Today is a special day for movie fans in Beijing, and the Beijing International Film Festival offline film tickets are launched. I wonder if you have grabbed your favorite movie tickets?
It doesn't matter if you don't have time to watch it in Beijing, today I will take the opportunity to talk to you about one of the works in the "Focus Filmmaker" unit of this Beijing Film Festival.
Its production cost is only 500,000 US dollars, director Chen Zheyi has been unknown in the circle before, and the script is not adapted from a best-selling novel, it can be said that it is a "three-nothing product" without money, fame, and original support.
But it was such a film that beat popular nominations such as Wong Kar-wai's "A Generation of Grandmasters", Cai Mingming's "Outing", and Jia Zhangke's "Destiny" at the Golden Horse Awards that year, and won the Best Feature Film Award - "Mom and Dad Are Not Home".
The story of the film takes place in Singapore in the 90s, revolving around the daily life of an ordinary family.
Father Ade is a senior salesman, calm and low-key, serious and sincere, and the pillar of the family.
It's just that recently he is facing a career bottleneck, and the failure rate of sales is getting higher and higher, hovering on the verge of being laid off.
The mother, Huiling, works as an administrator in a company and is recently waiting to give birth to her second child.
However, she did not dare to slack off in her work, for fear that her name would appear on the list of layoffs.
Compared with work, the couple's more headache is actually the education of their son Jiale.
He is one of the top "saboteurs" in the school, often causing trouble, and almost every few days, Huiling will be called to school by the teacher because of the naughty Jiale family.
After being hired as a parent again, she decided to hire a Filipino maid to take care of the housework and take care of her son.
Thus, this young maid named Teri became a new member of the family.
For this change, Jiale was reluctant in every way, and he began to do everything possible to cheat and bully Teri in every possible way.
Although Teri has a grudge, in order to make a living, she can only swallow her anger and warn Jiale not to make trouble for herself.
However, Knorr did not give up, and one day because of the problem of homework, he had a big fight with Teri and rode out the door angrily, but was hit by the car and injured his arm.
This accident became an opportunity for the relationship between the master and servant to ease.
Terly, who does not remember revenge, patiently takes care of Knorr's diet and living, making Jiale suddenly feel care that she has never felt before.
In fact, it is not difficult to see from the details that the reason why Jiale is lawless is nothing more than to win the attention of adults.
He knew that his mother liked to buy lottery tickets, so he studied the winning numbers in the newspaper every day, hoping to help her win the jackpot one day.
However, his intentions were not noticed by busy parents, but were mistaken for bear children as demons.
In this case, Terri, who takes care of him, fills the gap of her parents. Knorr also got along day and night, and experienced all kinds of discrimination and prejudice that Teri encountered as a maid.
Slowly, Teri became the most important person in Knorr's life. He would compliment Teri on her cooking skills, help her choose beautiful styles from her mother's old clothes, and take photos with Teri on her birthday.
And Teri also projected her thoughts of her son onto Jiale, and in the eyes of outsiders, the master and servant were as close as mother and son.
This part of the plot in the film does not have such fierce conflicts and contradictions, but it is full of realism of life.
The reason why Teri can "cure" Jiale is not by any advanced education method, what she has is only the most basic education and care of an adult for children, which is clear rewards and punishments, and equal dialogue, but this is exactly the treatment that Jiale has never received from her parents.
There is such an impressive dialogue in the film -
Jia Le: "You actually left such a small baby to work?" ”
Terri: "Then your mother still has a stranger to take care of her son!" ”
Knorr: "... I'm sorry. ”
At the beginning, Jiale who worked against the teacher everywhere actually took the initiative to say "sorry" - during the time when his parents were not at home, he had quietly grown up under the care of Terri.
In fact, this kind of family story between children and babysitters, "Mom and Dad Are Not Home" is not original.
There is the Academy Award film "Peach Sister" in the front, and then there is the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film "Roma", both of which are the creators who take a corner from their real experiences and present the audience with a simple sense of life.
