This May 1st is the most special movie, because it is completely different from what was imagined.
"Changsha Nightlife", I have been to this city several times, and the dazzling and colorful night is impressive. So I thought this film was "that" movie, and it turned out to be "such" a work.
As its name suggests, a film with distinct regional colors, Changsha city at night, the atmosphere of the city is in full view, like a "city propaganda film" (in fact, it is). But the core of the movie is not "Changsha", but "nightlife".
The so-called "nightlife" is not the hustle and bustle of the night like the crowded Jiefang West as you think. It is after focusing on the night, those seemingly inconspicuous corners of a city that never sleeps.
Night is a moment of identity transformation. Office workers enter private relaxation time at this time, but some people have just started a day's work at night; Some people don't sleep and linger in the hustle and bustle of food stalls, while others wander the streets and alleys because they can't sleep.
To put it bluntly, everyone who can't sleep or doesn't sleep, their story, may also be yours.
Just like the Hong Kong movie "Dinner Drama Attacking the Heart", a story with distinct regional colors, but with the most common topic - because the story of this family will be true in any place, and this film is the same.
The film has four main narrative threads (three main lines, one branch line) - the encounter in the 24-hour book house, the variety of food stalls in the back kitchen and in front of the stage, the personality performance of the stand-up comedian, and the nostalgia on the Ferris wheel. The four clues are separate in the early stages and have completely different styles from each other.
Their encounter in the philosophical area of the book house determined that Jing Weiwei and He Xixi's clue was like a Woody Allen-style prose poem, one "wants to go but will stay", the other "just go", walking along the Xiang River at night and spending a long night.
★ Corresponding to the quiet riverside is the lively food stalls, crayfish and rice noodles stimulate the taste buds of the night foraging crowd, where people talk freely, from joint entrepreneurship to the international situation, only the lady Lijie of the back kitchen is busy, secretly observing every diner.
★ On the talk show stage, a stand-up comedian He An, who speaks Changsha dialect (I didn't recognize the actor as Zhang Yixing until the second act), a few cold jokes made the audience silent, and finally left under his father's gaze. The joke does not make people laugh, it is the biggest joke.
★ There are also two little brothers on the Ferris wheel, who are rotating staff during the day, and the tourists disperse at night, and they board the empty Ferris wheel in front of them for the first time, and the scene of "being a stranger in a foreign land" is so appropriate.
The core of the four main lines - lonely past, variety of reality, "funny" life, unspeakable nostalgia, are all emo that is easy to trigger at night. Perhaps, only under the shade of the dark night, it is possible for everyone to remove the disguise of a body and present the most real side.
The two strangers revealed their hearts to each other by the river, saying a true motive for wanting to leave one to go; Sister Li ran a food stall on the last day, and told the story that had been told countless times to her apprentice Brother Xu again. He An's last performance amused the audience with his own story, and found that his life was the most ridiculous. Dedicated the original to himself and the city.
The water of the Xiangjiang River is cold, the night visitors of the food stalls have dispersed, the talk show has ended, only the fireworks on the Ferris wheel reflect every corner of the city, the sun is still rising, and life goes on.
"Market and pyrotechnics", now no longer the real selling point of a work, "handsome men and beautiful women, gorgeous fashion" and other words are not the key to attracting the audience to the cinema, those "moving" and "healing" are also clichés, the above elements are all present in this film, but I think they are not selling points, the biggest feature of "Changsha Nightlife" is "common feelings".
There is no word "easy" in the adult world, and the sensitivity of loneliness, external entertainment, and work are all contained in three stories. And the night, not so much to calm the tension and impetuous anxiety in people's hearts, but to give everyone a black disguise, let them hide in the night, and we are the same, we will also be extra sensitive.
Zhang Ji, the director of "Changsha Nightlife", is Chen Kexin's royal screenwriter, and Chen Kexin is also supervising the production this time, the personality style of this film can't help but remind people of Chen Kexin's "UFO Film" period, those Hong Kong-style sketches - using the language of the city to describe the fate of the big times of small people, and conveying the concept of love in a playful way.
For example, "Three Heroes of Wind and Dust", very similar to the style of this film, in the seemingly loose plot arrangement, is a group of people stop-and-go overnight.
This concept continues in "Changsha Nightlife", in the story of a person, he can let you see a group of people, behind a group of people, is the public's scattered life state and inner world summary. So that this very iconic "city propaganda film" has a different depth and pattern.
Although we often blame the indifference of the world in our hearts, sometimes it is rare to calm down and enjoy the heart that opens to you at night.
Lu Xiaoman said: Go forward with the days. There is no one in this world who does not carry injuries. However, as Sister Li said at the end of the movie: "Boil the wounds in life into the fragrance in the soup pot." ”
At all times, you have to believe:
The day belongs to everyone, and the night belongs to you. I have a story to tell you, do you have freedom at night?