compared to "Rating".
Sir pays more attention to the "rating curve" of a movie.
And.
In addition to going higher and lower, a kind of "scoring curve" is more worthy of attention.
Like it.
It opened at 6.4, fell to 5.7, and flew to 7.3 now.
What (Mandarin) movie is so magical?
The waves are not alarming, a thousand miles, and the tide rises after the rain.
In fact, this wave curve is placed on it, which is not surprising at all.
Its name goes up and down:
Waterfall
The Falls
"Waterfall" has long been famous and was shortlisted for the 78th Venice Film Festival.
The cast is also "star-studded".
Jia Jingwen, one of the two heroines, has perfectly transformed from a "costumed goddess" to a "vengeful queen" with "The Distance Between Us and Evil".
△ "The Distance Between Us and Evil"
The other, Wang Jing, a small flower that has just emerged in Taiwanese film and television, played the teenager Luo Yunong in the high-profile Taiwanese drama "The Beginning of the Lantern".
△ "The First Illumination"
furthermore.
There is Chen Yiwen, the father and film emperor in "Sunshine"; there is Liu Guanting, a Taiwanese model worker who was shortlisted for best supporting actor with "Tricky"; there is Grandma Yang Liyin in "Common Girl", and Xu Weining, "Nine Heavenly Dragon Girl"...
Looking at the director again, Sir understood.
This is a "family gathering".
Zhong Menghong, an all-rounder who directs, writes and photographs, is a player.
In the past two years, Most of Taiwan's good movies are related to him.
The familiar "Big Buddha Plus" was produced and photographed by him.
His choreographed "Sunshine" swept 11 Golden Horse awards in 2019.
equally.
"Waterfall" is also a film that focuses on the present.
It is very close to us, at the beginning of the resumption of work and school in the economic downturn and the epidemic that everyone is endangering.
The epidemic was unsealed, but they were "sick".
01
patient
March 2020, Taiwan.
The epidemic has just been lifted, students have resumed school, and enterprises have resumed work.
Masks, queues, temperature measurements, regular checks.
Under the sun, a "new order" has been established.
Not everyone can "get back to where they were" so quickly.
In the early morning, single mother Luo Pinwen (Jia Jingwen) urged her daughter Wang Jing (Wang Jing) at the door of her daughter Wang Jing (Wang Jing) to ask her daughter not to be late.
Anger spread to the car.
Luo Pinwen counted her daughter's inkblots, and her daughter disdained her mother's pick-up.
The old proposition is gone.
Puberty meets menopause.
Everyday crises and accidents come unexpectedly.
Her daughter's classmates were diagnosed and forced to isolate herself at home for observation.
thereupon.
Contradictions finally broke out.
At this time, the home where mother and daughter live together is divided into two spaces by light.
On one side, there is a darkness filled with gray and blue shadows.
On one side, it is warm surrounded by orange tones.
What's even worse.
The daughter's eerie attitude.
Wang Jing always seems to avoid contact with her mother.
Indifference, eating should be brought into the house;
- Also lock the door.
Communicate with your mother by phone.
- Even taunt yourself by scraping out a "bitch" with a spoon on a finished curry rice.
Mother's anxiety escalates.
Depressed, alienated, and caught between the unemployment crisis and his daughter's illness, Pippiwen almost collapsed.
-Are you okay?
- I seem to be sick
-Do you want me to take you to the doctor?
But thankfully, she had a drain.
Ex-husband Wang Qiwen (played by Li Liren).
Divorced for three years, he remained her safe haven.
Luo Pinwen told Wang Qiwen about his daughter's illness, the former crying bitterly, and the latter embracing comfort.
The two were close and almost (again) shot away.
note.
She took off her (protective) mask first.
So what happened to my daughter?
This day.
The wind blows and the wind chimes ring.
Pin Wen pushed open her daughter's door, and her daughter was gone.
She ran down the street and shouted her daughter's name.
Where would a sick girl under the age of 20 go?
The camera turns.
The living room is calm and calm.
Ringing bells.
Xiao Jing, who came out of the room, received a call from the police station.
