Aug 12,
"The Long Confession" was released,
Ni Ni, Zhang Luyi and Xin Baiqing starred.
The story is that when they were teenagers, the two brothers fell in love with the same woman.
When she reached middle age, she went to Yanagawa, Japan, to find her.
Some viewers said: This is the best romance film I have seen in all these years.
Long and heart-wrenching, let people understand the truth of love.
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Yanagawa (Ni Ni) suddenly disappeared 20 years ago and has been wandering away
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Li Chun (Xin Baiqing) and Li Dong (Zhang Luyi) both like Yanagawa
Director Zhang Lu has made movies for more than 20 years,
This was the first time his film had been released in China.
He has long been famous and is a regular visitor to international film festivals.
Three major European film festivals have run through it,
The Busan Film Festival invited his film to be the opening film,
But at home, not many people know him.
Zhang Lu was born in Yanbian, Jilin Province, China.
It's Korean,
I only entered the filming industry at the age of 40.
From the first short film "11 years old",
Focus on the living conditions of the Korean ethnic group in China.
For nearly 10 years, he has been teaching at Yonsei University in South Korea.
At the same time, working with top Korean actors,
Filmed "Spring Dream", "Wing Goose", "Gyeongju" and other works,
In the movie, it is a lingering polyamorous love,
Behind him is the sadness about his own identity and homesickness,
and the complex Northeast Asian cultural context.
In 2020, Zhang Lu returned to China to shoot "The Long Confession",
In this way, we talked to him about movies and about past lives.
Author: Hong Bing Toad
Editor-in-charge: Ni Chujiao
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When they are reunited in middle age, the three of them hang out on the streets of Yanagawa, each with their own agenda
Zhang Lu likes to shoot polyamorous love.
Two men and a woman, three men and one woman, three women and a man, who and who are a pair, who have whom in their hearts, like the glass of the winter night tavern is fogged, only a vague shadow.
"All love is polyamorous, at least triangular." He always thought that if there was only one man and one woman left in this world, there must be no love. If the audience only sees a man and a woman, it is not certain where there are two people thinking about them.
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Yanagawa was once the lover of his older brother Li Chun, and his younger brother Li Dong had a crush on her since childhood
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Daiki Nakayama (Ikematsu) also has ambiguous feelings for Yanagawa
The character relationship in "The Long Confession" is a triangular relationship of Zhang Law, which is his consistent "clichéd love story".
The brothers grew up in Beijing with Yanagawa, and they both liked her. Yanagawa suddenly disappeared. 20 years later, her younger brother Lidong had cancer, and there were not many days, so he went to a place with her name with his brother Lichun, and Yanagawa in Japan came to her.
However, he saw the woman he missed, but he did not say the confession for a long time.
This is the charm of Zhang Lu's film - even if life is coming to an end, the hero and heroine are still chatting, walking, and unclear.
Zhang Lulao was asked: "Why do you want to make your feelings so ambiguous?" He explained: "It's not emotion, it's the background of our lives." Movies are not ambiguous enough compared to life. ”
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Yanagawa sings John Lennon and the ancient ballad "Autumn Willow" at a tavern
Crush and love triangle are just the parts of this film that surfaced.
If you're more sensitive, you'll find his hidden thread. For example, Yanagawa, a 20-year-old wanderer who reunites with a former lover, said: "Where there is Brother Ritsuharu, it is the hometown." ”
Obviously, they are both From Beijing, but the two brothers have completely different accents. Yanagawa speaks Chinese, and the tavern owner speaks Japanese, and they each speak their own language, but they can communicate smoothly.
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Zhang Lu was interviewed by "One Article" in Beijing
These ambiguous parts of the unclear and unclear must find clues from Zhang Lu's own identity background.
Zhang Lu was born in 1962 in Yanbian, Jilin Province, a small village near the Border between China and the North And the Soviet Union, where most of the Koreans are ethnic Koreans, and across the Tumen River is North Korea. His grandmother's generation immigrated to China from Korea, and Zhang's mother did not speak Much Chinese until her death.
Refugees, vendors, miners, gamblers, and prostitutes, these people constitute Zhang Lu's childhood and youth. They are both geographically marginal and marginalized in the social fabric.
