Text │ Latitude and longitude
The Siberian tiger in the zoo, well bred in the iron fence, occasionally looks at the crowd, very indifferent, does it want to leave? Xu Dong, Mei Ling, and Ma Qianli in the countryside of Hegang have encountered a midlife crisis, a family crisis, and a debt crisis in their trivial lives, and everyone is very angry and helpless, but there is also forgiveness and warmth, have they ever thought of fleeing?
"Northeast Tiger" director Geng Jun has made "underground movies" for nearly a decade, won many awards at home and abroad, but until the age of 45 he had the opportunity to let his works enter the theater for the first time and face the public; producer Wang Zijian, who helped many excellent films find money, get awards, smoothly release and distribution, in recent years, the profit and operation of their own company are becoming more and more difficult, have they thought about giving up?
Whether it is the Siberian Tiger in the movie, the middle-aged man, or the director and producer outside the film, as well as the film itself as a work of art and commodity, there seems to be nothing that is not in trouble: "The Siberian Tiger" Despite the blessing of Zhang Yu and Ma Li, two star actors, and the Golden Jubilee Award for Best Picture, the box office of the film is still less than 15 million in the week of release, and the proportion of the film has dropped to 3.6%.
If it is said that in the current domestic market environment, literary films/author films generally have a more common dilemma at the box office, then for "Siberian Tiger", the situation seems to be more severe, not only did not achieve "selling seats" at the box office, but also did not win "applause" at the word-of-mouth level: Douban score 6.2, barely maintained on the passing line.
However, looking at the Douban short review, 33% of the praise is against the 33% of the bad reviews, which is seriously polarized. Like the audience believes that this film continues director Geng Jun's consistent realistic absurd comedy image style, the northeast space, story, characters have been both deeply and humorously discussed and presented, compared to his previous low-cost shooting of "Youth", "Relaxed + Happy" and other works that have not been released in theaters, "Northeast Tiger" from content to lineup to production, distribution of the all-round upgrade is a kind of victory and hope of the author's film in the current market environment.
Audiences who don't like it think that the film has a slow pace of "0.5 times the speed", a character with "three views of incorrectness" and an expression of "no disease moaning". Such a world of separation of evaluations and box office difficulties seems to highlight the theme conveyed by this film: "The dilemma of the Siberian tiger", not only refers to the plight of the tiger, but also refers to the plight of the characters, not only the plight of the creator, but also the plight of the entire industry.
In the current industry environment affected by the epidemic and the cold winter of film and television, films with strong author expression and personal style such as "Siberian Tiger" will be difficult to survive and difficult in the market or will become a problem that the industry cannot effectively solve in the short term. On the occasion of the release of this film, we chatted with director Geng Jun and producer Wang Zijian in order to explore the creation and development path that can be used as a reference for the industry.
Is anger powerful, or is tolerance great?
The story of the film originates from Geng Jun's friend Xu Gang (who plays the poet in the film), "One year I met him at the station during the New Year, and everyone was visiting relatives and friends, but he was avenging his dog. The situation of a literati seeking revenge on a social person is very tense and fills me with a desire to narrate. ”
According to this beginning, Geng Jun quickly wrote the script. "After writing it in 2012, I knew that I had written the script big, and I couldn't find so much money to shoot it at that time", so Geng Jun first made a lower-cost "Easy + Happy".
In 2017, "Easy + Happy" won the Special Award for Visual Design at the Sundance Film Festival. At the same time, with the help of producer Wang Zijian and the international sales company Red Horn founded, the film successfully sold the North American copyright and sold to 60 or 70 countries and regions.
After this achievement, Wang Zijian and Geng Jun discussed that it was time to start the "Northeast Tiger" project. "It's been 6 years, the aesthetic has changed a bit, and I've looked at the script with a new eye, making about 40% of the changes." According to Geng Jun, when he first wrote the script, the first three words he wrote down were "Siberian Tiger".
"Once I went to the zoo, I took the camera to shoot the Siberian tiger for more than 40 minutes. When I push it closer with a camera and observe its expression, I think of what happened to people. Geng Jun said that in the movie, the fate of the tiger reflects the fate of the characters, the zoo is both the habitat of the Siberian tiger and its prison, and the same is true for people, middle-aged life is both bland and trivial and full of crises and dilemmas.
Geng Jun believes that although life is full of difficulties, in the work, the characters should take the initiative to solve the problem, "what kind of problem can be solved, just like the fate of the characters themselves, not a single answer, everyone's spiritual world is particularly rich." So, he set up a dilemma for each character in the film, that is, "Is the power of anger or the power of tolerance?" ”
Xu Dong put the dog in a friend's house, the dog was eaten, he was sad, he was angry, he wanted revenge. In the process of revenge, he found that his friend's situation was more miserable and embarrassing than his, and slowly developed sympathy, understanding and tolerance.
