In January 2001, Wu Shixian directed the film "Car Forty-Four", an 11-minute short film that won numerous awards, and won the Special Jury Prize at the 58th Venice International Film Festival in 2001, the Short Film Award at the 18th Sundance International Film Festival in 2002, and the Best Short Film Award at the Florida Film Festival in the same year.
As the first Chinese short film to win an award at an international film festival, what is unique about it? It has no fancy publicity, has not even been officially released in China, and was only released online 5 years after it was released abroad.
Because it is too real and directly hits the most unspeakable pain in the hearts of the people, although it is only 11 minutes, it is endlessly evocative.
On a country road, a young man crouches on the side of the road waiting for a car, surrounded by no one. After waiting for a long time, he finally waited for a No. 44 bus, he looked happy, quickly got on the bus, and took advantage of the gap in buying tickets to talk to the female driver.
Green 44
The number 44 is a metaphor, in Chinese culture, 4 is an extremely unlucky number, in the eyes of the Chinese people, the harmonic sound of 4 is the same as death, so the Chinese people are reluctant to use this number in the house number and mobile phone number.
But in the movie, director Wu Shixian named this unlucky number a bus line. Undoubtedly, this is a hint and a harbinger of the protagonist's tragic fate.
The film uses black and white tones, regardless of the surrounding environment or the men's clothing, it is a simple, almost dark tone.
This black and white tone will give people a kind of depressing, even suffocating visual impact, foreshadowing that the tone of the film is not comedy, but tragedy.
The female driver of the bus, with long hair and shawl, looks very attractive against the background of the big red jacket, which attracts the attention of the man.
Why wear red clothes, because red represents passion, represents justice, and also represents the passionate soul of female drivers. This red color is the most vivid color in the whole movie.
As the camera zoomed in, the man saw the young and beautiful female driver, and chatted a few words, and as soon as he looked up, he saw the female driver's work card. The short-haired woman in the photo is called Chu Tingting, and the female driver has a long leather shawl, so the man knows that the female driver is leading the shift for people.
So he took the initiative to open a dialogue: "Do you bring classes to others?" The female driver replied with a smile: Yes, you go to the back and find a seat. The female driver's cheerful smile and gentle concern made the man impressed the female driver.
On the bus, every passenger is silent, like a sculpture of silence. Only the dialogue between the man and the female driver is full of strong human touch. After a simple greeting, the man found a place to sit down, and no one in the car spoke.
The bus continues along an empty country road. At this time, it always makes us feel as if something is going to happen. Sure enough, after a while, 2 men with bags appeared in front of them, they stopped the car in a very special way, standing in the middle of the road waving, it seemed that they were afraid that the driver would not stop, but the female driver saw them waving and took the initiative to stop.
When the two men with bags got into the car, they pulled out their knives and shouted for them to hand over their money and valuables. At this time, the whole car still had no one to speak.
It is estimated that there should be more than 35 people in the whole car, and only 2 gangsters, but everyone still did not say a word, as if it had nothing to do with themselves.
At this time, the female driver of the bus spoke up, she was worried that the passengers were injured, so she took the initiative to stand up and said to the passengers: Let's hand over the money.
Her smiling face contrasted sharply with the indifferent passengers, and at the call of the female driver, everyone pulled out the money, and a male gangster took out the package money. Walking up to a middle-aged man, he refused to take the money, and a gangster with a knife had a bad temper and said: You want to find death Wow?
Perhaps psychologically nervous or anxious to take the money, he slapped the middle-aged man a few times, the man had a nosebleed, and under the pressure of force, he took out the money.
The female driver thought that the gangsters would leave after taking the money, and thought to herself, breaking the money and avoiding disaster, she took the initiative to hand over the ticket money, and she even smiled and took the initiative to give the money to the gangsters, hoping that the gangsters would not hurt people.
But as soon as the man with the knife looked back at the female driver, he had evil thoughts, he stayed for a few seconds, and after collecting the money from the whole car, he dragged the female driver's collar and got out of the car, the female driver was obviously frightened, she did not expect the gangster to have this action.
So she began to break free, of course, this resistance is powerless, so the female driver began to shout, hoping that the passengers could help, but the whole car remained motionless, as if everything that had just happened was none of their business.
The female driver was knocked unconscious by the gangsters, who dragged her deep into the field. The man who had just gotten into the car saw this scene and began to worry about the safety of the female driver, he stood up and said to all the people in the car: Why are they all sitting?
The whole car was still silent, and a middle-aged man in the back seat tried to get up, but was held down by the wife next to him, so no one in the car responded.