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Stills from The Long Confession
In the 1980s, Zhang Lu was admitted to the Chinese Department of Yanbian University and stayed on to teach after graduation. For nearly 20 years, he was a scholar, writing novels and writing poetry. It was not until the beginning of the century, when he was almost 40 years old, that he made his first film, "Eleven", which was shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival.
In 2012, the 50-year-old Zhang Lu was invited to teach at Yonsei University, one of the three universities in South Korea, and then entered the Korean film industry, with a super high frequency of 1-2 years, took out several works with a very rich literary temperament of "Gyeongju", "Spring Dream", "Wing Goose", "Fukuoka", and established a personal style: in the poetic and bland ambiguity between men and women, the culture and politics of Northeast Asia were illuminated.
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The male and female protagonists of "Wing Goose", Park Hae-il and Moon So-ri
Zhang Lu's international fame is growing.
When he was in South Korea, Zhang Lu took "Wing Goose" to the Busan Film Festival to participate in the master section, and the media asked why Zhang Lu had such a great attraction to the best actors in South Korea.
Film actress Moon So-ri has starred in Lee Cang-dong's "Mints" and "Oasis" and Park Chan-wook's "Miss". South Korea's most prestigious literary film director Hong Sang-so asked her to act, and she refused many times. But Zhang Lu looked for her, and she agreed without hesitation.
Jang Law's royal male protagonist Park Hae-il has just collaborated with Tang Wei on Park Chan-wook's "The Determination to Break Up", which is in the limelight at the Cannes Film Festival.
The fledgling Park So-dan twice starred in Jang Lu's films, and almost at the same time, she starred in Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite", which became the most successful Korean film in history and won South Korea's first Oscar.
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"Spring Dream" heroine Han Yili
There is also the heroine of "Spring Dream", Han Yili, who later starred in "Minari", and "Minari" also swept the major awards ceremonies in Europe and the United States.
But all this seems to have nothing to do with Zhang Lu.
What about in China's film industry? The last time Zhang Lu made a movie in China was in 2010, and it has been too long. Even movie fans will be in a trance, isn't Zhang Lu Korean? Why did you suddenly come to China to shoot a film?
His works often go to the three major European film festivals, appearing on the list with Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye, but there is no way to classify him as a "Chinese director". When people talk about Jang, they talk about him like Hong Sang-so and kim Ki-duk, placing him in the spectrum of Korean cinema.
Now he has moved back to Beijing, but the faction of domestic filmmakers, he is far away, this boss, that big bull, he is also angry. Going to that kind of social bureau, he sat at the wine table and liked to drink baijiu cup after glass, and if he wasn't an acquaintance, he said very little, not very sleeved and good at dancing and talking at length.
In any circle, he is a man of the moment. An outsider, always in the seemingly present, but in fact not; It seems to be, and it feels like it's not.
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Stills from The Long Confession
Where the hometown is, from a very young age, is a question.
Is it a small village in Yanbian? Or is it further afield? "Nostalgia becomes a very real thing, and it comes out and jumps out from time to time."
The motif of his films can't get around strangers. Almost every film can salvage the people who have lost their hometowns.
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"Desert Dream" tells the story of a Mongolian man and a Korean mother and son, and was shortlisted for the Berlin Golden Bear Award
In Dream of the Desert (2007), a mother and son who have fled North Korea run to the desert at the junction of China and Mongolia to plant trees and milk cows, hoping to defend another homeland.
In "Lili" (2008), a truck loaded with 40 tons of gunpowder drove to Liliyi, blowing up the village beyond recognition, and overnight, the people here and their descendants completely lost their hometown.
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The three men who have a crush on the heroine in "Spring Dream" are played by the directors of literary and art films, Liang Yijun, Park Tingfan, and Yin Jongbin
In "Spring Dreams" (2016), the heroine is the illegitimate daughter of a Korean man in China, who left her hometown for South Korea but could only take care of her paralyzed father on a daily basis. She used her Chinese to read "Quiet Night Thoughts": "Look up at the bright moon, look down at your hometown." ”
The most mature early work, Tumen Jiang (2010), is based on his childhood memories. In winter, children on both sides of the border play on the frozen Tumen River, speak the same language, eat the same food, and have similar faces. It all looks ordinary. It's just that kids can't cross the river completely.