Mei Ling was about to be pregnant, accidentally found that her husband was cheating, she was sad, she was angry, she wanted to solve the case to find the interloper, but she chose to forgive at the "Hongmen Banquet" of the three people facing each other, and very decently maintained the stability of the family.
Ma Qianli was pitted when he was contracting construction projects, he could not get a penny, he was sad, he was angry, he wanted to find a developer to fight, but he was beaten and lying in the snow, but when he faced the debt collection, siege and smashing of windows by relatives and friends, he did not choose to resist and escape.
This is the consistent "ambiguity" and "warm tone" of Geng Jun's works, not anger to the end, despair and suffocation, but also a different kind of vitality and warmth in the predicament, which can bring the audience deep thinking. And this "ambiguity" and "warmth" are more concentrated in two seemingly superfluous but crucial side figures: the poet and Xiao Er. "I think life is a huge whirlpool, many ordinary people are trapped in it, but there are also some special people who stand next to the whirlpool, and the role of the poet and the little two is to remind us that the hurried life can be slightly slower." 」
In the movie, these two people who seem to have a bad brain have contributed a warmer and more sober force than ordinary people: the poet has always accompanied Xu Dong with an optimistic force, he wants to sell poetry, but refuses to be bought out by Xu Dong, because "selling to different people makes sense"; Xiao Er, who has only 3,000 yuan in savings, sends a kite, fried fish and 500 yuan to Ma Qianli, and does not ask for anything, and the sentence "When flying a kite, you can look up at the sky" is the most hopeful and powerful line in the whole film.
Geng Jun said that it is precisely because there are some such people in his life that he will add this auxiliary line in his creation, "If only the main line has no auxiliary line, it will appear very thin." Real life semantics are very rich, kites are not just kites, ladders are not just ladders, poets do not just want to sell poetry collections, but mean that places that respect culture must have light, and it will be good to look up at the sky. ”
"Hegang Universe" and the Northeast Renaissance
"The northeast is where I grew up, my roots are there, although in the past twenty or thirty years, the former factories, restaurants, department stores, have been transformed and demolished, I have not had time to reminisce, but whenever I am in that environment, these memories can still be awakened." 」
In recent years, from the novels created by writers such as Shuang Xuetao, Ban Yu, and Zheng Zhi, to the movies "The Piano of Steel", "Daytime Fireworks", "Flames on the Plain", "Under the Sun", web dramas "Undocumented Crimes", "Double Detectives", etc., a large number of literary, film and television works about the northeast region have emerged, and "Northeast Renaissance" seems to be gradually becoming a buzzword. As a more localized Northeast film (Northeast Space, Northeast Story, Northeast Characters and Actors, Directors, etc.), "Siberian Tiger" constitutes and promotes the cultural prosperity of this region.
"I am a native of Hegang, Heilongjiang, and when I was nineteen years old, I had a movie dream, so I tried to write a script and slowly became a director." In 2019, a post titled "Heilongjiang Hegang House Price Surprises "Cabbage Price": A Suite Sells 19,000" has made countless buyers flock to it, and it is said that the cheapest one is only 300 yuan a flat. In such an era when everyone knows that housing prices are unattainable, when Hegang appears in people's vision with such a somewhat "absurd" appearance, Geng Jun, who was born and grew up in Si, has already made more than a dozen works with his unique perspective and narrative style, allowing the audience to see another kind of absurdity and reality.
"Everyone knows that the northeast film and television works are mainly comedies and sketches, and I want to shoot the northeast from my own perspective, and you can see another kind of aesthetic taste of the northeast movie from my film." From the short story "Hawthorn" and "Bulk Diary" to the feature films "Barbecue", "Youth", "Relaxed + Pleasant", "Siberian Tiger" and the documentary "The Journey of Poetry and Illness" and other works, the sequence of works created by Geng Jun in the past 20 years has always been the theme of realistic care and the narrative method of absurd comedy.
