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Text | Qing Shi Yaohua
Editor|Qing Shi Yaohua
«——[·Preface·] ——»
Formulaic plots, stereotyped characters, and illustrated visual scenes are a set of film creation models born in the process of Hollywood developing genre films.
The adoption of the big studio system and the star system makes it fully meet the entertainment demands of the audience, and Hollywood can mass-produce it, so that it can quickly occupy the film market.
Diao Yinan's film works created during the period of market-oriented transformation can see clear traces of the creation of genre films.
However, as a film creator with personal style characteristics, Diao Yinan is also permeated with the innovation of genre models under the narrative surface of the genre shell, and at the same time carefully weaves his profound exploration and excavation of society and human nature in his works.
Since its birth, film noir has generated controversy over whether it should belong to a genre or a style, but this does not in any way affect its unique charm.
After the transition from traditional film noir to neo-film noir, the dark side of society is more strongly displayed.
At the same time, under the trend of genre integration, film noir is also constantly integrating with other types of films, and the unique black charm of film noir is interconnected with other genres, forming some film genre characteristics that were not available before, with a unique film style.
The film noir style presented in Diao Yinan's films discussed in this article is more inclined to the creative style of the neo-film noir period.
«——[Elements of the noir genre film borrowed.] ——»
Neo-noir was born in the 60s and 70s, and its content performance still continues the dark reality in society, and is influenced by existential literature, revealing the nihilism and pessimism unique to existentialism, as well as moral deficiencies and contradictions.
In terms of audiovisual language, the dark and damp scene shaping, and the shadows of large light than lighting clearly highlight the sense of crisis revealed by film noir.
In terms of thematic expression, he is often on the fringes of moral and social order, dissatisfied with the status quo, hoping to redeem himself through rebellion.
But in the end, it may lead to destruction, often using first-person narrative or flashbacks, showing the existential loneliness and nothingness of the characters.
Referring to the style characteristics of neo-noir films, they are reflected to a certain extent in Diao Yinan's four feature film works.
The film noir style gave director Diao Yinan more creative inspiration, and helped director Diao Yinan present his ideas more freely in the presentation of images.
As the debut film of Diao Yinan, the film "Uniform" is more conservative and restrained in storytelling and video style, and overall focuses more on the drama at the text level, and the way of expression is more inclined to the realistic documentary style of the French New Wave.
Although it is greatly influenced by documentaryism, there are still traces of film noir style in "Uniform".
In the film, Wang Xiaojian and Zheng Shasha met for the first time in a dark underground passage, Zheng Shasha stood on the fire and smoked, and walked to the depth of the underground passage, and Wang Xiaojian quietly followed.
and the scene of the latter two night dating, all awakening and igniting the inner desires and madness of two people who have no sense of existence in the dark night.
In addition to the creation of black sex scenes on the screen, the protagonist is bored, hopeless in life, walking on the edge of morality and the legal system, obsessed with the aura of power and identity in life, and the inner desire to be satisfied with venting, these performances have somewhat existential meaning.
Strictly speaking, although the blackness embodied in the film "Uniform" is not very obvious, it can be seen from here that director Diao Yinan's attention to the style of film noir can be seen.
«——[·Traces of genre in Diao Yinan's films.]——»
Compared with "Uniform", Diao Yinan's second work "Night Train" is more mature in image language, the author's human nature is discussed more deeply, and the characteristics of film noir are more intense.
In terms of scene shaping, the contrast between light and dark light is fully utilized to create a series of black scenes with black characteristics.
In the opening scene of the blind date party in the film, a large number of shadows and a little neon light make this supposedly vibrant and romantic blind date dance dull and boring, and the strong formal meaning under documentary realism complements the lifeless expression of the protagonist Wu Hongyan.
The shaping of scenes such as dark underground passages, corridors, and dance halls all show a strong dark consciousness under relatively calm and restrained lenses.
The shaping of black sex scenes is not the final expression and core expression of film noir, but more importantly, the despair of the characters in that environmental atmosphere is revealed through the narrative in film noir.
After a female bailiff with a deep system encountered sexual violence and marriage trust across the city, she finally liked the avenger who wanted to find her own revenge.
The hero Li Jun is also a "wanderer" wrapped in a wave of social change, whose family is torn apart, his work is exiled, and he is moved by the object of revenge while taking revenge.
An atmosphere of instability and powerlessness pervades the fate of the characters, and the despair conveyed by "Night Train" through the narrative is very black.
An excellent author director will inevitably innovate and transform the paradigm of the genre while using the genre, and director Diao Yinan is a good example.
"Daylight Fireworks" has achieved a relatively mature embodiment of the reference to film noir style, not only in director Diao Yinan's original borrowing of film noir elements, but also in his local transformation of film noir elements, making it a "Chinese film noir" with literary and artistic temperament.
The filming location of "Daylight Fireworks" was chosen in the snowy and cold Harbin, and the film did not highlight the beautiful landscape of Harbin, but focused on creating an old and decaying small city scene.
Icy snow, dim street lamps, and dilapidated buildings, in addition to caring for the bottom of society during the social transformation period at the end of the 20th century, have created a gloomy and sad environmental atmosphere.
It fits the performance tone of a noir crime story. In terms of character settings, it is also a basic continuation of the genre character paradigm of detective, femme fatale and third person in film noir.