In the movie, the women in the village, in order to make a living, will leave their hometown to work in South Korea, and the visa procedures are extremely complicated, and it is difficult to see each other for many years.
In the past, China and South Korea had not yet established diplomatic relations, and when it was very difficult to go abroad, Zhang Lu's grandmother would take a piece of tofu and persuade him to drink a glass of wine: "At this time, the persimmons in my hometown should be ripe." Zhang Lu heard the sadness in his words: "We live in a ravine in Jilin, and if we don't produce persimmons, we will imagine the persimmon trees in my grandmother's hometown." ”
More often, returning to one's hometown is futile.
Zhang Lu first went to South Korea in 1995, like a tourist. "Out of the airport, a bunch of relatives who hadn't met were going to invite me to dinner. They asked, the Chinese team and the South Korean team play football, whose position do you stand? ”
"That's our reality." Zhang Lu smiled bitterly.
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In "Gyeongju", Park Hae-il explains the meaning of Feng Zi-kai's painting to Shin Min-er
The cultural elements of several countries in Northeast Asia appear in Zhang Lu's films.
In Gyeongju (2014), he simply set the male protagonist as a South Korean Northeast Asian political scientist who teaches at Peking University, smokes Zhongnanhai cigarettes, and marries a Chinese wife. A Gyeongju woman I met by chance, with a painting of Feng Zikai hanging in her home. The male protagonist reads the poem on the painting with Chinese: "After the people disperse, a crescent moon is hooked, and the sky is like water." ”
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Park Hae-il dances "Wing Goose" in a tavern
"Wing Goose" (2018) directly uses Tang poems as the title. The Korean filmmakers did not understand the meaning of "Wing Goose" and felt that they could not sell it. Zhang Lu said: "This poem, Chinese, children will shake their heads and carry geese and geese. ”
He likes to set up misplaced characters.
Take the peripheral relationship of the male protagonist of "Wing Goose" as an example. His father was a South Korean sailor, his mother was from a U.S. military base in South Korea, and his nanny was from The Village of Mingdong, Jilin Province, a descendant of the Korean poet Yoon Dong-joo, who was born in the northeast and died in Japan. The woman he had a crush on, his ancestors almost settled in the Northeast. Even the homestay where he lived was owned by a Japanese of Korean descent.
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"Fukuoka" tells the story of a Korean girl and uncle who runs to find a classmate whose uncle has cut off contact, and they once fell in love with the same woman
Language is also misplaced.
In Fukuoka (2019), Korean girls read "Golden Plum Bottle" and Chinese women read Haruki Murakami. They speak their own native language, but they can communicate freely. "You can understand Chinese, strange, I can understand Korean." Off-screen audiences will smile, isn't this what the double native speaker Zhang Lu can accomplish?
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Zhang Lu was on the set with Ni Ni and Zhang Luyi
From the perspective of others, Zhang Lu's life has several important decision-making moments.
People only start making movies in middle age, and after ten years of filming, they suddenly disappeared, and they ran to South Korea to shoot without a sound, and when they were 60 years old, they said that they would come back.
But in Zhang Lu's narrative, he has no plan, that is, "going with the flow" and "too idle in his bones".
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The first short film, 11 Years Old, tells the story of a Korean boy playing alone in a mine
Originally, he didn't understand movies at all. Before the age of 40, Zhang Lu taught at Yanbian University in Jilin Province.
Because of writing novels, he and South Korean director Lee Cangdong have long been friends. One year Zhang Lu went to live in Li Cangdong's house, "He suddenly said that he was filming a movie, let me go to the set, I didn't go, I said you have nothing to do." ”
As for why I started making movies, I just wanted to make "Tumen River", I just wanted to make that one, to tell the story of foreigners. So when the director wants to be to what extent, he has no ambition, confused into the line.
"All 40-year-olds, what else do you want to develop?" Everybody said I was crazy, couldn't, it was all film at that time, who gave you the money? ”
So first start shooting from the short film, while shooting while waiting, 50 years old, finally able to shoot "Tumen River", after filming, he felt that his wish had been fulfilled, physically and mentally exhausted. Then he declared that this was Zhang Lu's last film, staying at home and doing nothing.