The man was helpless and had to get out of the car to see for himself, and in a hurry, he did not bring a weapon. He rushed over and hugged one of the gangsters, but was stabbed in the thigh by the gangster with the knife, and the pain of the wound made him unable to move.
At this time, the female driver woke up, and she shouted against the atrocities of the gangsters. None of the people in the car came down, and when they saw the man get out of the car to help, they moved their positions and all rushed to the window to watch the bustle.
In this way, the stabbed man was wailing on the ground, unable to move, while the female driver was violated by the gangsters. The gangsters quickly left the path, leaving only the cries of the female driver.
For a long time, the female driver returned to the car, her hair was messy, her face was full of tears and wounds, and she looked at the whole car with resentful eyes, none of them still spoke, they did not care about the female driver's life and death, not even a word of comfort.
All this stung the heart of the female driver, she remembered the humiliation just now, she lay on the steering wheel and cried, after crying, she saw a toy dog in the car, and kept nodding to her.
She looked thoughtfully for a moment, wiping away her tears. It seems to be planning a big thing. The puppy's nod was like a kind of recognition and acquiescence to her behavior, and just like that, the female driver wiped away her tears and prepared to leave.
At this time, the injured man limped to the car, and he asked slightly embarrassed: Are you okay just now? I am sorry. He was about to get into the car, but the female driver said to him: You get out of the car, and then quickly close the door.
The injured man could not understand the behavior of the female driver, and he said: Why? I was the only one who saved you. The female driver did not speak again, threw the man's duffel bag out of the window to him, and drove away.
The injured man was helpless, he could only walk slowly on the road, and soon he finally stopped a car, after he got into the car. At this time, the sky was foggy, the road ahead was not very clear, and a police car appeared in front of it.
The fog in the film is also a metaphor, it symbolizes the injured man's confusion about the female driver's behavior, which is a kind of inner confusion and represents the confusion of the audience.
After the man got out of the car, he approached to see what the situation was, but heard the police say: Just confirmed, all the passengers and drivers on the bus are out of gas, and the license plate number is the No. 44 bus.
The man felt shocked when he first heard the news, but after a few seconds, he seemed to understand something, from the dignified expression he had just had to the relief, until a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
He seemed to understand the behavior of the female driver, because the indifferent treatment of the passengers made the female driver feel cold, and when she was physically and mentally exhausted, she chose to die and ran to death with the car.
Although the film is only 11 minutes long, director and screenwriter Wu Shixian is well versed in the hearts of the Chinese people, grasping the selfishness and indifference of human nature and creating this movie.
In this movie, there are no gorgeous lines, no exaggerated costumes, but it directly hits the hearts of the Chinese people. Wu Shixian has studied abroad for many years, but he has a deep understanding of Chinese culture in his bones.
There is a Chinese saying: Sweep the snow in front of your own door, and you will not care about the frost on the tiles of others.
This saying is extremely apt when applied to passengers, and the indifference of the passengers in the car and the sadness of the female driver form a sharp contrast. Obviously, you can unite against the 2 gangsters, but no one says a word, this inaction is a kind of human selfishness, indifference that goes deep into the bone marrow.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The greatest sorrow is not the arrogance of the bad guys, but the excessive silence of the good guys." ”
True, when the good guys are too silent and allow the bad guys to do evil, what will the world become?
When all the passengers looked through the window, they saw that the young man could not move because of his injuries, saw the female driver being bullied, and the gangsters flew away, but no one moved, and even the idea of calling the police was not.
There is not even a word of comfort, so the female driver will be discouraged and will have an act of destruction.
Passengers only want to protect themselves, but the kindness of being born as a human being is lost. At this moment, kindness is no longer the standard of human beings, and the selfishness of human nature prevails.
Write at the end:
Some people may think that the man's last laugh is schadenfreude, even disgusting, but in my opinion, his laughter is a kind of relaxation, a relief under high pressure, and he is glad that he can stand up, even if he is injured, he has no guilt.
Looking at a car of self-defeating passengers, why can't he laugh?
The biggest highlight of this movie is the realism, because it is too real for us to look directly at and even think of escaping from this kind of movie.
It's so real that we are afraid to look directly inward, and has each of us ever been the same viewer?
After watching the movie, people feel depressed and reflective, and even heavy enough to make people breathless.
Chekhov said: Indifference is the paralysis of the soul, that is, premature death.
The female driver hates the passenger's indifference, so she chooses to run to death together. She let go of the injured man and kept him alive.
The survival of the man is a wake-up call and a tribute.
If there had been only one person on the car who stood up and went down with the man, I think that the female driver might not be bullied, the man would not be injured, and the 44 road would eventually drive to its own terminal.
And all this, after all, is just a fantasy.
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