Belongs to Lou Ye's "Dream of Shanghai"

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As early as 2019, "Lyceum Theatre" has won the dragon label and has been screened several times at the Venice Film Festival. Domestic film critics who were at the scene at the time gave praise one after another, and even said that this may be "the best Lou Ye, the best Gong Li".

However, this film has not been able to be finalized in the time of domestic release. Until this year's Beijing International Film Festival, this highly anticipated new work, with the assistance of gong Li, the lead actor and chairman of the jury, was selected as the closing film and was confirmed to be released on October 15.

Nandu reporter finished watching this movie, if you want to give you a movie advice, it is to go to the cinema to see. Because if you don't watch in this kind of "semi-forced" viewing place, you probably can't stick to watching it at all.

Although this is a hard-won theatrical film, it still has to be open and honest: "This is not Lou Ye's best movie, nor is it Gong Li's best performance." ”

The film is adapted from Hongying's novel "The Death of Shanghai" and Yokomitsu's novel "Shanghai". From the behind-the-scenes interview, it was learned that Hongying's "Death in Shanghai" provided the original prototype for the film, and then screenwriter Ma Yingli replaced The New Sensation novel "Shanghai" with the part of the play within the play.

Set in the week before the outbreak of Pearl Harbor, Lou Ye once again set the story during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression after "Purple Butterfly".

Gong Li played a "two-faced man" in the movie. She is a famous actress Yu Yan, who returned to Shanghai after four years of shenyin, planning to cooperate with director Tan Na (Zhao Youting) to perform the stage play "Saturday's Novel". However, under the bright and beautiful, there is also an inhumane side: Yu Yan (whether this is her real name is also a question) is a female spy. Adopted by foreigners from an early age, he performs various tasks at the behest of his adoptive father. This time she arrived in the Shanghai concession from Hong Kong, of course, it will not be as simple as acting.

His first task is to inquire about the whereabouts of his ex-husband Ni Zeren (Zhang Songwen). According to the story, Ni Zeren was a member of the Kuomintang, but he did business for the Japanese, and after being used, he was framed and imprisoned. There are indications in the film that the two may have been a couple for some political reason. Now that Ni Zeren has been locked up by the Japanese, it is reasonable that he should be found.

Note that "finding" here is not the same as being rescued, and various clues from the movie show that Ni Zeren is likely to be a pawn in "leading the snake out of the hole". Acting is fake, saving ex-husbands is also fake, and there are more far-sighted plans behind it. "Cheated and betrayed" runs through the entire film, where each character has two or more identities (the entire spy war plan is called the "Two-Sided Mirror Project"), one second is a fellow traveler, the next second may be a defection. At that time, the Shanghai Concession was both an island in the spatial sense and an island in the psychological sense. There is no pure trust here, and all must be isolated like an island of emotional connection with others. Once the truth is moved, it means injury, or even death.

From the simple story introduction, it can be seen that this is probably a story about "the subtle emotions between people under the big event", and the emotional flow of individuals is eventually engulfed by the torrent of the times. Logically, this is Lou Ye's intention, according to Gong Li, "This will be a film that can be left as a memorial for the world." Many people are hoping that "Lyceum Theatre" will give many spy war films with the Shanghai Concession as the stage another way to open up a "Lou style" spy war film.

However, less than half an hour after the opening of the film's test screening, there were media reporters leaving. In fact, "Lyceum Theatre" at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, the Venice field magazine only has a score of 2.4. Foreign media generally disagree with this movie, and the negative reviews are combined into one word: chaos.

Spy war films, as a kind of genre film, in the hands of Lou Ye, he chose to do anti-genre treatment. The deceptive play-within-a-play at the beginning blurs the audience's cognition for a while, and the lines between virtual and real are intertwined, and the lines that are true and false contain too many interesting extra-string sounds. Coupled with close-up shots that are too close to the human face, the loss of focus leads to confusion in space and time, and also gives the audience a "bureaucratic fan" experience. Such an opening is indeed very Lou Ye's authorial style.

Compared with Lou Ye's previous works, the story line of "Lyceum Theatre" is more complex, and the forces of all parties are entrenched in Shanghai, how to break the relationship between each other, which is a great test of the narrative skills of the film author. However, Lou Ye's anti-genre treatment began to have problems when faced with such a story that had to be told clearly by genre narratives. The overly fine editing creates a threshold for the reader to understand the story.

Is this Lou Ye not telling a story? No, Lou Ye has actually always had the ability to make suspense films, such as "Floating City Mystery" and "Clouds Made of Rain in the Wind", these two films also borrow some genre film techniques in narrative, and they are quite mature in setting puzzles and solving puzzles. However, when it came to the "Lyceum Theatre", Lou Ye seemed to only care about setting up the puzzle, and did not do a good job in the process of solving the puzzle. All of the key puzzle messages focus on the characters' overly dense fragments of words and fleeting footage that the viewer has to concentrate on to grasp. Under this sense of confusion, coupled with the shaking of handheld photography, the large close-up of the focus, and a large number of very dark and low-light scenes, the audience has to stare at the story in this "imbalance", which is undoubtedly a vomiting experience that causes physical discomfort.

If Lou Ye's strength is not in the story narrative, but focuses on the emotional world of the characters, "Lyceum Theatre" is also failing, because no character in the movie is standing. The establishment of the character image must be shaped in the relationship between people in many cases, and the "other" is used to reflect the "self". However, the unclear relationship between the characters in this film in turn affects the establishment of the character image.

Taking the couple played by Gong Li and Zhao Youting as an example, the relationship between the two is only explained very hastily through you and me, and even the flashback clips are omitted, making the two people who are not very compatible because of the age gap more incompatible. You can't empathize with why the two are a couple, and when the two are separated, you have no regrets. Lyceum Theater is like a sequel film that lacks its predecessor.

Limited by space, criticism of the film stopped. Whether it is too prestigious or undervalued, it is still up to the audience to judge for themselves after watching it. Although there are many criticisms, as the most attitude chinese director today, Lou Ye's films are worth watching after all. Unlike most directors who are at ease making money and repeating themselves in their comfort zone, Lou Ye is always breaking through some boundaries and competing with himself. The reason why fans respect Lou Ye is not only out of love for his films, but also because he is regarded as a symbol of attitude. "Lyceum Theatre" is another attempt to innovate himself, and it does not matter whether it fails or not in the end. Because we would rather see a great defeat than a mediocre victory.

Written by: Nandu trainee reporter Liu Yifan