure of individual life, he told Changda that he found the truth that he was more willing to believe in with the help of the other party, and although it was not a bad thing to live as a crane that kept flying upwards, even if his body was stained with sewage and mud, he had to live like Zishan, although he looked dark on the outside, he was full of vitality and freedom, and it was not a meaningful thing.
5
Historian Xu Zhuoyun once said in an interview with "The Thirteen Invitations" that the smallest and shortest personal history is human beings, a little longer than people is politics, a little longer than politics is economics, a little longer than economics is society, the longest period is culture, and the longest is nature.
This passage can be used as a memorandum for our understanding of Ding Ruoquan's spiritual world, Ding Ruoquan on the island of Montenegro finally gained the ultimate freedom of individual life, he came out of the study, strolled on the island of Montenegro, learned the method of re-understanding the world, fresh water flowed from the mountains, the harbor was calm, and then there was a village.
What constitutes everything in the world is not the dogma handed down by the saints, nor the decrees of kings or governments, but through observation, practice and feeling, a more real and concrete understanding of the world. One's own eyes, ears, taste, touch, and mind are the most correct way for one to perceive the world.
In the movie, changda's mental breakdown in the official injustice is overlapped by Ding Ruoquan's weak but firm voiceover, who tells that the ink of the cuttlefish is shiny and will fade over time, but it can be recolored when it encounters water again; the flesh of the squid is soft but the bones are hard, which can treat the back sores of donkey horses; the sea urchins are hard thorns on the outside, but the inside is soft, and there is a story of a blue bird flying out of the hairy chestnut shell in folklore, and the hairy chestnut finger should be the sea urchin shell. These were all the knowledge that the fisherman Chang Da had told Ding Ruoquan. What taught Changda this knowledge was the rising and falling sea of Montenegro Island, the ancient silent nature.
"Zishan Fish Recipe" achieves the remote depth and moderate coldness that a historical film should have. If "Si Mourning" is still swimming in the great opening and closing of the royal tragedy, "Zishan Fish Recipe" has completely achieved a leap in aesthetics and philosophy. In a historical film, there are blanks of oriental ink paintings, there are the interplay of rhythmic poems and sentences, there is helplessness and sorrow under the traditional order, and there is the general fate of naïve literati on the fringes of history.
During the period when Su Dongpo was degraded to Huangzhou, those class enemies with small belly chicken intestines could not see that he was a dog thing happy, and then demoted Su Dongpo to Huizhou and Danzhou, when he went to Danzhou, Su Dongpo was over sixty years old, and his younger brother Su Ru went to the beach to bid farewell, and the two brothers thought that it would be difficult to see each other again in this life, and they hugged their headaches and cried. At that time, Hainan, the environment was remote and bad, there were not even a few people who spoke Chinese on the island, but Su Dongpo on the island was still happy, developed a fresh way of eating oysters and other delicacies, he also set up a school, in the history of the Great Song Dynasty for more than a hundred years, Hainan has never been a soldier, but Su Shi went a few years later, there was really one, and Su Shi, who was happy and broken, also wrote a poem for this purpose.
"Zishan Fish Recipe" is Ding Ruoquan's version of the groundbreaking since then, Changda once visited Ding Ruoquan, felt that the name of Montenegro was unlucky, insisted on changing Montenegro to Zishan, the reason is that he is afraid that Mr. is locked up in the dark and can not go back, to experience the official exodus and escape, really understand the truth that everything is like this, laughing alone no one knows, montenegro called Zishan The reason has been completely different, Ding Ruoquan has never been locked up in the dark, Montenegro or Zishan is a place in his life that is no longer deprived of light.
Almost inevitably, many Chinese film fans have a sad mood after watching "Zishan Fish Recipe", regretting that this is the kind of movie we should make the most, this is the story of the disheartened Ding Ruoquan rebuilding himself between the vast world and the world, and it is also the story of the breeze on the river on the eastern slope of Sudong, and the bright moon in the mountains. This is the story of Changda's final choice to return after experiencing the exodus, and it is also the story of Li Bai'an's ability to crush the brow and bend the waist of the magnate, which makes me unhappy.
Of course, this is also the story of how a person faces loneliness and despair. On the day ding Ruoquan decided to devote himself to the study of marine life, he ran to Changda on the seashore, because before Changda told him that the stingray was going to take the road only the stingray knew, and the path the ray had to take was known only to the rays. Everyone also has their own path to take, the "Zishan Fish Recipe" of the general situation, may be in this sentence, Ding Ruoquan in the second half of his life every day, spiritually rich and frank, as a celebrity who once had the world in mind, his ideal of life has always been stranded in his time, for thousands of years, this stranded story is happening everywhere and everywhere, Ding Ruoquan just once again confirmed the truth repeatedly confirmed by predecessors or posterity: the way to survive is to have a good mood.