In the movie, Zhang Zili, a policeman who tried to return to the system after being demoted to the security department due to negligence in the execution of official duties: Wu Zhizhen, who was killed by sexual violence and anger for damaging Pi Qing, and was extremely oriental feminine and charming; Liang Zhijun, who did not hesitate to kill people serially for possession, and so on.
The emotional entanglement around the murder case faintly reveals the inner desires and complex human nature of the characters in the dark and cold environment, full of the unrest, despair and sadness of film noir.
The night scene in "The Party at the Southern Station" is an important performance of Diao Yinan's continuation of the black visual style, and the film had a total of 106 scenes at the time of shooting, of which the number of night scenes was as high as 71.
The dark urban village scene is illuminated by colorful rainbow lights, which further highlights the mystery and danger of the night, making the night present a different kind of romance and sadness.
The protagonist of the film, Zhou Zenong, who accidentally kills the policeman, begins the flight of fate and self-redemption in the chaotic urban village, and the desire and violence of all parties in hiding and chasing are displayed.
The tragic sense of nowhere to escape the characters is revealed, which completes the image shaping of the sense of fatalism in the film noir that the characters cannot complete self-redemption and are unable to break free.
This sense of fatalism and even the use of large light ratio elongated figures in the image is the same as the running scene when Harry was found in the classic film noir "The Third Man", and the hasty flight presents a sense of standing in place under the shaping of the large light ratio, and the sense of fate that there is nowhere to escape is strongly highlighted.
Individual anxiety and unease under the changing times and the black humanity under the surface of the flashy world are all pointed to in the black images created by Diao Yinan.
«——[Narrative reference of crime genre films.] ——»
Crime genre films include subgenre elements such as police and bandit films, detective films, film noir, and horror films, and make the most audio-visual effects to achieve the purpose of pushing psychophysiological experience to the extreme.
Crime films often take the occurrence or investigation of a case as a narrative clue, with criminals and police as the main antagonistic characters, so that the truth slowly emerges in the contest between the two camps, often accompanied by violence, chase, suspense, action and other elements in the process.
Under the full satisfaction of the audience's mental stimulation, the explanation and portrayal of criminal events and characters are unfolded, reflecting the discussion of human nature, morality and order, and is full of black charm.
Director Diao Yinan's works often feature criminals and police as the main characters, and tell stories around "crime".
From the perspective of genre practice, Diao Yinan's borrowing of crime genre films was not very significant in the independent film production period, but it was more prominent in the market-oriented creation period of "Daylight Fireworks" and "The Party at Southern Station".
Although the narrative in "Uniform" and "Night Train" does not focus on the crime plot in the story text, it focuses on the warm feelings between the characters.
However, the occurrence and development of the story are accompanied by criminal plots, especially in the characterization, there are traces of criminal types, and Xiao Jian, a tailor who wears a uniform and pretends to be a policeman, Wu Hongyan, a bailiff who goes on a blind date, and Li Jun, who killed a lost wife, are all intersections of police and criminals in terms of character identity.
However, the film does not form a strong opposition between the two in the story, but tries to place the two in the same domain, thereby exploring the more complexity of identity attributes in content expression.
Crime itself is a violation of social order, whether it is Xiao Jian pretending to be a policeman, Li Jun, who murdered people, or Wu Hongyan, who wants to break free from the shackles of order, is gradually deviating from the conventional social order, and this crime itself constitutes the internal driving force and external tension of Diao Yinan's film narrative.
«——[·Epilogue.]——»
In the two works "Daylight Fireworks" and "The Party at Southern Station", which have a typological tendency, the character shaping and plot setting are in line with the narrative structure of crime genre films.
"Daylight Fireworks" features "law enforcer" Zhang Zili and criminals Wu Zhizhen and Liang Zhijun as the main characters, and tells the story around a serial murder and shredding case.
The unknown corpses in the coal pile in the opening chapter lay the film's criminal temperament and suspense, as the story unfolds.
In the contest between detectives and criminals, the confusing truth is slowly revealed, and the typed narrative mode fully meets the audience's expectations for the storyline and mobilizes the audience's psychological emotions.
"The Party at the Southern Station" tells the story of Zhou Zenong, the leader of a car theft gang who has just been released from prison, and is wanted for manslaughter of a police officer and embarks on the road to escape from the first-person perspective of the perpetrator.
The chase battle between the police and the fugitive forms a key element of the film's gripping, which is typical of crime genre films.
In addition, in the process of the competition between the two, the first-person perspective setting makes the audience have strong expectations and worries about the personal fate of the fugitive.
In general, the two works "Daylight Fireworks" and "The Party at the Southern Station" have shown the genre characteristics of crime films in terms of suspenseful creation, confusing emotional clues, and the presentation of violence.
The narrative mode of crime genre borrowing makes Diao Yinan's films more comfortable in the conflict between individuals and social order, and the creation of suspense and multi-line cross-narrative make the film present ups and downs in the emotional experience from the perspective of audience acceptance.
In addition, the focus on the presentation of the source power and process of crime makes the film not only have the framework of crime types, but also have the humanistic thinking behind crime.
«——[References] ——»
[1] CHEN Jia,ZHANG Aiping. "Daylight Fireworks": The Compatibility and Game of Literature and Commerce[J].Xue Education,2015,12.)
[2] Paul Schrader. Notes on Film Noir[J].Translated by Hao Renzheng. World Cinema, 1988(1): 112.
[3] Diao Yinan, Li Xun, You Fei, Chen Yu, Ye Zi. Daylight Fireworks[J].Contemporary Cinema, 2014.