Integrating the characters into the environment and helping each other create tension is also Cui Rui's overall vision for this film - from the rhythm, mood, dramatic conflict, and image style, to create a full suspense film.
Author|Dong Fei, Editor|Lone Pigeon
This Dragon Boat Festival, the release of "Disappearing Her", made the hot summer day shine a touch of calm: the wedding anniversary of young couples, a foreign trip that should have been joyful, has become a testing ground for human nature in intimate relationships. With multiple reversals, the truth was revealed, and the audience used strong emotional words such as "immersion", "madness" and "accident" to describe the film.
As a suspense film with "strict spoiler prevention", "Disappearing Her" is not worried about being watched repeatedly. When I watched it for the first time, I mainly sorted out the story reversal and felt the emotions of the characters; The second time, you can find more clues, understand the metaphors attached to it, and understand the complex human nature behind the characters...
This film is the feature film debut of young director Cui Rui, but it shows extremely skillful narrative and scheduling ability. In the interview of "Blogoworld", you can feel the confident sharpness and broad vision of this young filmmaker, and he introduces Hollywood narrative skills into localized stories, bringing the audience more style viewing options.
The theme of the story is "Choice"
Cui Rui defined "Disappearing Her" as a "new type of film noir".
Film noir in the traditional sense often depicts the dark society and moral collapse, the male protagonist cannot escape the tragic fate, the female protagonist is sexy on the outside and vicious inside, and lures the male protagonist to the abyss. "Disappearing Her" has the crime, suspense elements of traditional film noir, and the villain protagonist, but is more active in the expression of the theme.
As early as the initial creation of the script, Cui Rui ruled out the setting of "one black to the end", hoping to give the story a new meaning: while exposing social problems, it can also give the audience a positive guidance. "Of course, the murder of wives and cheating on insurance is a vicious incident that has happened in reality, but how to stimulate the audience's positive attitude towards life?" That's what he thinks about.
Finally presented in the film, Chen Mai, played by Ni Ni, cried after avenging her girlfriend, and firmly stepped into the future; In the face of her husband who has never changed, Li Muzi is willing to forgive him one more time, even if the price is to pay with his life; Behind the starry sky under the sea, there are bright sunshine and brilliant wheat fields... These sincere emotions in the film linger in the daily life of every ordinary person, and this treatment dissolves the coldness of the crime and allows the audience to turn hatred into emotion.
"Disappearing Her" poster
"The core issue of the film is 'choice'." Cui Rui said. "Disappearing Her" uses several short flashbacks to accurately explain the formation of the male protagonist's inferiority personality: his father is drunk, his mother is gambling, he has his own family scars, and his personality is naturally flawed. When he came to the big city, he also actively tried different careers, from delivering food to working as a bartender. In reality, there are many such groups, but why not be swallowed by huge desires and choose the most wrong path.
In Cui Rui's view, this is also the practical significance of this role: "Everyone will face a lot of stumbling and external ravages in their lives, every choice at the crossroads comes from the heart, a thought becomes a demon, a thought can also become a Buddha, the heart is bright in order to deal with people with a positive attitude, and the relationship between people and affairs will also be a virtuous circle." ”
The use of color in the film is also a new attempt at film noir, "The tone of film noir is not necessarily dark, but more through strong contrast and contrast to explore some topics of our human nature." In the film, the moment He Fei and the fake Li Muzi first met, the contrast was used to the extreme: the color difference between the red and green clothes of the two and the background color constructed a very visually impactful scene.
A still from "Gone Her"
In Cui Rui's view, instead of wearing green clothes, it is essentially a disguise, and he hides himself in the dense jungle and fog of Southeast Asia, like a "chameleon"; Li Muzi's red is both a vivid presentation of the femme fatale woman common in film noir, while red means jumping and anger, suggesting that she is eager to let the other party explain the facts. As a result, "highly saturated reds and greens create a sense of-for-tat incongruity."
