On January 22, the genuine video platform of the movie "Comeback" was launched, and it can be watched for free without membership mode. Why did the legitimate video platform, which is not profitable, "watch" the latest movie of the well-known director Zhang Meng for free? The reason is simple, this is a work shot with a mobile phone, probably to promote a mobile phone through this method. I have a view on the fact that mobile phones can make movies: which director do you see still use mobile phones to shoot movies without sponsoring money from mobile phone brands?
Lens texture this thing, is a penny a penny, eighteen thousand mobile phones, can not shoot the texture of professional camera lenses, this is common sense, it seems that there is no need to discuss. At present, the professional cameras on the market also have smaller and smaller design concepts, and in the future, there may really be professional film cameras as big as mobile phones. But this is the future of things, the current small cardboard kind of thing, or can not shoot a large film texture, can only be put on the small screen, a big screen, it is timid.
These are a few digressions. What to shoot is only part of the technology. The lens is a small part of the art of cinema. Director Zhang Meng's "Comeback" is a lot of visual shooting costs, even lower than his classic "Steel Piano" (the average shooting cost per minute). Therefore, it is better to put aside the gimmick of shooting with a mobile phone, go straight to the subject, and talk about the content value presented by this movie.
"Comeback" is about a young man, although he has a dream of directing, but in the film and television base, he can only serve as a martial arts stand-in for some crews. In an accident, the male protagonist broke his arm, and after receiving compensation from the crew, he returned to his hometown in the countryside. The fathers and villagers in the rural hometown hope that he can help everyone shoot a movie, so that the countryside where they are located will catch fire and become a punch card for rural tourism. The son refused at first, but seeing his father who insisted on shooting, the son took up the burden and helped the villagers shoot a Science Fiction Film with Mars themes, filming his own countryside.
This "Comeback" and Director Zhang Meng's classic "The Piano of Steel" are similar in thought and emotional connotation. "The Piano of Steel" is about the post-industrial era of heavy industrial zones, laid-off workers know that they can not do it "dream journey", everyone gets together to build a piano, itself is false, but because of the truth of emotions, and the truth of the characters, it finally brings the unexpected truth of the story content, and the contrasting truth. This is the unique charm of the language of the film, with false hedging for better authenticity. Novel language, it is not easy to achieve this. It's not easy, it's not that it can't.
Zhang Meng's "Comeback" is similar to "The Piano of Steel" in terms of ideological and emotional connotations. The only difference between the two pieces is that the dream of "The Comeback" is to face the countryside where the young people have gradually left. The two pieces have in common that the lonely people get together to accomplish something that is simply impossible to accomplish. Whether it is the piano building in "The Piano of Steel" or the filmmaking in "The Comeback", it is a "false" thing. But because of the truth of emotions and the truth of the characters, this sense of falsehood is well hedged, but it has more emotional and ideological impact.
In "The Comeback", you can still see director Zhang Meng's attachment to the content of northeast heavy industry. For example, the abandoned cylinder furnace became the launch base of the spacecraft in the film, the large tractor was transformed into a Mars rover, and so on. In the film, the use of rural animals also has the unique charm of the director himself. For example, white geese walking through the crowd, donkeys pretending to be Pegasus, and so on. These contents are typical rural symbols.
Whether it is laid-off workers building pianos or left-behind peasants making movies, it is unreal and the director's wishful thinking. But behind this wishful thinking is the film's own dream-making journey. The film is to achieve this kind of inaction, can not be done, is to make the unreal content hypothetical into reality. The hypothetical nature of this cinematic language is the most interesting and the most touching. Filmmakers, in particular, like to sublimate their emotions in this artistic hypothesis.
Of course, the narrative that is not in the film will still go to reality, which is the benefit of director Zhang Meng. He does not engage in the elevation and sublimation of the void. In "The Piano of Steel", even if the laid-off workers have built the piano, the children still have to be taken away, which is the powerlessness of the struggle. And in "Comeback", even if this rural theme of the Martian science fiction film is made, what can be done? The male protagonist will still take his father to the city for the elderly, and the male protagonist's countryside will continue to be lonely.
The effectiveness of artistic sublimation and the powerlessness of the fateful struggle are intertwined in Zhang Meng's films. This is the place where Zhang Meng has charm. I have met many young directors who like the effectiveness of artistic sublimation, but they have forgotten the powerlessness of this fatalistic struggle. Many times, the powerlessness of presenting this fatalistic struggle in the work of art is the most valuable and real. Never have only the former, not the latter. (Text/Ma Qingyun)