Mom Pinwen passed out on the street and is being rescued in the hospital emergency room.
The next scene.
On the dry, sparsely populated streets, Xiao Jing rode wildly.
It turned out that Pin Wen was the patient.
Schizophrenia, an early abnormal mental state, patients often have symptoms such as mental disorder, urgent speech, incoherence, poor conversation content, surveillance and persecution, and hallucinations in severe cases.
In fact, the disease has a premonition.
Irritable, irritable, suspicious.
-Pinwen, what's wrong with you? It's only eight o'clock in the morning
After the exchange of mother-daughter perspectives, the terrifying "truth" gradually surfaces.
Masks obscure the new crown, obscure communication, and obscure emotions that should be expressed and cathartic.
But beyond the disease.
There's also a layer of horror.
It is triggered by the instability of disease, and the emotional crisis that is inherently lurking in the undercurrent around us.
02
Sick city
Without the main bone of Pin Wen, the whole family situation is precarious.
Xiao Jing, who is less than 20 years old, is forced to shoulder the responsibility of rehabilitating the aftermath and asking for help as Pin Wen's illness worsens.
She thought of her father first.
Although he had remarried, they had only been separated for two years, and the friendship still existed.
Coming to his middle-class bungalow on the mountainside, in addition to a young and beautiful wife, there is also a son who looks to be 8 or 9 years old.
- I just want to know if he's your kid
-Frank, of course, is my child and Chivin's
Under the dignity of the ancient well, the lies of betrayal and deception have long been rooted.
Even after the divorce, he never took the initiative to be honest with his wife and daughter.
Cheap dad is not reliable, so the seemingly perfect social security system?
Riding a bicycle late at night to the hospital, Xiao Jing was stopped at the door, and was asked by the doorman to show the health insurance card, otherwise it was forbidden to enter;
In the hospital, because the epidemic situation is not allowed to accompany the nursing, staying for a while will be "dissuaded";
The banking and financial unit spoke terms that Xiao Jing could not understand, and did not allow her to check her mother's account balance according to law.
Exploitation, reformation, repression, mannerism.
Seemingly obeying the order, tightly sewn together, what runs through it?
It is the cruelest and fairest operating logic of capital.
The real horror is not the fright.
It is the interlocking oppression and oppression of ordinary life.
Blue is the background color of this movie.
This layer of huge blue skin-pulling waterproofing project is undoubtedly a metaphor for the epidemic prevention mask buckled on the human face.
From the outside, this is just a short-term scar in the city, and I get used to it after watching it for a long time.
But internally, for every specific and subtle individual, it is to be shrouded in a dark blue.
This blue isolated the mother and also encouraged the daughter.
Pin Wen wanted to cook for Xiao Jing at home, but accidentally caused a fire and went to the hospital.
A dazed little jing came home from school, and the neighbors complained bitterly, and the property uncle who repeatedly urged the water and electricity was even more angry.
There will even be some covert "revenge".
-What's going on in your house, we're running out of electricity in the whole building
- Sorry
-Your mother used to think that our shoe cabinet was outside as an obstacle to viewing
Now you've made everyone so ugly
It's the oppression of pain against more pain.
Because in this oppression, their pain is healed little by little.
Pinwen, who lost his job, wanted to reintegrate into society and ended up at a Carrefour store.
It's painful forgetting about more pain.
Wages are actually very low, it is said to be supportive life, and labor is more like a healing that releases mental stress through repetitive physical strength.
Only in this repetitive and uninterrupted squeeze did her pain come to a little relief.
At last.
Can't afford to pay off the mortgage of 80,000 yuan per month, and selling the house is inevitable.
The 45 million house, because of the fire and recession, could only be sold to 30.6 million yuan in the end.
On the day of the signing of the contract, the inspection manager who came to "dip the joy" saw the doorway.
Last year, the second-hand house of the same property in the same lot was sold by him for 920,000 square meters, and now this set has only sold 650,000 square meters.
It turned out that Xiao Yang, the intermediary who was "very good" in Xiao Jing's eyes, slammed them together.
