Speaking of Changsha, what comes to mind?
Yuelu Academy, Orange Zhoutou, Chayan Yueshi, Wen Heyou, Changsha Eye, Crayfish...
These all appeared in this "Changsha Nightlife" released yesterday. Seeing these familiar scenes, I once thought it was an urban propaganda film about Changsha, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to exceed our expectations: Zhang Yixing used Changsha dialect to talk about a talk show, Zhang Jingyi chatted philosophy with a strange man in a late-night bookstore, Bai Yufan opened a Ferris wheel in the Eye of Changsha... Their subversive roles and performances give everyone the most unique and unexpected viewing experience in the entire schedule.
Everything starts at the beginning of the movie.
For a long time, creators had various debates about whether philosophical discussion scenes could appear in Chinese films, and as a result, quite a few people held the view that "passages that are not suitable for in-depth discussion of philosophy in Chinese films". In fact, we do rarely see serious philosophical discussions in domestic films. However, "not seen" does not mean "cannot have" or "should not have". And this time, finally, we saw a philosophical collision between young people in a domestic movie.
At the beginning of "Changsha Nightlife", young men and women played by Yin Fang and Zhang Jingyi meet in the philosophy district of a late-night bookstore, and a war of words begins around Sartre and Benjamin.
This is a very "higher than life" paragraph, perhaps far from everyone's imagination of Changsha's nightlife, but director Zhang Ji chose the beginning in a bookstore, as he said, "If I am very calculating, or very conservative, and I am worried about whether everyone will watch my movie, I will definitely choose the beginning of the movie to start from the nightclub, because of the excitement." But why can't Chinese films start in a bookstore, where two people have a conversation about philosophy? Everyone told me that there can be no philosophical dialogue in Chinese films, I don't believe it, I just want to write. ”
Hidden in this is Zhang Ji's original intention for this movie - where should the lives of ordinary people start.
Zhang Ji chose a bookstore, chose philosophy, and chose a pair of young men and women with a literary temperament. This is the breaking and reshaping of the audience's existing impression of "Changsha nightlife".
In Changsha, a city full of the warmth of life and the prosperity of the night, he chose to let the story start with a quiet bookstore and a cold philosophy.
This choice is a bit stubborn, but it brings the audience a rather fresh viewing experience and urban imagination.
Yes, why can't Changsha's nightlife start with a bookstore?
When we followed the footsteps of this pair of young people and began to walk out of the bookstore to Changsha at night, in their journey, we came to Yuelu Academy, Orange Zhoutou, Wen Heyou, Taiping Old Street, and picked up and pieced together the urban temperament of Changsha on the bank of the Xiang River.
At Yuelu Academy, we witnessed the strange tacit understanding between Jing Weiwei (Yin Fang) and He Xixi (Zhang Jingyi), and saw their emotional uniqueness and similarity.
In Wen Heyou's lively old building, Changsha is bustling at night, and young people go upstairs and downstairs, rubbing shoulders one after another, and it is impossible to tell whether night or day is in the river.
This indistinguishable temperament of morning and dusk is a microcosm of Changsha's nightlife - in the same store, some people eat breakfast, and some people eat supper hot pot until early in the morning.
One night in Changsha carries a variety of different forms of life. Just like the bookstore, philosophy, love, life, food stalls that appear in this movie... When we list these keywords one by one, we sort out the story line of the entire movie——
Life and distance are intertwined in this film, the boundaries of near and far, strange and familiar are broken, and Changsha shows super inclusiveness and diversity.
Changsha embraces, contains, and nourishes everything in this land.
If Jing Weiwei and He Xixi are new literary and artistic young people born and raised in Changsha City, then the two out-of-town brothers on the Ferris wheel (Bai Yufan and Zhou Siyu) are representatives of the "new Changsha people". One is from the northeast, the other is from Shaanxi, Changsha is to them in another country, but in daily life, under the nourishment of this land and water, other places also have the intimate familiarity of their hometown.
Many years ago, why was Sister Li, the treasurer of Sister Li's food stall, not a "guest from another country"? Rooted in Taiping Old Street for more than 20 years, Sister Li has long become a part of the hot Changsha, and her food stalls and her whole person have long become an inseparable part of the city in the polishing of time.
Some people are born in Sri Lanka, some people are born in Sri Lanka, and Changsha City carries thousands of people and faces in this city. Those joys and sorrows, joys and sorrows, philosophy and love are finally settled in this city full of hot life.