At the actor level, in most of Geng Jun's past works, most of them are native Hegang people starring, such as Xu Gang, Zhang Zhiyong, Xue Baohe and so on. In "Siberian Tiger", in addition to the original few, the Northeast comedian Ma Li was invited. "First of all, her age temperament is in line with the role setting, and secondly, the actors who can play comedy well are particularly good actors." Ma Li herself is a chinese opera graduate, has acted in drama, and later became famous for acting in comedy, but she is also a professional actress, and her ability to control different roles is very strong. ”
In this regard, Wang Zijian added, "The cooperation with the two actors is particularly simple, that is, it is a one-shot fit. Ma Li said that Geng Jun's film is another kind of comedy, and she likes it very much. Zhang Yu has known him before, and everyone loves art, loves movies, and loves drinking. After seeing it twice, he sent a script, and he quickly read it and praised it, especially liked it. Although Zhang Yu is not from the northeast, his sensitivity as an actor can better appreciate the powerlessness of middle age. In addition to talent, he also knows how to control and retract when performing, and knows what to give and what not to give. ”
The biggest criticism of "Siberian Tiger" at the level of public viewing is that the film is relatively "slow" from the narrative rhythm to the actors' words. Word by word, coupled with the occasional boxing ceremony of the characters in the film, it seems to be the feeling of watching an ancient dragon martial arts drama. In this regard, Geng Jun said, "In fact, this is a soothing and beautiful way of telling. I don't pursue slowness, but I think there needs to be a gap and thinking between the characters' dialogues, rather than the inertial thinking that you ask me to answer. In addition, this is also a personal aesthetic taste of mine, I may be half a beat slower than this era, those explosive information, those trends, I have to take a while to understand. ”
The dilemma and hope of literary films/author films
Starting from the sixth generation of directors, the concept of author film originating in French films has begun to appear, and in recent years, in the process of development, author films have influenced the label of literary and art films in the sense of mass communication: low cost, unreadable, marginal themes, and awards. This misunderstanding almost covers the voices from the audience to the industry, and aggravates the already difficult survival and development of literary films/author films.
Since 2021, first of all, in terms of box office performance, "Love Myth" is 240 million, "First Incense" is 64 million, "Lyceum Theatre" is 20 million, "Wuhai" is 15 million, "Siberian Tiger" is 14 million, "Wild Horse Mane" is 11 million, "See Nara Again" is 5 million, "Xiao Wei" is 1.45 million, "Yijiang Chunshui" is 1.48 million... The box office of these literary films/author films is bleak to the naked eye.
Box Office = Success? With box office or word of mouth, can the problem be solved? Or rather, what's the problem?
In Wang Zijian's view, first of all, from the investment level, investment companies are generally more willing to invest in large projects, "For example, you want 5 million, I don't want to do, you want to make 50 million, I may be able to consider." But rationally speaking, a literary film should not have 50 million investment in many cases, but a commercial film should not receive so-called subsidies. Rich films do not need to continue to take money, and good films without money, why must it become a market hit? ”
When it comes to the publicity layer, literary and art films are easy to fall into a 10:1 or even lower publicity ratio, while the ratio of commercial film production and publicity will reach 1:1. The reality dilemma is, "We put so much effort into making a movie, the industry feels very good, and then the film festival system also recognizes, but when it comes to distribution, it will become a secondary or sub-level distribution resource." Combined with the marketing cases of literary and art films that often appear before, the lack of resources and investment is bound to affect the dissemination of such films and even the degree of creative investment.
At the same time, the film festival, which has previously given honorary recognition for the creation of literary and art films, platform exposure, voice channels, publicity platforms and buyers, is also an important platform for the "holy land" of literary and art films- the film festival, which has also been cancelled a lot in the past two years due to the epidemic, which has intuitively affected the exposure and influence of some excellent literary and art films, "'Easy + Happy' successfully sold the North American copyright at the Sundance Film Festival, and the overall overseas sales performance is still good, but after the epidemic began, our overseas business has been greatly affected." ”
Nowadays, although many domestic film festivals and platforms are doing venture capital, trying to help young directors promote creation and filming, but the role is always insufficient, including venture capital is also "more monks and less meat", "every year, all the domestic venture capital, can be filmed no more than two, but there may be thousands of projects." ”
These are all problems. The characteristics of most literary and art films are indeed niche and personal aesthetics, and the industrialization of Chinese films in recent years is gradually being established and perfected, many high-grossing excellent domestic works in a sense to establish a "yardstick" to measure domestic films, and flourish on the road of complete commercial narrative, but the corresponding to this hot land is not "frozen" literature and art, at least some time ago, "Love Myth" broke the circle and good reputation, is a positive example. The home field of literary and art films has not yet arrived, with the continuous development and improvement of the scale of the industry and the market segment, combined with good stories that can adapt to the tastes of the audience, it is expected to obtain corresponding improvements.
At the end of the dialogue, when Bone Duo asked Geng Jun, is the current market environment not very friendly to literary films/author films? He asked rhetorically, "When do you think you've ever been friendly?" ”
"Probably even less friendly now. But what about this? I think for myself, it may be a very low cost to complete the work, to improve their own expression, in order to continue, I can do so much. ”
Geng Jun once had 10 years of experience as an advertising salesman, in magazines, television stations, newspapers, advertising agencies have work experience, and later after filming, he will occasionally shoot an advertisement, shoot a feature film to pay rent, and most of the other time is used to write scripts and read literary works, in his view, engaging in creation is a confrontation with mediocre life, otherwise it will be swallowed up by too powerful forces, "I am a pessimistic person, but the creation of this matter did not make me pessimistic, I use creation to overcome my pessimism." Pessimism is useless, so do something to overcome it. ”