In the seventh season of "Thirteen Invitations", Xu Zhiyuan walked through those human fireworks, observing the way everyone treated the world inside, and exploring the peach blossom source in their hearts. Perhaps, "grounded" not only describes Xu Zhiyuan, but also means that in the unpredictable fast-paced era, people need an outlet, a free and relaxed atmosphere, a place to return to life and return to their own hearts.
Author | Curlude
Edit | Ding Yu
With 9.5 points, the seventh season of "Thirteen Invitations" won the highest rating on Douban since the birth of the show.
After watching the 6 episodes that have been broadcast this season, many people feel that Xu Zhiyuan is more grounded. He helped Grandma Cai Gao hoe the ground, walked into the campus with Peng Kaiping, and pulled a sailboat with Xu Jingkun; He ate skewers with Zhang, gave Feng Yuanzheng German elbows, and visited the bustling Beijing vegetable market at 4 a.m. with Chen Xiaoqing.
■ The seventh season of "Thirteen Invitations" Douban score
Xu Zhiyuan walked through these human fireworks, observing the way everyone inside treated the world, and exploring the peach blossom source in their hearts. Perhaps, "grounded" not only describes Xu Zhiyuan, but also means that in the unpredictable fast-paced era, people need an outlet, a free and relaxed atmosphere, a place to return to life and return to their own hearts.
The audience also felt this soothing power from "Thirteen Invitations". The painter Grandma Cai Gao let everyone see a kind of "hope of life"; There was always a misalignment of choices on the road of Feng Yuanzheng's life, but they were all turned into a forward energy by him; The one-armed captain Xu Jingkun always had the determination to "be sure that there was land ahead", which was the guide of every idealist.
In the opinion of producer Xu Chanjuan, this season's Xu Zhiyuan is in "a state of contraction", because "he also has to find a peach blossom source, or a beautiful world". Where is the peach blossom source? How to find it? Who to look for? The seventh season of "Thirteen Invitations" seems to be giving the answer.
When talking with Xu Jingkun, Xu Zhiyuan cried.
He saw a video of Xu Jingkun driving the "Dream" towards the sea. In the shot, Xu Jingkun's good friend Monkey stands on land, hissing goodbye to the future navigator, shouting over and over again: "Jingkun, come on!" Seeing this, Xu Zhiyuan's tears fell.
■ Xu Zhiyuan and Xu Jingkun go to sea
In Xu Zhiyuan's eyes, Xu Jingkun's story has a heroic romanticism. He was the first one-armed captain to sail around the world in human history, and he completed circumnavigation around the China Sea, transatlantic and circumnavigable. His ability to reinvent himself and embrace the world amazes Xu Zhiyuan, who feels like he is aging.
So, Xu Zhiyuan walked in as a participant, and he wondered what kind of fearlessness Xu Jingkun was when he fought the waves alone?
Xu Zhiyuan came to Qingdao's Lennon Restaurant, a place where many sailors from all over the world frequented when they went ashore to rest. The boss, Gao Jun, also loves sailing, and he collected a lot of clocks and hung them all over the wall. He also has many sailor friends, and one-armed captain Xu Jingkun is one of them.
The conversation between Xu Zhiyuan and Xu Jingkun took place here, they talked about the story on land, and also talked about the life moment of saying goodbye to land and truly stepping into the sea to sail.
In the sixth issue of the seventh season of "Thirteen Invitations", the audience follows the camera and looks for traces of Xu Jingkun's transformation from a rural boy to a navigator from this restaurant.
At the beginning, the reason why Xu Jingkun chose sailing was not because he liked it, but to fill his stomach. He was born in a small mountain village in Pingdu, Shandong Province, and lost his left forearm in an accident at the age of 12. In the eyes of others, his life seems to have no future. But Xu Jingkun was not willing. When he was 16, he received a phone call inviting him to become a sailor on the national team, and said that he would receive a 100 yuan a day. Xu Jingkun immediately agreed. After hanging up the phone, he paid 2 yuan to go to the Internet café to find out what sailing and sailing are.
After entering the national team, Xu Jingkun put in more effort than ordinary people, often practicing one-handed knotting rope alone when his teammates were resting. Later, the national team disbanded, and Xu Jingkun, who left the organization, decided to go alone to find the direction of the sea. A year later, with the help of Gao Jun, Uncle Hu, and Monkey, he completed a solo adventure around the China Sea. After that, his ship drove farther and farther, and the wind and waves he defeated became bigger and bigger.
Xu Zhiyuan saw the small room where Xu Jingkun used to live in Lennon's bar, which has now been turned into a grocery room. In the busy city of Qingdao, he and Xu Jingkun looked for Uncle Hu, who had helped Xu Jingkun. He went out to sea with Xu Jingkun, stood at the bow of the boat and pulled the rope and touched the sea breeze. They also encountered a little danger at sea—the ship's propeller was bitten by a fishing net, and then dissolved—and a man swam from the black sea, brought tools, cut the net, and swam away. It turned out that he was Xu Jingkun's friend at sea.