At the end of the day, it's a story about ordinary people.
A city, a group of people, a night. In the lights of ten thousand homes, the fireworks of Changsha City gradually appeared on the screen.
Jing Weiwei, He Xixi, Sister Li, He An, Lao Xie, etc., these characters scatter perspectives on the multimodal life in Changsha. Each group of characters is associated with a different way of life.
Some people want to go, some want to stay, some meet, some separate, some enjoy romance, and some people wander through the fireworks of life.
Together, these people with very different personalities have shaped the diverse temperament of Changsha. Intense, diverse, inclusive, in addition to the conventional impression, it presents a richer and more multimodal Changsha...
In some moments, "Changsha Nightlife" always reminds people of early citizen movies in Chinese film history, such as "The Crow and the Sparrow", "Seventy-Two Tenants" and "Xizhao Street", reshaping the cultural temperament of citizen films in the streets and alleys full of life.
Life and distance, reality and romance, together complete a poetic residence in the city of Changsha. Philosophy and poetry in the fireworks have shaped Changsha's diverse and inclusive night.
Frankly speaking, the film's scattered perspective character relationships are very testing the screenwriter's skills, and if you are not careful, you will fall into a thankless situation. Fortunately, director Zhang Ji was an excellent screenwriter who was very good at character creation before "director". In his past works "Chinese Partner", "Dear", "Winning the Championship" and "Going Alone", he created one unforgettable screen role after another such as Cheng Dongqing, Tian Wenjun, Lang Ping, Li Na and so on.
In these works, we glimpse his idea of creating characters - not to create heroes, but to write about their growth and transformation as ordinary people.
These creative experiences are projected in this film, forming a state of freedom in the relationship between the characters and the play. The foreshadowing between several groups of characters is buried in three words, and then echoes in the details.
Sister Li has been a food stall for more than 20 years, and in the most difficult moments in the early days, a big brother who took care of the business gave her the strength to persevere.
The gathering and dispersion of the nameless Changsha Lingzi (played by Wang Lixin) and his girlfriend (played by Zhou Dongyu) in the film is also inextricably linked with the fireworks of the Changsha Ferris wheel.
The story begins with seemingly unrelated characters, and in the process of narration, the inextricable connections between the characters emerge little by little. These people seem to be isolated, but in fact, they are gently wrapped in the city of Changsha, and they have inadvertently met each other thousands of times.
The eldest brother who gave Sister Li strength, the fireworks that were canceled and lit, the one who wanted to leave and finally stay...
Each of them is intertwined in the prehistory and plot, giving the entire play a sense of fullness and density in the meticulous presentation.
Let it go, take it back. This kind of grass snake gray line writing shows the director's super control over the play, and also restores a civic ecology full of humanistic atmosphere and pyrotechnic atmosphere for us.
Zhang Ji said he liked left-wing movies in the thirties. The humanistic atmosphere and life atmosphere in the streets and alleys retain the root vein of Chinese citizen culture. From this point of view, it is indeed only the scattered perspective technique that can best return to the all-round depiction of a city. This brings us to another important question – what kind of urban cinema do we need?
In these films, "Changsha Nightlife" is a special existence, which does not use the city as the background, on the contrary, it sets Changsha as a role-like existence, and even becomes the real protagonist of the entire film.
A couple of men and women who broke up, the girl came to Changsha for love, but finally decided to stay in Changsha when they broke up, in the love of this pair of men and women, Changsha plays a strong attractive role, its charm is embodied and protagonist. If the characters have a "character halo", then Changsha in this movie has an unforgettable "city halo".
People are used to, loved, and then inseparable from this city. It binds locals, outsiders, and embraces thousands of different values in a harmonious and different way. People with different attitudes towards life eat at the same table like a family. This is the magic of the city, and it is also the spiritual temperament of the city that Zhang Ji depicts - a kind of local attachment in the new era.
When the film ended at the night food stall, I suddenly thought of the song "The Night of the Stars" that Jing Wei chanted at the bookstore poetry sharing meeting.
Aren't the people who walked into the night of Changsha City the twinkling stars in this sky?
People in a hurry, slow down and walk into this good night, go to the theater and feel its twinkling stars.
In the current national only 1.7 films, this May Day show beyond the expected poetry and romance can not withstand more waiting, want to watch friends, hurry up into the theater!
After walking out of the theater, go and grab a bowl of powder and feel that this world is worth it.