Chen Bingxuan
After the Festival de Cannes was suspended in the year of the pandemic, it was rescheduled to early July to avoid the virus's third wave of infection in France. As we all know, the hot summer on the Shores of the Mediterranean is only suitable for one thing – lying flat on the beach. However, the film selection people are not idle, after all, the works that global filmmakers have saved for two years are sent. The official selection of films is like "holding back a big move", the number is unprecedented, and the quality is also stuffed with master directors, which has stretched the already insufficient screening venues to the limit. It was predicted before the festival that the young directors who came to participate in the competition this year may be completely wiped out, which is a bit untimely.
Unexpectedly, it is a group of relatively young female directors who have broken through this time. The most sensational was that the Frenchman Julia Ducournau became the second woman in history to win the Palme d'Or for her "body thriller" Titane, while the short film Palme d'Or, the "One Attention" award and the Golden Camera Best Debut Award were all awarded to female directors. Female creators swept the top prizes in almost all sections at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Among them, Hong Kong director Tang Yi won the short film Palme d'Or with "The Crow under the Sky", which allowed Chinese films to share a piece of the pie in this "Women's Cannes".
This year, Chinese films were absent from the main competition of feature films at the three major European film festivals, forcing everyone to look for them in other units and even other film festivals, and there were many female directors who found them. The officially recognized Independent Film Distribution Association (ACID) in Cannes screened Wang Lin's "Venus by the Water", and discovered Bi Gan's Locarno's "Contemporary Filmmakers" section with Niu Xiaoyu's "Goodbye, Fish flower pond".
In fact, in terms of quality, Chinese female directors have always been excellent. From Huang Shuqin's first international award to Xu Anhua's lifetime achievement Golden Lion, from Wen Yan's "Carnival" to Yang Mingming's "History of TenderNess", and the back-to-back Rotterdam Golden Tigers of Zhu Shengxian and Zheng Luxinyuan. I am always proud to say at international film festivals that the director who won the most awards in The Chinese-speaking region, Xu Anhua, is a woman, with six golden statues and three golden horses. But it is rare to see several Chinese female directors at top international film festivals in less than a month. This summer, they went from sporadic to swarmed, from exception to normal, from unexpected to natural. As individuals, they also form a group, occupying the position that belongs to them, and the achievement belongs to their achievement, becoming what they want to be.
World movies
Stills from "The Crows of the World".
Watching "The Crow under the Sky" at the film festival reminds me of watching Yang Mingming's "Female Director" back then. It felt like approving a course paper for students, and when dozens of exquisitely printed, pretentiously difficult, and crowded eight strands were urged to fall asleep, an independent and chic article suddenly appeared. The author speaks his own thoughts and opinions clearly in his own language, has an extraordinary sensitivity to life and texts, and has the courage to challenge the established world. Perhaps the Cannes jury awarded the Palme d'Or to Don Arts felt the same way. A work can have a childish place, but it must have an aura, not boring, and show people a "possible world". It would be better to be able to sting me, making people a little flustered and uncomfortable. After all, there are so many movies in the world, or don't shoot them all in general black.
The fifteen-minute short film is based on the author's own personal experience, telling the observations of high school student Zhao Shengnan on "sex", especially through a vicious adult liquor game she participates in. The wine table culture, sexual harassment, and feudal superstitions involved in the film are all patriarchal labels that we are familiar with, and they are also the life experiences that many of us have had. The director uses a stylized surreal approach, on the one hand, to avoid falling into the cliché, on the other hand, it also allows her to show and deal with the absurdity and nothingness of this world head-on and directly.
Surreal uses non-reality to find reality that transcends reality, or reality that is more real than reality (Breton), which is a weapon for the weak to face the powerful. Because the proper and impartial reality cannot escape the boundaries of power, its right to interpret has been monopolized. Power fears that the reality under its control will be exaggerated and reshaped, that is, it is afraid that the shortcomings of this reality will be exposed because of the focus. It must hide in the fog of reality "fitting" to make these problems seem smaller, and art is a space where it can be "excessive."
The tyrants of the world are afraid to laugh, and "The Crow under the Sky" happens to be very humorous. Crying, anger, and pity are actually not lethal, they often have a cooperative attitude, or can be packaged as a cooperative attitude. The joke is different, it seems to be laughing, but in fact it cuts off its own back road. The teaser does not need to exert any force at all to make the object of ridicule stand out from her. "Laughter" disintegrates the existing order to maintain its own sense of nobility, depth, and self-consistency, and it refuses to accept the established bottom line, giving the weak the possibility of renegotiating in value and even morality. For the creative subject, this is also a process of self-healing. Once the victim stops crying and starts teasing, she becomes a survivor, or "former victim," breaking free from the perpetrator's invisible spiritual clutches. Of course, crying always wins sympathy, while teasing leads to fear, jealousy, and confusion. But for those who refuse to be permanent victims and refuse to be "destroyed", the price is worth it.
