After experiencing the special period last year, this year's Shanghai International Film Festival is back to June, for the majority of film fans, this is the most familiar "movie season", even if it is still necessary to follow the epidemic prevention requirements of wearing masks and forbidden eating, but you can see the best works accumulated in the international film industry over the past year, feast on the latest 4K restored film history classics, and it is definitely worth setting an alarm clock this Saturday and getting up early in the morning to grab tickets.
In view of the global outbreak of the epidemic, the film industry has fallen into a once-in-a-century "shutdown" crisis, disrupting the production, distribution and theatrical release of many films, and its delay effect has become more and more obvious this year. Of course, this also shows that the "premiere" opportunity of the 24th Shanghai Film Festival this year is more rare, like the "Golden Jubilee Award" 4 competition units a total of 38 shortlisted films, the impact of the epidemic in the United States and Western Europe films are less, but the proportion of films in Eastern Europe and the Middle East is more, although the main creator is not well-known, but works like "Amateurs" and "Feelings" are actually more hidden surprises.
The Polish film Amateur focuses on special groups
It tells the story of a "troupe of people with intellectual disabilities"
Through these years of exchanges and learning, the Shanghai Film Festival and other international film festivals have established a good cooperative relationship, especially with cannes's "zero time difference" through train, which can invite the top masterpieces just screened in Cannes in May to Shanghai, bringing the most exciting movie-watching experience to Chinese film fans. However, Cannes cancelled offline activities last year due to the epidemic, and this year it was postponed to july, and the latest shortlisted films can only pass by again. However, careful fans can still find traces of "Cannes 2020" in this year's film list (Europe and the United States have closed theaters for more than half a year because of the epidemic, and these films have not actually been released in China) - the French comedy "Ard's Whimsical World", a new work brought by Laurent Tilar, the famous director of "The Naughty Gang in Paris", showing the wild thoughts of an honest man after the loss of love, it can be said that the male version of "Angel Amelie"; "Big Nose Love Saint" Gerald dePardieu starred in "Wartime Nothing" Through the memories of veterans returning home, the scars of the war are unveiled; "If the Wind Falls" experiences the suffering of eastern European towns in the cracks of the war through the perspective of a foreign airport engineer; the doctor who privately visits and steals prescriptions in "Doctor Night" experiences the tearing of human nature in one night; "Igbolam" and "Fall" are also shortlisted for Cannes last year, focusing on father-son love, the former is about the suffering and commonality of poor immigrant families, and the latter is "Aragon" Vigo Mortens self-directed, Confronting the contradictions with Alzheimer's father, the theme is somewhat similar to the just-won Oscar-winning "Father Trapped in Time".
Two works that are also concerned with father-son love, and the coming
"Father Trapped in Time" released in domestic theaters echoed at the same time
Another major international film festival, Venice, which was "lucky" held last September, also has a number of works worthy of fans' expectations, just the main competition films competing for the Golden Lion Award, such as "What Happened to Ida", "Macaluso's Past", "Miracle Zenia" and "Lyra in Haifa".
The Bosnian film "What Happened to Ida" was also nominated for this year's Oscar for "Best International Film", fully recreating the Srebrenica massacre that shocked the world that year, and the helplessness of the female translator and the final remains are shocking. "Macaluso's Past" focuses on the lives of the five sisters in Sicily, capturing the delicate emotions of women through three stages: childhood, middle age and old age. Polish female director Magauzta Smovzka's "Miracle Zenia" is still beautiful and poetic, breaking dreams in dance and touching; another master Israeli director, Amos Kitay, also showed his group scheduling and photography skills in "Lyra in Haifa". With "Little Shoes" famous Iranian director Majid Majidi, the new work "Son of the Sun" cleverly borrows the genre elements of "tomb robbery film" to once again reveal the dilemma of children's education in Iranian society, and the young actors won the best newcomer award in Venice with their explosive original performances.
The famous Iranian director Majidi portrayed it with "Children of the Sun"
The new face of contemporary Iranian street children is extremely infectious
What makes fans most curious is naturally the new film that has just been selected by the Berlin Film Festival in March this year, and even the local audience in Berlin has not seen it (due to the postponement of the screening in August due to the epidemic), we are blessed to feel it in advance.
As the winner of this year's jury prize in Berlin's main competition, the documentary "Mr. Bachmann and His Students" lets the audience experience how teachers educate children from different countries in a kind and inclusive way through calm and simple lenses; "The Forest Is Everywhere", which won the Silver Bear Award for Best Supporting Role, is a collection of short films with exquisite structure and full of tension. In the new film from the parallel unit, "Stop, Zemelia" tells the love experience of Ukrainian girls; "Fisher Girl" uses strange images to tell the cultural legends belonging to the Slavic people; the friendship between the two boys in "The Guardian of the Same Table" is touching, but also exposes the cruel side of Turkish society.
