Original title: Shanghai Film Festival 丨 "We are all wooden people": the history of the blood and tears of the band that was overthrown and reborn
The musical theme film "We're Little Zombies" (we're Little Zombies, also translated as "We Are Little Zombies" and "Mom and Dad Are Dead, But I Don't Want to Cry") was brilliant at the Sundance Film Festival at the beginning of the year, winning the "Jury Special Award" and "World Film Unit Drama Film" in one fell swoop, and premiered in China at the Shanghai International Film Festival in mid-June this year, almost synchronized with Japanese theaters, helpless at this year's Shanghai Film Festival. However, it was stolen from the limelight by "Killer Restaurant" directed by Shikazu Kawa and became a lost pearl of unpopular films.
The inspiration for "We Are All Wooden Men" came from the popular "Blue Whale Game", which originated from a Russian social networking site and the ultimate goal is to allow a group of young people with a light-hearted tendency to carry out a suicide plan in a few days. The game shook the back of the then-first-time father, Who wanted to make a movie that would give hope and light to young people.
Poster of "We're All Wooden Men"
Although the tone of the film is brilliant, and the gushing carnival runs through almost the entire film, its spiritual core is extremely explosive. This burst is not shown through bloodshed and violence, but rather the strong desire of the four protagonists for love to be forcibly suppressed under the surface of their indifference.
They play games, they have promiscuous sex, they form bands, they vent their forcibly distorted desires through indulgence, and how crazy they play on the surface, how much love they lack love on the inside. The pretended revelry and buried loneliness form a huge tension that tears the nerves of the performer and the viewer.
This time, the film festival translated the title of the film as "We are all wooden people", which is not very appropriate, perhaps "wooden people" is to strengthen the protagonist's indifferent characteristics, or perhaps to evoke the childhood memories of Chinese audiences about the game of the same name, but such a translation has greatly reduced the transmission of core information.
The narrative of the film is told through the form and structure of the playthrough game, which is fictionalized by director Changyun, called We're Little Zombies, which literally translates to "We are little zombies", and the band later formed by the four protagonists, also called Little Zombies, "Wooden Man" directly dissolves the most important meaning of these two layers.
Stills from "We're All Wooden Men"
The story begins with Hikari Takami, a little boy with glasses. Xiao Guang is a typical generation that grew up in a reinforced concrete city, seemingly lacking nothing, but extremely lonely. He and his parents live in the "Tower of Babel Apartment", and their mode of getting along is the same as the name of the apartment, and the three of them talk to themselves in their respective channels and cannot communicate.
In the flash of light in the prologue, we can quickly capture an important message - the union of Xiaoguang's parents is not based on true love, but the result of Xiaoguang's father randomly choosing a mate among the many girlfriends he interacts with. After Koko became sensible, his parents gave him a game console to make him mentally self-sufficient, and they often disappeared themselves.
Xiao Guang didn't know whether they were going to make money or socialize. The last time they saw their parents, they smiled and told Xiao Guang to be obedient at home, Xiao Guang buried his head in the game, and then they died, at the funeral, Xiao Guang did not shed a tear, and the expression mu ne did not care about himself.
The fat man Xiaoshi, who looks quite happy, comes from the grassroots class, and his parents are not highly educated, and they make a living by running small restaurants. His parents' restaurant gave him two of the most important things, which were excessive fat and vulgarity.
Xiao Shi was not popular at school, and although he did not encounter physical bullying, he was often teased. He is very similar to Xiao Guang, his father did not take his feelings seriously before marriage, he casually found a woman to marry and have children, and the family did not have real love and warmth. Xiao Guang said in a word: "A person who has a love can only love one person." "Neither XiaoGuang nor Xiaoshi has been able to harvest love in the family, and therefore has lost the ability to love others.
By chance, Xiaoguang and Xiaoshi meet Takemura Tree, who has been abused for many years, and Ikuko, a beautiful girl who has been sexually harassed by her piano teacher, and the four of them who are depressed and have nowhere to release, run to the lover's hotel together, trying to toss out a beautiful new world. The Lover's Hotel is decorated dreamily, the coffin in the sea of flowers is full of death's finger shots, the dreamy Lover's Hotel and the imaginary ruins switch back and forth, and the virtual and real boundaries of the story become more and more blurred.
In this dreamy and crazy mental state, this band called "Little Zombies" was formed, with Hikari as the lead singer, the stout Koishi as the drummer, the handsome Takemura Tree as the bass player, and Ikuko, who has been studying the piano for many years, naturally became the keyboard player. The girl who had studied classical piano for many years but could not bear the sexual harassment of the piano teacher said: "Classical music is pure on the surface, but it is a slut. So she abandoned classical music and chose rock 'n' roll in favor of an outlet for her anger.
After the formation of the band, they wrote the long-suppressed anger and dissatisfaction into the song, gaining a large number of fans, their pain was amplified on the stage, and their hearts were effectively conveyed and listened to. The success of the Little Zombie Band shows that there are many young people in the world who are like them, who are not loved but cannot do anything, and they also need to find an outlet for resonance and catharsis.
The underage rock band, whose average age is only 13.5 years old, has completed a magnificent metamorphosis and turnaround, and as the number of fans continues to grow, the fans who like them are no longer purely motivated. Some are just trying to follow the trend, some are just holding a lively onlooker mentality, and the agent tries to squeeze greater commercial value from them, and the pain that was originally calmed is torn apart in another way. They wanted to break up the band, but found that they could never go back.
After the band disbanded in a disjointed way, the world was as desolate as the end of the world, and if you want to survive in this game of level-level, you must race against time. They hitched a ride on the time train in an attempt to transcend time, but their destination was like Kafka's Castle, which seemed to be close at hand, but in fact it was out of reach. They seem to have made a wrong choice in this game of level-breakers, watching to game over, but with the birth of a baby, the game starts again.
Xiao Guang opened his eyes in the back seat of his parents' car, all of which was just a dream he had. It was only after waking up from this long dream that he was still indistinguishable. But when he woke up, he was sure that the zombies also had feelings. Facing a green meadow outside the car window, Xiao Guang sincerely sighed: "Nature's pixels are really high!" ”
If you want a high-pixel life, you have it in real life, so why look for comfort in a virtual game? This is probably what the director, who had just become a father at the time, wanted to say to his newborn child.
(Image from The Paper and the Internet)