But "Mom and Dad Are Not Home" still captures the unique texture of the oriental family.
The most resonant detail in the film is the frequent dinner table scene.
This is the scene that best highlights the family atmosphere and interpersonal relationships, but in this film, it has become a battlefield for emotional catharsis, conflict outbreaks, and secret wrestling.
When Teri first arrived, Knorr was very reluctant to eat at the same table with her and sat down alone.
As a result, the mother's complaints were heard from afar at the dinner table, and the words were addressed to the husband, but they all reached the son's heart.
Later, the relationship between Jiale and Teri became closer and closer, which caused her mother Huiling's jealousy, because she said that "Mother does not cook as delicious as Teri cooks", and the mother and son had a cold war at the dinner table.
For example, when the Jia Le family went to attend her grandmother's birthday party, the noisy dinner table became a battlefield for adults to fight for face and brag, and Teri was driven to eat outside the private room because of her status as a maid, and Jia Le gave her shark fin to eat in distress.
The small dining table composed of the master and servant is more humane than the heat in the private room.
These seemingly ordinary details of life cleverly form the family ethical relationship that the film wants to convey, which is conveyed through a child's growth experience.
It is worth mentioning that the story of "Mom and Dad Are Not Home" is not limited to growing up.
From the perspective of Terry's outsiders, the film presents the survival of ordinary families under the financial storm.
The newspapers are full of anxiety news of "price increases" and "plummeting" every day, and news of "someone jumping off the building" comes from time to time in the community, and the whole society is filled with an atmosphere of gradual despair.
In fact, Knorr's father Ade, a few months ago, was laid off by the company because of poor performance, coupled with the stock market recession and lost a large amount of money, Ade instantly faced a financial crisis, he frequently changed temporary jobs, but his income did not grow much.
With a heavy sense of responsibility, he did not disclose the truth to his wife, and his family became a forbidden area for him who could not be honest, and he could only sit at the door and smoke alone every night to relieve his worries.
Although her mother Huiling no longer needs to take care of housework because of Teri's arrival, she is sensitive and strong, and she begins to realize that her mother's status is being "replaced" by Teri.
Driven by subtle jealousy and work pressure, she began to take her resentment out on Teri, but turned her head and did not know how to get along with her son.
When she was depressed and irritable, Hui Ling began to seek other hopes, but unexpectedly she was brainwashed by the pyramid scheme organization and lost a large amount of money to her husband.
It wasn't until the news broke that the pyramid scheme leader was arrested that the couple had to confess their secrets, and the whole family fell into a dead cycle of silence.
The so-called "parents are not at home" actually refers to this kind of state where people are at home and their souls are withdrawn.
From this point of view, "Mom and Dad Are Not Home" is a film that interprets the era through ordinary families, revealing a subtle and restrained oriental style, whether the audience is Singaporean or not, they can find resonance from this family story and find traces of their own growth.
This may be the film's killer feature that finally impressed the Golden Horse Award judges.
Ang Lee said after the award that he voted for the best picture award to another film at that time, but because "Parents Are Not Home" is a movie that "no one dislikes", he will PK the works of big directors such as Wong Kar-wai, Jia Zhangke, and Cai Liangliang, and finally win the award.
At the end of the film, Knorr's parents fire Teri because they cannot pay her salary.
Jia Le, who learned the news, was like a thunderbolt on a sunny day, he took out all his pocket money and bet according to the "lottery cheats" he summarized, hoping to solve the financial crisis at home and keep Terri.
However, the miracle did not happen in the end, and Knorr had to say goodbye to Terri.
At the last moment, he suddenly pulled out scissors and cut off a lock of Terri's hair.
Looking at Teri's distant back, Jiale held her hair and shed tears - the mischievous demon had finally grown up in this parting.
Isn't it the end of everyone's childhood to say goodbye to their most precious things with regret?