That house if it sells for 32 million
Asked me to borrow usury in the middle of the night
At the risk of being hunted down, I tried my best to buy it
How much money did Xiao Yang take from others?
500,000? Or 1 million?
The root of this horror, in fact, the director peels the onion and generally shows the fragility of middle-class families.
It seems that there is more than the bottom, but there is only one epidemic.
They were beaten back to square one.
Because of the epidemic, Pinwen's mental illness gradually became apparent.
Money is, of course, the most critical (explicit).
The catalyst for the opening chapter to ignite the mental illness of The Article is precisely the "salary cut".
Foreign companies have to overcome difficulties due to the epidemic, so they have implemented self-"salary reductions" for employees based on self-assessment.
It sounds like a negotiation, but there is no room for it.
Reduced company layoffs, reduced more can not maintain life (prices do not fall but increase).
Cutting the knife on the body is the most painful.
Even if it's a piece of carrion.
Especially the middle class.
Like a photographic work by Zhong Menghong hanging behind Luo Pinwen's office: a citrus, half glossy, half covered with green mold.
Such a "half and a half" is exactly the living state of the middle class that Pinwen represents by working hard with both hands.
The appearance is bright, with a wide and decent house, a comfortable working environment and living conditions.
But behind him is a huge mortgage, interpersonal relationships for efficiency and estrangement, clockwork tight, mental tension.
Pin Wen heard "a noisy sound like a machine", and in the process of recovering from her illness, she realized that it was a waterfall that was flowing straight down.
Once any one of the rings is misaligned, loose.
Can all "fall" quickly.
03
pathogen?
From the climax to the end, the film is like a waterfall, suddenly accelerating in the gentle watershed, and it is a thousand miles.
The mother and daughter gradually adapted to the rental housing environment, and on weekends, Xiao Jing accompanied her teachers and classmates to the lake to barbecue meat, and Pinwen cooked at home.
Upstream dams opened their gates to discharge floodwater, and disasters came without warning.
On one side, it was Pin Wen cooking soup overflowing pot, and on the other hand, it was Xiao Jing who was swept away by the flood.
Whether Xiao Jing is saved, Sir does not spoil.
The most controversial thing about "Waterfall" is two points:
The overall overhead on the play; the characters and the story tend to be too warm.
Yes, compared to Yang Dechang, Zhong Menghong's film is indeed not fierce enough.
They all focus on the diseases of urban people.
Yang Dechang is a scalpel, piercing into the veins and cutting out poisonous blood.
Zhong Menghong is more like a sophisticated PET-CT instrument, through observation, screening out the root cause of the lesion.
For example, "Waterfall".
The film never directly explains the cause of Pinwen's illness, but gives us the perspective of peeking into the family from all aspects.
In addition to the economic problems this is the most obvious reason.
There is also a kind of hidden repression.
It was her desire for her ex-husband.
It begins shortly.
She suddenly became intimate when she told her ex-husband that her daughter was "sick.".
After that, I always thought that my ex-husband was about to return.
Is she obsessed with this man who once turned his back on his family and betrayed himself?
be.
She also loved the man.
But she also hated him.
More explicit points:
Hate the self who still loves him.
So you see what she said about her.
One will be intimate, one will be "he is just a man who provides sperm", one will be nagging about to return, one will find a new job, and then subconsciously reply that her husband is dead.
Plainly.
This love ingredient is also dubious.
There are elements of lust, as well as her desire for the original order when she is on the verge of collapse.
It is true that Pin Wen's smooth hospitalization and xiao jing's new connection with society are not lacking in the help of well-meaning people.
The female physician (Played by Xu Weining), who gives Xiao Jing's effective advice; the patient friend Ru Xuan (Wei Ruxuan), who likes Dou Jia's paintings and often sings in the middle of the night; the maid Cai Aunt (Yang Liyin), who owes several months of wages and leaves to help the family maid Cai (Yang Liyin); Director Chen (Chen Yiwen), who begins to pursue Pinwen after entering the hypermarket.
But the core of the film focuses on the mother-daughter relationship, and the core is still sad.
To some extent, Zhong Menghong is much more pessimistic than Yang Dechang.
Yang Dechang was indignant.