The fifteen-minute length limit of the Cannes Short Film Competition is particularly suitable for caricature (also translated as "exaggerated painting") style works such as "The Crow of the World". Satirical painting has been popular since the nineteenth century, that is, we often see in newspapers one to four frames of comics, short, pithy, spicy and exaggerated, the original function is to satirize current events. Although it originates from life, it is highly symbolic and is good at reshaping reality to better show a certain social aspect, or better focus on one thing and one thing. The object of ridicule is certainly not happy, and our most recent sensation was the terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. But why didn't they attack the discriminatory, xenophobic, and far-right journal Valeurs Actuelles? Compared with a serious attack and accusation, irony and ridicule make people have a sense of loss of control and loss of power, except for playing with lai and playing, there is no way to fight back.
Since it is "exaggeration", it is natural that some people will criticize objectivity, after all, those people are not like this. But in the eyes of the victim/survivor, they are "like this". Literary and artistic works are always extremely subjective, and the style of satirical painting gives women gazing an opportunity to subvert the patriarchal perspective. On the subject of sexual harassment, there is also a psychological issue involved. Many people subconsciously exaggerate the horror of the source of the threat when they conclude that they are in danger, which is an instinct for self-protection. Forcing the victims to objectively narrate and find fault from them is originally a kind of persecution in disguise. "The Crow under the Heavens" refuses to depict white, that is, it refuses to enter the discourse environment in which the perpetrator is dominant, so as to return the initiative of narration and display to the survivors.
There is also a clever means of self-preservation, that is, it likes to explore profundity. It requires us to discuss the structural, historical factors behind the phenomenon. This is a good thing, but it often turns into a cover for the evildoers, reduced to an act of "blaming the victim". It's like if you say to a victim, you have to understand the grievances of the abuser, he has all kinds of family and social structures behind him, why can't you see it? We are always very tolerant of the perpetrators, and there are always such and such profound socio-economic reasons behind them; but we are fierce to the victims and look for so-called "model victims". It is better for them to silence forever and not to make a sound, so as not to remind us that there are still problems in this society, and each of us has an unshirkable responsibility. How many Hong Zhong Da Lu and pretend to be difficult are just used to cover up the filth.
"The Crow under the Sky" actually touches on the topic of sexual minorities, the author jumped out of her own unpleasant experience, integrated into other life experiences, is her self-healing and creative double success. But she approaches the topic differently than others. The film uses an open ending to step out of the binary opposition between heterosexual men and women, but there is no evaluation of the relationship between two non-heterosexuals - how long will Katsuo's stopwatch go this time? Is there also violence and bullying in their relationship? Are the crows in the world generally black? Tang Yi seemed to realize that he was not qualified to give a complete answer to these questions. So she ends with the sensitivity of a survivor, respectfully leaving the right to evaluate minorities to minorities. Only then did I realize that the original title was also an open proposition.
What is a little surprising is that this is only Tang Yi's second short film, which is a preview of the graduation work, and the official graduation short film has not yet begun to be cut. Her previous film, In Search of the Black Goat (2019), was a school-year assignment filmed in Nepal that addressed another topic of women's society: menstrual humiliation. Its style, like "The Crow under the Heavens", is also to jump out of reality to criticize reality, playful and sincere. Maybe a little more tender than the Palme d'Or works, it uses a more roundabout way to criticize, and does not sting everyone.
The text of "The Crow under the Sky" and its promotional materials is so complete that there is no need to interview the director. So in addition to the study process, I asked Tang Yi a question, how to think that some people say that she "can't make movies." Her answer was also short: "They need to understand that there are countless ways to make movies in this world." ”
Rescue memories
"Goodbye, Fish Flower Pond" is a continuation and development of Niu Xiaoyu's previous works "Fish Flower Pond" (2013) and "Adolescent Suppression" (2018). As a highly experimental work, the director does not sell his own theme at all, and the discussion of death and amnesia between the characters leads the audience to the "right way" of interpreting the film from the beginning. This time no one can use such a clumsy excuse as "art movies/experimental movies don't understand".
Stills from "Goodbye, Fish Pond".
The film is a series of fragments of the life of the protagonist YeZi and his grandmother, interspersed with comics, songs and dances, and other stylized and surreal scenes, all from imagination: the legend of the city told by Grandma, or something that Yezi fantasized about because of loneliness when she was a child. Of course, the latter is often based on the former. All of this is connected by a character clue and a location clue: the deceased grandfather and the mysterious fish flower pond. Grandpa's soul is immortal and he misses his family so he will "come back", and there are all kinds of monsters in the fish and flower pond, which are all the understanding and interpretation of life and death and the world in Han culture and local culture. Reminiscent of 2010 Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong's excavation of thailand's indigenous legends. Coincidentally, "Goodbye, Fish and Flower Pond" has a slow pace, but the story is complete, highly watchable, and even has suspense, which is also very similar to Apichatpong.