In addition to the obvious color blocks, the details scattered in the corners of the film also form a dark match with the theme of the story. For example, the choice of chameleons, electric eels, poisonous snakes, scorpions and other animals is a portrayal of the character of the characters in the play - colorful cold-blooded animals. As the story unfolds, Cui Rui specially "adds drama" to the animals, the electric eel in the water slowly swims away to concentrate on feeding, and the trampled scorpion completely releases the toxicity, which hints at the real psychological changes of the characters in the fog.
In the film, Van Gogh's paintings are important presentation elements, and many compositions and scene presentations are completely created according to Van Gogh's paintings, such as the wheat field where Li Muzi and He Fei dated, and the scene design completely follows the composition design of "Wheat Field". As Van Gogh's little fan brother, Cui Rui applied Van Gogh's impressionist painting techniques to genre film creation - stylized processing on the basis of reality, in addition to the profession corresponding to the character, it also has a rich meaning.
As the "starry sky under the sea" picture appeared on the big screen, the audience's tear ducts were strongly stimulated. "Years later, when the audience thinks of "Disappearing Her", it may be difficult to remember the specific plot, but they must not forget the underwater starry sky map, this moment belongs to "Disappearing Her", I hope to use this moment to commemorate Li Muzi's dedication and dedication to love." Cui Rui said.
Construct a space for performances
In addition to the careful suspense narrative of "Disappearing Her", the outstanding performance of the actors also shocked the audience. Director Cui Rui's way of telling plays is that he likes to build situations for the actors, and guide the actors to release themselves in the situation to complete the performance. Such a fuzzy guide can explore more possibilities and layers.
In the story, the negative man did not concoct the unsolved case of his wife's disappearance for his own selfish desires, from pretending to be doubtful to deliberately disguising, from distortion to collapse, and the ups and downs of the characters' emotions posed a great challenge to the actors' performances.
For the audience, the deeper the first half of this character is hidden, the more surprising the final reversal will be. Cui Rui's requirements for the performance are: do not be excited and impatient in the first half, try to converge emotions, and convey the "deliberate feeling" of the performance; And when the true face is revealed, it will be completely released, hysterical, almost crazy. Similarly, Chen Mai, as the "arranger", also needs to restrain himself before the truth is revealed, and can not be completely released until the revenge is completed.
During the filming, Cui Rui and actor Zhu Yilong repeatedly communicated that "what kind of amplitude to perform, can be just right, not only some exaggeration, but also will not make the audience feel too exaggerated, too fake when watching that state". Cui Rui introduced the movement range of the camera, the art design of the entire scene, the presentation of lighting, etc. to the actors in detail, so that the actors could understand the space they were in, and then release themselves.
Zhu Yilong as He Fei
This is also a new role faced by Zhu Yilong's acting career, which is extremely challenging. From the understanding of the characters when reading the script to the understanding of the environment after seeing the environment on the shooting site, it is a process of finding the feeling after exploration. In the end, he perfectly created the climactic scene in the film: as the hair fell, the darkness of He Fei's heart was officially exposed, when he broke off the intubation on his body, walked out of the ward, and found that the liar was finally deceived, his trembling eyes, open and closed lips, collapsed.
At the same time, in terms of character modeling, Zhu Yilong also has a breakthrough, in last year's "Life Events" he "self-destructed his image" and straightened his head, and this time it was "worse", almost pushing into a bald head with green skin. "We were on camera to show him going from a relatively normal men's hairstyle to baldness, so I think the impact is extremely strong." Cui Rui said.
In addition to the climactic scene when the mystery is revealed, the scene in the film where He Fei and Li Muzi date on the beach is also impressive. In this scene, the two are in a state of mutual temptation, He Fei originally wanted to challenge this puzzle, and Li Muzi was on the defensive, but when the two sat down, Li Muzi gradually gained the upper hand and overcame the rigidity with softness. Cui Rui felt that the lines alone could not create a sense of cinema and conflict, so he added the actors' movements and complex scheduling.
