Introduction: The commonality of human beings, annotated with love.
Released in 2015, the film "Burning Heart of the Sun" directed by Cao Baoping focuses on an old murder case, starting with special characters, and in the plot design with the clue of "seeking murder", the reverse elaboration is made from the perspective of a fugitive. Under the impetus of story suspense, it pays attention to the psychological embodiment of the internalization of the characters, adopts the style of realistic imagery, and constantly expands the understanding and sublimation of the characters in the fog of suspense, aiming to seek a kind of commonality of people, and takes "love" as the final annotation.
The film won three awards at the 31st Golden Rooster Awards for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Editing, as well as the Best Actor at the 52nd Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards and the Annual Film of the Year at the 11th Sino-US Film Festival.
1. Suspense under cross-narrative
Hitchcock once proposed a typical suspenseful way: three people play cards in a room with a bomb, knowing that the bomb will eventually explode, and when the audience and the characters know this, the tension of suspense is reflected. In this film, the "murder hunting" plot at the surface of the story makes good use of this dramatic suspense design, so as to achieve the role of interlocking and gripping.
First of all, the film puts the "bomb" in front of the audience at the beginning, and when the object of the so-called "murder" is established, then the process of "how to seek the murder" has become an important conflict design point of the plot. The space stretch that can be played, while reducing the audience's predictable range, can also enhance the unexpected viewing experience, so as to achieve the heart-wrenching effect of the ups and downs in the suspense detective movie.
Second, when the film shows the detective process, it separates the two main perpetrators into two narrative threads, constantly enhancing the conflict in the escape of the two lines, so that the audience stirs up double worries from the perspective of the criminal at the same time, distracting the audience's attention, in the two-way exploration of Xiaofeng and the sheriff, Zhang Zidao and the girl, with Xiaofeng as the main line, what is set up is a double contradiction, and a certain commonality is extended by the pattern of enlargement, and finally makes the sublimated theme reasonable and reasonable, otherwise it is inevitable to fall into thinness and powerlessness.
Secondly, the film in the opposite of the "fugitive" is not only designed as a "hostile force" of the sheriff, the landlord's eavesdropping device also exists as a hidden danger to tear the protagonist's action, and the landlord's design is more similar to another bomb, different from the character's known "murder", this bomb is exposed from the audience's omniscient perspective, but it is not detected by the protagonist.
Such a design is connected with the original murder facts, as the key evidence of stringing up criminal clues, successfully becoming a knife hanging in the heart of each audience, and finally being discovered by the police officer, the suspense at this time is shifted from "success or failure of the murder" to "the choice of the police officer", and it is also under the relay of multiple "negative forces" that "The Burning Heart of the Sun" has achieved an interlocking mysterious effect.
2. Character design of the edge type
The narrative core of the work "Burning Heart" has always been located in the characters, the plot organizers, and a detective story is actually the process of leading the audience into the characters and deciphering the characters. First, when the film is narrated, it stands more on the criminals who are "fugitives", obtains a different degree of viewing attraction with a distinct and rare perspective, breaks the traditional typical model of roles in character interpretation, and tries to show the "good" side of the two, stimulating a contradictory role cognition, which is similar to the classic film "Brave to Break into the Island of Death", fugitives Xiaofeng and Zhang Zidao are relative to the police officers, just like the generals who ask for condolences for the soldiers in "Brave to Kill Island" fight against the confidential officials who fight back against terrorist attacks.
This confrontation is strictly ethical, the confrontation of the characters is indeed a confrontation between good and bad, but in the context of the complicated story, the audience is difficult to distinguish between right and wrong, the pursuer and the pursued person are as "good people" There is the contradiction and ambiguity of this role, so that the audience can not produce a distinct self-position, the justice of the law cannot beaked, but we also see a detached "fatherly love" in the 3 fugitives, and when finally faced with the punishment of the law, the legacy of love makes the truth come out, and the defense of forbearance sublimates three The "goodness" in the "evil man" makes the value of the film complete, and the sin ends in euthanasia, while "love" makes the character gain forgiveness at the audience level.
Second, when portraying the characters, the film also shows multiple complex relationships and implants LGBT sensitive topics into them. Under the lie of the character orientation, we also see the effect of stimulation in different people, whether it is the unspeakable secret of love between the girl and Zhang Zidao, or the obscure triangle relationship between Xiaofeng and Taiwan's rich and police officers, under the sensitive theme, the police officer's emotions for Xiaofeng have been supporting and promoting the plot in the unconscious suppression and attraction.
The detective of the police officer has also become an attraction-oriented involuntary exploration due to the continuous displacement of the character's emotions, and this emotion mixed with the interventional direction of sensitive topics has become clear, and the emotional appeal of both clues that are dead due to repression has become a difficult stroke under the dark color of the film.
3. Realistic image texture
In order to ensure the restoration of the people and events behind a heavy murder, the image uses dark and cool tones to construct the scene in a realistic urban life scene. The dark and narrow rooms on the one hand assist the plot to improve the details of the characters, on the other hand, it brings a low emotional tone, rendering the atmosphere at the same time, pulling the audience into the life field of the criminal. Goldfish, colorful balloons, and new clothes brought by children are among the few bright color elements in the film.
In terms of audiovisual language, the film mostly uses close-ups - close-ups and other large scenes, aiming the picture at the facial expressions of the characters, trying to pull the common feelings between the audience and the characters, and the film's lens movement also deliberately pursues a focus method commonly used in documentaries, that is, through the push and pull of the lens to visualize the character's ideas, in order to achieve the role of emphasis. For example, when Xiaofeng learns that the police officer has detected the truth, the push given by the camera expands the tension of the character's expression and alludes to Xiaofeng's inner surprise.
The film uses a large number of such practices, trying to place the audience in the sense of omniscience in the dual sense of insight into the plot of the event and the psychology of the characters, and has become a major feature of the image. In addition, when focusing on the expression of the characters' personal emotions, the film also does not skimp on the use of subjective lenses, such as Chen Bijue at the end of the film who chooses to commit suicide, and the combination of subjective shots and monologues makes the character who has lost his pen and ink depiction also take shape, and then serves the plot, which is a kind of glorification of "suicide", and the director tries to justify this "love" at the level of influence.
In the return to the case, "Burning Heart" places ink in the "Battle of the Trapped Beasts" from the perspective of the perpetrator, and when the mystery is revealed at the end, the arrest of the perpetrator becomes a struggle to give up, a complex exploration of human nature between the most evil and the supreme good.