Like Tang Yi, the background color of Niu Xiaoyu's works is also a kind of self-expression, which is her life experience and observation of the things around her. The first layer here is family, loved ones, neighbors, and these Chinese vital relationships in life. Even in the casting, not only are ordinary actors used, but also the director's family and friends. Among them, the grandmother is played by Niu Xiaoyu's own grandmother. There is a dialogue between grandma as an actor and the director in the film, and she doubts her sense of time during filming, echoing the characters in the film who do not know what day and night. This paragraph is embedded just right, allowing us to see that although there are differences between actors and characters, there is no complete separation, but a continuous relationship. This is also a kind of declaration of the author, the film never breaks the fourth wall with the audience, but it eliminates the boundaries between creation and life, fiction and reality, making us extremely alert to the existence and subjectivity of the camera. In this way, the leaf can naturally see her grandfather again, and can face her grandmother who is losing her memory. Niu Xiaoyu can retain the memory of a family's imminent death.
In addition to people's clues, the location of Yuhuatang also carries heavy memories. When "Youth Suppression" went to Xining, the "guide tube" asked Niu Xiaoyu about this, and she replied: "Yuhuatang is the only way for me to go to school from childhood to adulthood, and most of the urban legends of Hefei, the whole city, are concentrated in Yuhuatang." When I was a child, I felt that the woods and waters of Yuhuatang hid nameless corpses, monsters, ghosts and 'criminals' who were on the run from all over the world, and all the girls and boys in the nearby schools would also go to Yuhuatang to fall in love and hide in the woods to make love. Fish Flower Pond is a collection of all my childhood imaginations, my Twin Peaks. ”
Yuhuatang connects the author's personal memory with the local collective memory, and the two complement each other: she draws inspiration from the collective memory, and then uses her talents to record, preserve, and disseminate it, and the collective memory transcends the word of mouth of the local people through her work and enters the broader and lasting community of human memory. The use of the Anhui dialect in the film has its practical considerations, such as ordinary actors, especially the elderly, who may be more comfortable in their own language. But its effect is surprisingly good, and when depicting universal human emotions, it finds the turning point between "the individual" and the "world" - "hometown". The film's local features make its story and emotions more convincing, and it reminds everyone of their hometown and childhood, so that they can feel empathy.
"Goodbye, Fish And Flower Pond" is also a story about childhood, or about memories of the same year, and cleverly handles some family relationships. Yezi was raised by grandparents, just like many post-80s and post-90s children (this situation is mainly concentrated in rural "left-behind children" in the later generation, which is relatively rare in cities like Hefei). Sometimes, especially when they grow up, they can't tell whether they did something with their parents or with their grandparents. Later in the film, Ye Zi wears a sweater with special significance in the summer, and all the children who have been raised in the next generation will smile and remember every spring and autumn when they are covered with sweat. This personal experience carries the imprint of an era and represents the common experience of a group with the characteristics of the times. Niu Xiaoyu sensitively captured this experience and left us with this memory.
I remember that when I was in elementary school, teachers often said that there were two kinds of children brought up by their ancestors, one was spoiled and uncultured, and the other was introverted and lonely. Of course, this statement is very extreme, but the children in the city who are dependent on their grandparents and grandparents are always a little lonely, because the elderly have limited energy and are not willing to let the children out. So playing by yourself became commonplace. In addition to being lonely, "playing by yourself" will also stimulate children's unlimited imagination. After all, to please yourself in a limited space, you need to "brain supplement" everything you desire and can't get, such as pretending that your bedroom is a mysterious place, such as making up a few friends for yourself in your brain. "Goodbye, Fish And Flower Pond" has several scenes about childhood and imagination, which makes people look sour. Either sad or sad, or their imagination and the background of their production on the big screen are given a rationality of existence. Because of Niu Xiaoyu's works, although that era has passed away with the wind, it is not without traces.
The writer Jiang Yun said that he "every time he finishes writing something, there is always a feeling of salvaging something: from his own memory, from his aging life." It's like a race against life. "Niu Xiaoyu is carrying out such an invisible struggle. She wants to use the game of time like movies to record everything that time has taken away and everything that is about to be taken away, to visualize memory and imagination, to make the deceased immortal, and to make what is believed a kind of existence.
