◎Wang Kai
Watching "Rock and Roll Flower" recently, it is rare to see such a series that comprehensively shows a failed protagonist, failing calmly, purely, and failing to be self-righteous, which is probably a rare image shaping in the mainland in recent years. While watching, I kept thinking of the heroine in the American series "Olive Kittrich" a few years ago, the work of Cohen's sister-in-law. The heroine in it is also full of frustration and self, and will also do all kinds of inhumane things, such as deliberately destroying the furniture of her annoying daughter-in-law, such as living in her son's house and refusing to do a little flattery, step by step towards the bleak place of life. The most memorable scene is that she cries in bed alone, and the solitary state of old age is inevitably desolate, but you don't have to worry about her, her self is extremely complete and has a sense of awe.
At least no worse than many vulgar old ladies who live with the crowd.
Peng Lai, played by Yao Chen, does not live in the eyes of others, so he lives himself. In the last episode, lying in bed with brain tumor surgery, she imagined her success scenes: wearing a leopard-print shirt to hold her daughter's class meeting, surrounded by a group of elementary school students called a superstar; Sitting in an extended limousine, sipping champagne with two girlfriends who are also friends and enemies, while looking out the bright and wine window. But this scene has obvious irony, and the constant dialogue of outsiders in and out also shows that Peng Lei understands that this is not the life he wants, and the pursuit of rock life is definitely not the success of this superficial glimpse, but to live truly in the heart, bravely and frankly, just like her line in episode ten: The brave to live is the most rock, and the most joyful, my joy is sadness.
This sentence is the soul of the whole play.
The setting of this dream is actually very interesting, since the release of "Instant Universe" starring Michelle Yeoh, the concept of "parallel worlds" has become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The most interesting psychedelic story I've heard recently is that there is a Boston Chinese medicine practitioner who claims to be able to call a healthy you in another time and space to help you who are unhealthy in this time and space. It's a fantasy, and of course it shows the popularity of this concept. Penley's dream can actually be seen as a reflection of the idea that the life of a successful rock star, when it does show, it is actually absurd and uninteresting, not as interesting as the real Penglai. Although life is hard, she just has the strength to roll on the hard floor, unkempt hair, ly, play scoundrels, and beat people, all for a successful performance - almost crazy pursuit of a perfect performance, completely so that only in the performance, she is complete, fulfilling, satisfied, and truly radiant.
But the real world is so cruel, from beginning to end, Penglai does not have a perfect performance, either being teased and dumb, or drinking and promiscuous can hardly stand. The last one finally greeted the infinite scenery "rebirth", overcame thousands of hardships, brain tumor attacks, suddenly fell into an endless black hole, rock singers lost hearing, even more terrible than the chef's loss of taste - this is also the most solid part of this show. According to the current popular way of screenwriting, it should not be such a setting at all, Peng Lai has been successful I don't know how many times, and the bridge where mother and daughter cooperate to perform to make a lot of money will definitely appear, but this time there is no at all, she is failing again and again.
This kind of life of failure to the end is actually more real, and we ordinary people have a sense of skin.
The intertwined mode of the two lives reminds me of a classic Hollywood movie "How Beautiful is Life", starring James Stewart, Hitchcock's love general in the forties and fifties of the last century, performing "Ecstasy", "Rear Window", etc., the roles are elegant and charming gentlemen, and he is also stereotyped as a personable middle-aged man in the audience. Unexpectedly, in "How Good is Life", he created such a tragic character: George, a young man in a small town, has a lifelong dream of traveling to various places, and has even customized a suitcase, but because he is kind by nature and wants to help everyone, he took over his father and barely maintained a credit company in the town, specializing in helping the poor build houses. He has helped various people all his life, but his company has been squeezed more and more badly, especially once an old employee lost a huge amount of money, and his company was going bankrupt.
George was cornered and had to commit suicide, and God sent an angel down to show him what kind of life he would experience if he did not help everyone - his mother would be cornered and would have turned the home into a shabby boarding house long ago; His wife, who had been married to him, had four children, and lived a happy and impoverished life, was an old virgin in that world and spent her life in the library; The younger brother who fell into the ice cave as a child has long been buried in the cemetery, instead of not only saving his life by him, but also becoming a hero in World War II, as in reality; As for the poor in the towns, they generally lived in cheap apartments, and were not lucky enough to own a small building of their own - the world without him was very cold and ruthless, which suddenly made George wake up, give up suicide, and return to his wife. As a result, his kindness was rewarded and the people of the town sent money, a standard Hollywood comedy ending.
The end of the comedy is relaxing, but I suddenly turned my mind, isn't the dream shown by this angel another parallel life of George? He was a relatively cold middle-aged man who had not helped so many people, and as a result, the town was cold, full of chills, and there was only hostility between people. the only bar bartender, callously chasing away people who owed a few cents; The poor deserve to live in slums, worried about the dilapidated houses all year round; A middle-aged woman who has lost her marriage is a loser in the town... Isn't it familiar? This is our real daily life, the daily life we are used to.
From this point of view, "How Beautiful is Life" is completely a Hollywood dream, the classic Hollywood period of the 40s of the last century was also a dream era, people suffered from war in the real world, walked into the cinema, indulged in two hours, and it is not strange to see the beautiful dream on the screen, but today, no one will believe in this dream.
"Rock and Roll Flower" is obviously not ready to make dreams, and has been fully showing the real lives of several middle-aged rock women, only with a slight sense of mockery at the end, giving Peng Lai a dream. Peng Lai worked in a nursing home in the United States, returned to China and had constant conflicts with his daughter, and almost all the problems that would arise in middle-aged nightmares appeared: her daughter drove her away and did not want her to return; The mother who abandoned her in her early years suffered from Alzheimer's disease and could only be taken home; The only property was the house, but the daughter did not want to sell it; God felt that oppressing her was not enough, and gave her brain cancer. Of course, there are some "small desserts", which are infatuated by handsome fans and pursued by handsome rock youths, but this dessert is undoubtedly imagined by the screenwriter, and in reality such middle-aged women are basically "nowhere to talk desolate".
The life of the protagonist is so unbearable, what about the rest of the orchestra? It's the same. Chen Yue, played by Zhao Ziqi, "once a supergirl" was reduced to selling songs in the county; The drummer, on the other hand, failed his business and had to drive his ex-husband's car to Didi and take the stage in his ex-husband's restaurant. The bleak life is expressed in comedy, the whole series is lively and exciting, and everyone is like fighting chicken blood. Especially Peng Lai, played by Yao Chen, is almost the "Queen of Poisonous Tongue" that has never appeared in dramas in recent years. A "queen" with a bleak but unprovoked life, the more people look at it, the more they appreciate it, and I have to say that this is the common success of screenwriters and actors.
In recent years, Chinese dramas have completely degenerated into the world of "cool dramas", with all kinds of reversals and obscenities, full of bridges that scratch the audience's itch. "Rock and Roll Flower" does the opposite, but makes the characters complete. It allows us to observe that a middle-aged woman who has failed exceptionally from a secular perspective can still live freely and freely, which is probably the biggest contribution of this show.
By the way, although Peng Lai in the play failed in life, the styling obviously took a lot of effort, and the beautiful smoky makeup made Yao Chen sway from beginning to end. Penley in the series from the 90s to the present, a variety of looks refer to various classic women in the history of world rock, from Jonny Mitchell to Patti Smith, including the domestic Weihua, Luo Qi, to describe handsome is too superficial, should be the real brilliance, this is a kind of brilliance brought by free life, the brilliance that has always been missing on our screen.