Xu Zhiyuan on the deck looked at everything with novelty, just like an audience watching all this in front of the screen.
It was at a moment like this that someone keenly sensed that Xu Zhiyuan seemed to have changed. In people's impressions, Xu Zhiyuan in "Thirteen Invitations" always coldly observes the world in front of him, and rarely shows the moment of "going off track". But in this season, he is no longer a recorder, an observer, but a participant.
For example, he and Chen Xiaoqing visited Beijing's vegetable market in the early morning. After studying croaker, mackerel and pike crab, he decided to turn back and buy some dried fish from the fishmonger. The store is very enthusiastic, thinking of sending him some, Xu Zhiyuan is like a big enemy, immediately refused, no need, "or you won't come in the future", Chen Xiaoqing next to him also shouted with a smile, "I must buy it." The person who had been watching coldly suddenly became vivid in this kind of market atmosphere.
■ Xu Zhiyuan and Chen Xiaoqing
A Douban netizen commented: "I think Xu Zhiyuan has become consciously rejecting conceptual words this season and approaching specifics. From this point of view, he also seems to have arrived at a more vulnerable period in his life, and changes occur in a kind of self-confrontation. ”
In a conversation with the blogger, producer Xu Chanjuan said that "Thirteen Invitations" reached its seventh season, hoping that the direction of the show would be "more realistic and specific". "We act first, we do concrete things first, and in the process, we go and find our way to rebuild," she said. ”
In the process of going out, Xu Zhiyuan opened himself and the stories of the guests, and in the process of feeling and perceiving, there were also moments of tenderness and emotion.
Producer Xu Chanjuan officially took over "Thirteen Invitations" in this season. Prior to this, her works in the team were mostly inclined to news documentaries, including the production of realistic documentaries such as "Baldness Happens" and "Mask Hunter", and also served as the producer of Jiang Sida's interview program "Only Three Days Visible".
One day in 2022, Li Lun, the producer of "Thirteen Invitations", asked her: "The new season ("Thirteen Invitations") is going to be done, do you want to try it?" A long-term IP has gone through six seasons, how to innovate and break through is its unchanged proposition, Li Lun hopes that Xu Chanjuan's takeover can bring new perspectives and new changes to "Thirteen Invitations".
At that time, the documentary "Baldness Happens" had just been completed, and it was during the epidemic that Xu Chanjuan's whole state was not very good. Uncertainty made her eager to reconnect with the world and return to a stable state, so she agreed to Li Lun's proposal.
■ Producer Xu Chanjuan
Her first meeting with Xu Zhiyuan was at the planning meeting of the seventh season. Before that, although she had known Li Lun for a long time, she had never crossed paths with Xu Zhiyuan. Xu Chanjuan's initial impression of Xu Zhiyuan was that "he is very real", "His various small details are very real, and what he sees (things) is also very real, which is actually the soul of a show." ”
Therefore, when she saw the audience say that Xu Zhiyuan was "grounded", Xu Chanjuan felt that it was not that he had changed, because that was the real him, but that the show itself was "more specific and realistic".
The structure of "Thirteen Invitations" has always been based on interviews, weaving its web of meaning with thought and language, and the seventh season should look for innovative "problem-solving methods", that is, concrete and realistic, and take action in order to make everything happen naturally.
Just like the sentence in the program: "Ideas are important, action is the soul, to explore vast, useless things, why the climate changes, the quality of a black hole, to get close to concrete, subtle things, to cut the soil with a hoe, to listen to the shouts of the morning vegetable market, the texture of the world and life, always contain unexpected feelings." ”
Xu Chanjuan said that the wish of this season of "Thirteen Invitations" is to use warm details and precise language, guests and Xu Zhiyuan's thoughts to rebuild a new value system and bring some strength to move forward for current people.
Based on this starting point, in terms of production, the 7th season of "Thirteen Invitations" should not only be a logical line of interviews, but also 4 lines to cross forward.
Xu Chanjuan explained this: one is Xu Zhiyuan's line as a visitor, based on his curiosity, to conduct his dialogue with the guests; The other is the guest line, which contains the presentation of individual characters and their thoughts; There is also a director's line, which observes the conversation between Xu Zhiyuan and the guests on behalf of the program, and excavates the life force brought by the collision of ideas; The last line is the connection between the director and the audience, to achieve the dialogue between the program and the audience, that is, the immediacy emphasized by "Thirteen Invitations".
Presentness is also the unchanging principle of "Thirteen Invitations", it is never an isolated program, not an isolated conversation, it is Xu Zhiyuan's communication with the outside world, and it is "Thirteen Invitations" trying to communicate with the audience.
"So if you look at the clip of the season of Thirteen Invitations, a lot of things have been slowed down and amplified. In this way, it allows us to feel things together that we may have overlooked before. Xu Chanjuan said.
