When we look through the sunlight and look directly into the oppressive shadow it shines on, when the divine faith is not enough to support a tragic soul that is broken and broken, how can we save ourselves in the darkness? How do I get back into the light?
"Miyang" is a typical Li Cangdong-style film, which tells the story of people who are struggling in the world.
The heroine Shen Ai, like Mei Ai in "Green Fish" and Gong Shu in "Oasis", is surrounded by pain and strives to break through. This is not a simple process of overcoming trivial technical difficulties, which is usually accompanied by extreme mental torture.
Shen Ai did not convert to God because of a spiritual religious experience, she merely saw believing in God as a way to alleviate her inner predicament, and this belief for utilitarian purposes was necessarily unsustainable.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > warmth and coldness coexist</h1>
Li Shen'ai, a single mother played by Quan Duyan, returned to her husband's hometown of Miyang with her son after her husband's death in a car accident, hoping to start a new life in this remote town, driving to Luoyang, the vehicle broke down, Li Shen'ai called the maintenance master, Song Kanghao, a local Zong Can.
The simple and generous Zong Can fell in love with this beautiful woman from the big city at first sight and did his best to help her familiarize herself with the small city.
Soon, Shen Ai settled down in Miyang, knowing that her husband was having an affair before his death, but still pretended to be strong and did not want to be pitied, not only coldly responded to Zong Can's kind help, but also used his savings to open a piano classroom, and even went around to publicize that he wanted to invest in real estate to prove that he was still living a glamorous and decent life.
However, life does not pay for Shen Ai's arrogance, and the act of showing off the house everywhere leads to the kidnapping of his son, because he cannot raise a large amount of ransom demanded by the kidnappers, and the kidnappers tear up the tickets in the stalemate, and Shen Ai finally waits for his son's cold corpse.
Shen Ai, who had lost her beloved son, was like being choked by fate and unable to breathe, and in desperation, she could only grasp the life-saving straw of religion. With the help of her neighborly friends, she went to church every day to vent her pain, seek relief, sing hymns, participate in church activities, pray to God to save her suffering soul, and even respond to God's teachings with the encouragement of the pastor, forgive and love her enemies.
But when she made up her mind to go to prison to deliver God's favor, the murderer responded without wavering that he had already converted to Christianity in prison, and that God had forgiven himself not long ago.
In an instant, Shen Ai's five thunderbolts soared, and it was hard to hold up the courage of life and her faith, but this moment they fell apart under the sun, fragmented, and completely broke up with God.
She rushed to the church, roared at the idol of Jesus, slapped the table loudly to express her anger, stole the video, repeatedly played harassing songs at religious gatherings to disrupt church activities, and even seduced priests to have sex with her to prove the hypocrisy of religion.
She tried to kill herself by cutting her wrists after a rage, but her sudden survival instinct made her desire to live, and she ran to the road bleeding and begged passers-by to help save herself. After being discharged from the hospital, Shen Ai met the murderer's girl in the beauty shop, and she tried to squeeze out a few words, but in the end she could not forgive and fled.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > Korea's fanatical missionary culture</h1>
From the life experience of such an individual, but truly showing the religious culture and spiritual state of the entire Korean society, it can be said that the fanatical church activities and missionary methods depicted in "Miyang" are not exaggerated at all.
From the end of the 16th century, during the Japanese invasion of Korea during the Ming Dynasty, Japanese missionaries entered korea as priests accompanying the army, preaching to the people on the Korean Peninsula and baptizing.
Until now, half of South Korea's citizens are Christians, and there are countless churches and missionaries everywhere. Korean missionaries spread across the globe, even second only to the United States.
Participating in church activities in such a Christian social environment is not only the daily life of ordinary people, but also a channel for people to vent their emotions. But as an atheist, Li Cangdong has a sober insight into the deep crisis behind this fanaticism.
In the film, Li Cangdong fictionalizes a murderer who, in the name of God, calmly unloads his guilt and gets rid of the condemnation of his conscience. A pastor who understands righteousness and preaches piously but cannot withstand temptation, and Li Shen'ai, who does not know the sinister heart of the people and fantasizes that God can save everything.
What Lee wants to oppose is not Christianity itself, but the utilitarian blind belief and compulsive preaching method formed under the deformed Christian ecology of Korean society.
There is a scene in the movie where Shen Ai plucks up enough courage to go into the prison to express forgiveness to the murderer, and that scene is the most ironic place in the movie.
When Shen Ai was finally able to sit in front of the murderer and express her forgiveness in person, she never expected the murderer to say words without remorse.
This made all of Shin Ai's previous efforts seem very, very funny, and she rushed out of prison and asked God in a broken state, "How can God forgive his sins before I forgive him?" ”
This sharp question points directly to the pain between personal suffering and God's inability to save, the loss of the son's love, the encounter with Christianity in despair, as if a man who is about to be swallowed up by suffering grasps the last straw and finds temporary comfort in the doctrine of salvation.
And once Christianity does not have the ability to truly save in reality, the so-called faith collapses in an instant. Whether they are confessors, church members, or murderers, they have overly simple illusions about Christianity, that it will solve all the problems of suffering, sin, and forgiveness in the world.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="7" What is the value of faith >? </h1>
We find that the film explores far more than simple religious issues, it forces us to think, if God cannot forgive us, then what is the ultimate value of faith? Where is the meaning of life?
Shen Ai's coming to Miyang to restart her new life is actually looking for the meaning of life, and all her practical and spiritual encounters in Miyang are also her process of finding meaning.
At the beginning of the film, Shen Ai has just arrived in Miyang, the camera looks at the sunny sky from the balcony of the car, and at the end of the film, the camera is shot down in the small courtyard full of sunlight, and a touch of sunlight shines on an ordinary, uneven land.
The film starts in the sky and ends at the land. In the structure of the battle between heaven and earth, Li Cangdong finally gave his insight.
The greatest meaning of life is not in heaven, but in the reality that we can touch with our heads down, and the real world, although desperate, is the foundation of our lives. We can only learn to live tenaciously in this desperate reality, trying to find meaning, because the search for meaning is itself faith.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > summary</h1>
Although Li Cangdong is an Antonioni-style director, his speech is cold and full of doubts about the world, but at the end of almost every one of his films, we can see a bitter and warm tail.
At the end of "Miyang", what ultimately saves Shen Ai is the calm and humble daily life, and the strands of hair that fall into the dust are not like the fate of everyone.
We are obsessed with seeking redemption and answers upwards, but we always recognize the world in a downward trend, so this lens has the power to penetrate life itself.
Thanks for watching!