Woody Allen, who was "exiled" by the United States, participated in the new work "Rifkin's Film Festival" at the San Sebastian Film Festival, which is also a work that is particularly worthy of appreciation at the film festival, and the old Allen borrowed his feelings for the seventh art through the mouth of the film critic, and the fantasy scenes and the ridicule of love are once again unbearable. The suspicious "Annie is Missing" is the winner of this year's Spanish Goya Award for Best Actress; Poland's "Magic Mountain" happened to put "Climbing the Mountain Together?" "This meme is shocking and tragic; the Peruvian lie of secretly selling his mother's old house in "Restoration Project" has made people laugh bitterly... In today's special "globally closed" moment, only these films can make people cross borders and cultures.
Still woody Allen's Rifkin's Film Festival
Of course, the most well-known is this year's Oscar-nominated Hollywood films, although many fans can't help but watch it last month, but it is still worth feeling the different texture and sound effects on the big screen. For example, "Girl with a Bright Future" that won the Original Screenplay Award and "Sound of Metal" with the Sound Effects Award, the latter presents a world unique to the hearing impaired, which is sympathetic and admirable. There is also "Emma", nominated for the Best Makeup and Costume Award, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, the heroine of the popular "Rear Wing Deserter", the recent rare costume comedy theme, the Austin-style love game between four young men and women in the manor, and it is more pleasing to watch on the big screen.
Classic films have always been a world cultural heritage site that is both artistic and disseminated, especially now that countries have adopted a large number of 4K restoration techniques, which can perfectly present the original texture. The film festival just allows ordinary audiences to test the results of restoration, and also lets more young people understand how "amazing" these classic works are. Over the years, the classic and 4K units of the Shanghai Film Festival have been quite popular, even if the ticket price is not cheap, even if it is arranged at 8 o'clock in the morning, the seats on the upper and lower floors of the Great Bright are often sold out, and this year, the Shanghai Film Festival has also prepared several major "packages":
The first is to curate around the late film masters and focus on the screening of their representative works, which is the most familiar choice for the organizers and the most assured choice for the audience. For example, Ennio Morricone, the "greatest film score master" who died just last year, left hundreds of soundtrack works in his lifetime, and this time the festival is prepared for his Italian Western masterpiece "The Dart" trilogy, "Once Upon a Time in the West", "Iron Mask Selfless" and "Yugo Station" scored for directors such as De Palma, and the relatively unpopular "Investigation of an Unquestionable Director", and the melodious whistle will once again sound in the theater, reminiscent of the exciting "Deborah Theme Song" in Piazzale Roma last year.
Morricone's classic "The Dart" trilogy
Older generations of film fans still remember the famous long shot in "The Red Army and the White Army", the hungarian film master Milos Janso's flowing mirror and dispatch, which is the most suitable for reliving on the big screen. In honor of Yang Suo, this year's Festival collected five of his long short films, including "The Red Army and the White Army", "The Hopeless People", and "Silence and Shouting", including the latest 4K restored version that debuted. The unique Eastern European aesthetic of black-and-white film photography brings a kind of timelessness and tranquility that blends into the long river of history, and today's films are difficult to reproduce.
French non-fiction film master Chris Mark, also a unique figure in the history of film, as a peer of the New Wave, he gave full play to and expanded the functions of dynamics, still images and narration, and the exhibition of Mark's works curated by the Festival not only has his most representative, but also Sunday in Beijing which has a good relationship with New China, Beautiful May that goes deep into the key period of French history, and Akira Kurosawa and Fifth Grade focusing on Japanese cinema and modern culture. They are valuable video materials for the study of film language and contemporary world history.
Chris Mark's "Sunday in Beijing" is presented
Beijing at the beginning of the birth of the Republic is a precious visual history
The Japanese film classics re-screened at this year's Festival belong to two traditional Japanese films: "Toei 70th Anniversary" as the theme of 8 films, and the exhibition of Works by Masahiro Oshita, which is known as one of the "Shochiku Troika". The former includes traditional sword and sword films such as "Miyamoto Musashi" and "The Cruel Story of Bushido" and era style paintings such as "Heavenly Station" and "Nagasaki Walking Song"; the latter includes 6 works of Akita such as "Dry Lake", "Assassination" and "Lonely Blind Girl Ah Ling", which fully shows the film master who has been friendly with China for a long time, and his creative exploration in different eras and genres, which is just a reference for Toei in the same period.