But Zhong Menghong seemed to have given up at the beginning, the possibility of redemption between people and people.
The so-called fatherly kindness and filial piety, those are all kings and bastards, all of which are said to deceive people. We often say that the love of parents for children is unconditional, in fact, children do not care whether you have conditions or not. Children will feel that I don't care about your love, I want to understand.
We often hear the mothers of the previous generation say: I have worked so hard for you, why can't you understand? Why can't you be considerate? I do not know. What do I think I have to be considerate of you? Did I ask you to do that? He asked one after another: Does love without understanding make children happy?
Love, too far from understanding.
——Interview with Cinephilia Zhong Menghong
"Waterfall" presents this inability to "know" each other.
Before the onset of the illness, Pin wen's care for Xiao Jing was always mandatory.
At the beginning, she counted Xiao Jing's delays, and every time she had to wait for Xiao Jing for a long time to send her to school, Xiao Jing said that she did not let her send it, and Pin Wen replied:
See if I'm late every day, will I have a better time?
Her love is big, and she pursues the "effect" of her daughter's smooth schooling.
Xiao Jing has also been learning how to heal the sick Pin Wen.
The process is equally laborious.
From maintaining the original other party's habits with a temper and being spit on by Pin Wen; to listening to the words of the female doctor, to thinking from her point of view and understanding Pin Wen.
In the middle of the night, the out-of-body Pinwen thought there were guards outside the door.
Xiao Jing obediently dressed as a guard outside the door, kicking and walking with the same hands and feet, and one person was decorated with two corners to drink and rebuke, dispelling Pinwen's suspicions.
But she couldn't, and couldn't, understand the worries in Pinwen's heart.
Just to test with a cautious posture.
In fact, compared to caring for her mother, she first cares about the identity of her patient.
So much so that every time Pinwen heard the sentence "Are you okay?" When I was there, my heart was irritable.
Don't ask me again "Are you okay?"
I'll find a way to get better
Live well with you
Every question is a sting for the person being asked.
And to the interrogator.
Also for the sake of not understanding, it is more like a kind of self-questioning and self-answering comfort.
Zhong Menghong is a director who tells fables.
In "Sunshine Shines", Ah Hao said that Sima Guang smashed the cylinder in order to save himself trapped in the cylinder.
In the middle of the film, Ahao jumps down from the windowsill, a shadow that seems to be clear sunlight, and the big boy who takes care of others needs a hidden shadow.
In "Waterfall", Luo Pinwen tells the story of a woman who fell off the building herself in order to save the child who was dangling in front of the window without a guardrail.
Alluding to his own fate of imminent fall.
She could only save herself.
It is undeniable that Zhong Menghong's films are sometimes preachy and sometimes oscillate between "warmth" and "sharpness".
His films are really not knives.
But it's not chicken soup with slime.
Sir had to describe it as an object.
More like a brew of tea.
Hot, family stories are by no means loose everyday, with sharp dramatic conflicts; light, alienated characters and banal humanity; incense, subtle black humor, and extreme hurt after extracting a little warmth of humanity.
Sweetness is bitterness.
Same as Sunshine.
Light and shadow are still the wonderful pens written by Zhong Menghong.
Last second, angrily questioned.
- Our adult affairs are sometimes more complicated than you think
- Can you please stop using your bullshit reasons?
Why should I have to bear your rotten marriage?
Why should I have to bear a mom I don't know?
Why would I have to bear a brother who doesn't exist?
Why, why me?
The next second, the sun gradually spreads, and the smile is relieved:
Father
You have to take good care
Behind the rapid ripening, how much painful process is left blank.
You can understand that this is a smile.
But behind this smile, how much embellishment, how much real?
At the end of "Waterfall", the daughter was washed away due to the flooding of the reservoir.
The upper reaches of the reservoir are the waterfalls that turn sharply down after mom's illness.
At first glance, what is the actual saying behind the chicken soup-like finale?
It is the cycle of love in Chinese relationships.
This cycle is also the repression of Chinese love from generation to generation.
The picture in this article comes from the network
Editorial Assistant: North of Sibe