In the shot, Li Muzi walked slowly from a distance with high heels, circling He Fei, like a falcon circling and staring at its prey; The subsequent dialogue between the two was like dancing a waltz, disguising and testing each other; A 360-degree circular rail push mirror not only magnifies the inner feelings of the characters, but also captures the distant sand and ocean, making the picture more oppressive. In this atmosphere, whoever has the emotion is broken, who loses, obviously why not this character loses in the end.
A still from "Gone Her"
Cui Rui himself is also very satisfied with this scene, "To be honest, this scene is also my favorite one in the whole movie, and it is a very elaborate one that I designed in the shooting. ”
Integrating the characters into the environment and helping each other create tension is also Cui Rui's overall vision for this film - from the rhythm, mood, dramatic conflict, and image style, to create a full suspense film.
Make movies that the audience will remember
Before the official release of "Disappearing Her", Cui Ruifa expressed his feelings on Weibo: chasing movie dreams for more than 10 years, leaving home, staying awake at night, hardships and ups and downs, frustration and confusion, too many difficulties, making this moment more worth cherishing.
Cui Rui was born in Beijing, lived in the United States for 8 years, graduated from the directing department of the University of Southern California, directed a number of award-winning short films, and participated in the filming of the historical war film "Decisive Battle Midway" as a co-executive producer in 2019. "I'm a fan of commercial genres, and I'm obsessed with doing things like that." He said.
After returning to China, Cui Rui was introduced by a friend and met Chen Sicheng. At that time, Yitong Productions, founded by Chen Sicheng, was expanding its strength, and after seeing Cui Rui's past works, Chen Sicheng appreciated his commercial consciousness and creative philosophy. And Cui Rui also likes the "Detective Chinatown" series directed by Chen Sicheng, and believes that Chen Sicheng has done a very mature job in commercial type narrative, and the two hit it off. Then the guide tube of "Disappearing Her" was handed over to Cui Rui and another foreign young director Liu Xiang.
The film was started in November 2021 and officially completed in March 2022, due to the impact of the epidemic, overseas filming was restricted, and the crew chose to create a controllable shooting environment in Hainan. Why not play with the "Mandela effect" Southeast Asian style street, is the crew to create. Some scenes have been preserved to facilitate the audience to experience up close, and also drive the development of local tourism.
In this regard, Cui Rui believes that this is an important step in the industrialization process of domestic films, "We can complete the overseas framing in China and design the overseas scenes." In controlled scenes, it is also easier to create a film style.
Familiar with the laws of Hollywood business narratives, Cui Rui thinks more about how to apply the knowledge and skills accumulated overseas to Chinese localized texts, "using technology to tell a very down-to-earth Chinese story, which is very key." "'Gone Her' has a local story, but a very international style, and it is the result of this fusion.
He hopes to bring some newer genres to domestic films through his creations, or genre integration, "that is, to give the audience more choices." It is reported that the signature IP "Chinatown Detective Youth Detective Group" produced by Yitong will also be directed by Cui Rui.
Recalling his experience of studying and growing up overseas, Cui Rui's more admired director is Christopher Nolan, believing that he can express his style in different business narratives and maintain it all the time. In addition, the film that had a great influence on Cui Rui was "Birdman" directed by his alumnus Alejandro González Inaritu, which dramatized the relationship between artistic creators and the creative environment from the perspective of a passing actor, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture that year.
"Birdman"
In Cui Rui's view, Michael Keaton's "Birdman" is a typical portrayal of today's film and television creators: victory and defeat are two sides of the coin, which may become famous in a battle and may be defeated in a war. But the moving thing about "Birdman" is that he can make desperate and unremitting efforts for the goal, and he will see the light in the end. This story inspired him a lot.
"I have a clear goal, I want to make good films, films that will be remembered by the audience, and I can give everything for that goal." Cui Rui said.