Because there are too many film history classics, in addition to the above theme curations, there are many scattered works in each festival that can only be listed separately, such as Chaplin's masterpiece "Finding the Immortals", "Circus", the Indian film master Rey's "Apu" trilogy, the French New Wave master Chabrol's "Beautiful Torture" and "Woman Rhymes"... Although it has also appeared in various screenings, the latest 4K restoration version is released at the Festival, which can still bring new experiences. If you are not addicted to these masterpieces, this year's "Rhapsody" section also includes documentaries such as "Fellini's World", "Rossellini", "Wim Wenders: Outlaws" for fans who worship masters.
Animation and Japanese films have always been the most popular and most appealing genres in the various units of the Shanghai Film Festival, and this year's Shanghai Film Festival has also brought several "bomb" series curations, and it is very likely that the day of the ticket is empty, and the slow fans can only look forward to the organizers to fight for the film, temporarily adding a few more times of news.
For example, the "Memoirs" of the 20th Anniversary of Arashi 5x20, which haunts fans, although it is only a concert re-cut, but because "Arashi" has announced at the end of last year that it has "indefinitely suspended the group", the perception of the big screen has become the closest to the scene. According to the super popularity of such films in the past, there will be a frenzy in the theater at that time, even if the two versions of this screening are not subtitled, it is difficult to stop the appeal of the top tiantuan. The five-episode joint release of the live-action version of "Langke Sword Heart" is the "ultimate trick" of the Japanese film of this year's Shanghai Film Festival, especially the two "Final Chapters", which were just released in Japan in April and June. This freshness synchronized with the local, the scarcity of only playing two episodes per episode, coupled with the series's super high degree of reduction, just the moment when the sword is drawn in the trailer, it has made countless action movies and anime fans excited.
<h1 toutiao-origin="h1" > The Ronin Sword Heart Final Chapter Remembrance (right).</h1>
< h1 toutiao-origin="h1" > screened in Japan on June 4</h1>
After all, compared with the cultural differences between Europe and the United States, the delicate style of Japanese film is more suitable for Asian audiences, and its mature film system also ensures the quality and richness of genres. Like the well-received "The Underworld and the Family", through the social background and character relationships of three different eras, such as "The Godfather", it creates an "epic sense" of withering sadness under the sun. Based on the story of a well-known Japanese photo album, "Asada's House! It is full of warmth under the interpretation of Kazuya Ninomiya and his wife, Satoshi Mu. Wu Zhengqing's new work "Defeated Dog" created after "The Love of One Hundred Yuan", the first and second parts once again focus on the lives of three young people who fight boxing. In "Living in the Air", which was shortlisted for the annual top ten of the "Film Magazine", women pursue their self-worth in the worship of male stars; "That Time" is a group of young men who "rejuvenate" after decadence. As for the great director Kurosawa Kiyoshi's "The Spy's Wife", which won the Venice Silver Lion Award, it is the most important and well-known Japanese film last year, which integrates anti-war ideas with film film, but let women finally carry all the loneliness and suffering.
The anti-war film "The Spy's Wife", Yuki Aoi and Takahashi are alive
Played husband and wife again, each contributing a breakthrough acting skill
In terms of animation, "New World Evangelion (EVA)", which is known as the "best in the Heisei era", was hard to find when it screened two films in Shanghai in 2019, and this year there are new theatrical versions of the first three "Prologue", "Broken" and "Q" jointly released, fans are going to "New Year", the only pity is that "The End", which was just released in Japan in March, failed to come to Shanghai at the same time. What is more exciting than "EVA" is the big position of the 8 "Gundam" theatrical versions of the joint release, from the first generation of theater trilogy in 1981 to the "Shining Hasavi" that was postponed due to the epidemic last year, after watching the Gundam series on the screen spanning 40 years, and then going to Pudong Jinqiao to see "True Gundam", there is definitely a sense of trance across the dimension.
Of course, the animation unit of the festival is not only Japanese films, but also other countries, different styles of animation to bring surprises, like the previous two years of "Inception Team", this year is the main Irish animation director Tom Moore's work. Films such as "The Secret of the Book of Kells" have long been famous for their unique European hand-painting style, that kind of brilliant colors, bright lines and ethereal Celtic music, creating a fascinating world in the theater, and this year's film festivals in addition to "The Book of Kells", as well as "Song of the Sea" and "Wolf Walker", the latter has been determined to be released nationwide in the summer. In addition, the animated version of the Korean horror comic "Plastic Surgery Liquid", which has been circulating on the Internet, has a more unique "thriller effect" than the live-action movie, and the feature film "Rats Can Go to Heaven" and 5 short films in the main competition animation unit can also bring more imaginative childlike fun.