After playing for two years, almost 50 years old, he realized a simple truth, people do not work, it is true that they will run out of money. Just when Yonsei University found him. He thought, anyway, they are people who don't know, so it's better to talk about conditions. "Give me so much money, why don't you go?"
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The story of "Gyeongju" originates from 1995, when zhang lu and Li Cangdong's two brothers went to a tea house in Gyeongju to drink tea, with a picture of the Spring Palace hanging in it
As for why he continued to shoot films in the back, he explained that he really wasn't so diligent, he blamed his ears for being soft.
During class, the students encouraged him to continue shooting. He agreed and made "Gyeongju". "I broke the promise of the last film, and then I found out that life has to break the promise."
After 10 years of filming in South Korea, Zhang Lu also lived separately from his wife for 10 years.
His wife wanted to stay in Beijing more, so Zhang Lu spent an amazing amount of time on the plane. After class, I ran to the airport and stayed in Beijing for a few days before flying back. Of course it's tiring, but distance isn't all bad. "Sometimes chai rice oil and salt quarrel because there is no room for detours. It's hard to see you once, and you can't make love to this, right? ”
After the outbreak of the epidemic, this kind of running between the two places is no longer realistic. He also climbed to the age of 60 and felt it was time to let go of teaching. So he resigned from his teaching post and moved back to Beijing to reunite with his wife and children.
Before, friends persuaded him to return to China to make movies, and every time he was moved, he was lazy, afraid of not knowing people, afraid of not getting used to it. Now that he comes back to live, if he wants to have time, he still has to make a few films. In addition to "The Long Confession", this year he also finished "The Light of the White Tower".
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In The Long Confession, the river appears repeatedly as an important image
The filming of "The Long Confession" stemmed from a joke.
More than ten years ago, Zhang Lu was invited to the Fukuoka Film Festival, and Yanagawa was in Fukuoka Prefecture, and he took the high-speed train to play. As soon as I got there, I saw a river flowing under the willow tree, flowing and gentle, and I wondered what it would be like if a girl named Yanagawa came to Yanagikawa.
He casually told his colleagues that he was going to come here to make movies in the future. Unexpectedly, the chairman of the film festival publicly said this joke, and he had to shoot it. From time to time, he thought, "I always feel that I owe Yanagawa something." ”
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Yanagawa dances in the streets
He had never seen Ni Ni's movie before, first saw a few photos, and then watched "Jinling Thirteen Chao", and learned that she was from Nanjing, a southern girl, and he felt appropriate. Later, they met on an appointment, "I think the girl is particularly good, soft, and very arrogant." ”
After settling on the actor, he studied Ni Ni's resume and found that she had won the Jiangsu Provincial National Standard Champion when she was a child, so he arranged a dancing scene. "I told Xin Baiqing that you can jump clumsily, and Ni Ni must dance well." Ni Ni dances well, doesn't have to practice much, and has a physical memory. ”
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The two brothers called Yanagawa "Achuan" and the other "Chuan'er", and there is a story behind it
As for the male protagonist, he demanded that he must be the same as the people in the play, must be Beijingers, and Zhang Luyi and Xin Baiqing who are looking for him are both Beijingers.
"Of course, the actor can imitate the Beijing dialect, but the big mother in the hutong will scold and pretend when she hears it." He knew that "this big mother doesn't make up much of the box office", but he cared about this small number of people. He felt that the film was made for a certain area, or even a person in a certain alley. "Anyway, if I watch the film myself, as soon as I listen to the conversation, if the accent is lying to me, I can't stand it, I don't want to make friends with the director." 」
He called "making movies for the whole world" "wanting to cheat money" and "commercial films" "enemy camps." When it comes to this topic, he is more direct and clear-cut than anyone else.
However, more often, Zhang Lu is still the ambiguous one.
What's the next story? Didn't figure it out. Where to shoot? I didn't understand it either. At this age, are you ready to settle down in Beijing? It's hard to say, and after I didn't get it right, I moved to other cities.
His explanation for this is that because now, everyone has no hometown, only another hometown.