Chen Xiaoqing is the first shooting guest of this season, Xu Zhiyuan intervened to observe Chen Xiaoqing's life and enter his world by buying vegetables, eating at cold noodle restaurants, and participating in the live meeting of "Flavor of the World". When shooting picture book artist Cai Gao's grandmother, Xu Zhiyuan was reading in his grandmother's yard, the yard was quiet, the sound of birds, the sound of leaves, and Xu Zhiyuan's breathing were amplified in this environment.
"As for whether the purpose of going inside is very clear, I don't think so. What are we going to do here, it's not a very clear answer. But you still try to extend and expand further in the world of the guest to make her richer. Xu Chanjuan explained that talking in such a realistic and concrete situation is easier to open up a wider world more naturally.
When the seventh season of "Thirteen Invitations" was about to be launched, the main creative team decided to put Grandma Cai Gao in the first episode. This is the way to say hello to everyone in the new season of "Thirteen Invitations" after a year. Xu Chanjuan is also convinced that Grandma Cai Gao is "the best person to look for in a complex world".
In the process of filming Cai Gao's grandmother, Xu Chanjuan also allowed herself to regain energy and stability from an unstable state. That day, when she saw Grandma Cai's handbook, she was deeply moved. She did not expect that in such a fast era, there would be people who have been recording every bit of life, each so precious and powerful. In Grandma Cai Gao's world, everything has its place, trees have the childlike fun of trees, flowers have the language of flowers, and rain has the joy of rain.
Grandma Cai Gao is 77 years old and has suffered great hardships in her life, but she has never looked back. "There are a lot of stories in it, but I filter it out, the good stuff remains, the bad stuff is just like I paint, it's a piece of contrasting color," she said. In the eyes of the painter, there is no dirty color, I have no peach blossom source, my peach blossom source is forced out. ”
She is full of childlike heart, and she has the wisdom contained in childlike heart. She told Xu Zhiyuan that she was always easy to get carried away, and continued: "But getting carried away is not a disadvantage, I forgive myself." ”
Sure enough, after the show was broadcast, it received very good reviews, and many viewers were also touched by her. Some people feel a pure, pure, interesting, and vibrant soul, which gives many people who are experiencing confusion and doubt in the present moment a great comfort.
An audience member said that Grandma Cai Gao's child-like soul is not the innocence of the worldly things that is "rich" by being prosperous and rich in her life and not stained with spring water, on the contrary, after suffering too much and seeing too many vicissitudes, she still yearns for the choice and perseverance of the peach blossom source.
In Cai Gao's grandmother's home, Xu Chanjuan felt her open-mindedness, childlike interest and ability to resist suffering, and also had the urge to learn to draw. She wants to be like Grandma Cai Gao, learn how to understand everything, feel everything, and "record all this in your own way", just like Grandma Cai Gao said, the hawker has the way of the hawker, the shoemaker has the way of the shoemaker, the artist has the way of the artist, "you have to find your own way".
■ Grandma Cai Gao
That day, Xu Chanjuan wandered around Cai Gao's grandmother's house for a long time, and found that her home had a lot of things, but it was not chaotic at all, but it exuded a sense of tranquility. Where did this sense of tranquility come from, she thought? It is from Grandma Cai Gao's way of life and way of understanding society. "This makes me very curious, and I want to bring it to everyone," Xu Chanjuan said, "because it can explain or solve this most powerful of my current sufferings." ”
Not only Cai Gao alone, but also from the physicist Zhang Shuangnan, the psychologist Peng Kaiping, Chen Xiaoqing, who conveys food stories, as well as Beijing Renyi Dean, actor Feng Yuanzheng, and one-armed captain Xu Jingkun.
■ Xu Zhiyuan and physicist Zhang Shuangnan
The way each of them treats the world, the process of finding themselves, and the inner world they build are all things that this season of "Thirteen Invitations" wants to bring to everyone.
In the 5th program, Feng Yuanzheng's experience is also conveying to the audience how to find a landing point in life in the swing and unknown.
Feng Yuanzheng once wanted to be a skydiver, but because he was too thin to be successful, he went to work as a worker in a lock factory; He wanted to enter the Beijing Film Academy, but was returned to the file because of his bad image; He went to Germany to study acting, originally wanted to stay there, but found that he was a stranger after all; Last year, he was ready to retire, but became the first actor-turned-dean in the history of Beijing Renyi.
■ Feng Yuanzheng talks about his life experience in the program
His life is always unplanned, yet full of drama and freshness. This is how skydiving changes his view of the world, because this is the game of the brave and everything is unknown until you land. So wherever he goes, he will not be afraid or panic.
Xu Chanjuan said: "This season, many times, we are looking for a kind of strength and a kind of peace, these two things can make people stabilize themselves and have the courage to continue to go down. ”
When this nourishment and harvest is passed on, hopefully everyone has the ability to create a peach blossom source.