Four to three years
If you take out each of the characters and their stories in "Venus by the Water" and write a 100-word introduction, you will think that it is all cliché. The restructuring of state-owned enterprises, the return to China to start a business, the throbbing of youth, the terminal illness, and even various family conflicts and warmth are like the eight o'clock file of CCTV when I was a child. Fortunately, art films cannot be reduced in this way. Although the styles are very different, Wang Lin and Niu Xiaoyu have in common, that is, to excavate the collective memory of a generation of an era. Niu Xiaoyu's foothold is highly personal and regionalized, and Wang Lin seems to have some ambitions to take female group portraits in the early 1990s. The ambition was a bit big, but the film was generally successful. After all, if the characters and the story are familiar, it means that there is universality and can represent that era. As for how to narrate and how to shoot, it is another craft, and Wang Lin can be said to be skilled in this regard.
Stills from Venus by the Water.
The picture of the film is exquisite and not vulgar, the age feels bitless but not deliberate, and the use of color and light and shade is obviously also carefully crafted. Here in particular, to say about the color, the female lover Almodóvar feels that color is the most important element when photographing women, Wang Lin has repeatedly used the color of clothing and environment to express the identity, personality, mood, and even fate of the characters. The use of bright colors is just right to let the characters jump out of the plain background. Isn't that exactly what it was like in those days? Before we could create the colorful skyscrapers and residential areas of the business district, luxury cars were still rare, and the first thing that highlighted the personality was the visual impact of clothing accessories. It was the beginning of a great change, and this aesthetic was its visual presentation.
The director also grasps the narrative rhythm very well, which makes people particularly comfortable and has a feeling of telling the story. As I've just said, many of the film's subject matter is not new, but the narratives we are familiar with always like to be highly dramatic, creating all kinds of meaningless conflicts and sensationalizing. And Wang Lin's rhythm has a de-dramatic effect, which is another way of telling these ordinary stories. A film like "Venus by the Water" is like dropping two drops of eye drops on your eyes that are about to be blinded by mass production entertainment, so that you can see the fate and conflict, hope and sorrow, helplessness and absurdity of that era. Contrary to everyone's imagination, it is not surprising to put a "slow movie" in Cannes - your reference will be a director of the level of Ceylon, Cai Mingliang, Apichatpong, and any vassal elegance with its own form will be exposed. Critics are very mean: why use fixed lenses here? Why doesn't it move when you hit the middle scene there? Put a family portrait to play with the composition? Are the people in the ward petrified? Oh no, you look at the women in front of the camera. They hesitate and probe, and individuals and families are wrapped up in the times at the same time, there is a seemingly bold but hesitant not to hurry. It's like the times they're in. I couldn't think of a better way to shoot than that.
In fact, this movie had a talk before the screening, because it was shot on 35mm film, and the picture ratio was 4:3. What does this mean? 35mm was the conventional format of cinema films for most of the silver film era, and many famous directors still insist on shooting in this medium, but when they are screened, they are generally converted to digital formats. In short, this was the vehicle for almost all theatrical films of the 1990s. But the director's choice, for the audience, is more symbolic than practical. Because even if the film can really go to theaters (acid unit selection is not yet a distributor of the film), we don't have many film projectors, and we can't escape the fate of turning digital.
The influence of the 4:3 format is relatively large, and the conversion of the medium will not have any impact on it. This ratio is the classic format of the film (the so-called 1.33 frame), and this image ratio was also used after the birth of television, and the film itself changed to widescreen, in a sense to resist the competition of television. That is to say, television in the 1990s was 4:3 format, representing the audiovisual experience of most people at that time, while movies were mostly widescreen. Venus by the Water depicts that everyday, limited visual experience, as opposed to the occasional, open-air movie widescreen of the time, and to the widescreens we see everywhere today (not to mention virtual reality in stereoscopic space). As a 2021 viewer, I can really feel the depressing feeling of this kind of frame in the theater, and instinctively want to see the world beyond the lens frame. It's like a cunning metaphor, we in front of the screen and on the screen are all limited and disciplined by our own times.
Also disciplined is the dialect under the push, which is my biggest criticism of the film. Unlike "Goodbye, Fish Pond", "Venus by the Water" should use professional actors, most of whom operate a northern S&P. The film's publicity copy clearly states that this is a story that takes place in Jiangnan, and there are many clues in the film, such as the Zhejiang license plate on the vehicle. Such an unreasonable deviation is very dramatic, at least it must be Mandarin with a Jiangsu and Zhejiang accent, right? It's not a film issue, it's a common problem in the industry as a whole, and finding the right dialect actors is sometimes very difficult and costly. Learning dialects and even foreign languages for characters should be the duty of actors, but we lack such awareness and conditions. Hopefully, after a few summers, the problem of this language will be solved, just like the female director famine a few summers ago.
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Zhu
Proofreader: Luan Meng