The Paper's reporter Wang Yi
On September 13, Jia Zhangke's new work "Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue" was premiered in Beijing at the China Museum of Modern Literature. The scene attracted more than 100 famous artists from the capital's literary circles, in addition to the 87-year-old famous writer Wang Meng, Liang Xiaosheng, Li Er, Xu Zechen, the winners of the latest Mao Dun Literature Award, and the literary guests also included critic Zhang Qinghua, scholar Dai Jinhua, and young writer Ban Yu.
For the first time in China's contemporary literary scene, it was not for a novel, but for a movie. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the door of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, which has been slightly cold, has ushered in a rare crowd of people who have been absent for a long time.
Talk after the premiere. From left: Jia Zhangke, Liang Xiaosheng, Dai Jinhua, Liang Hong, Ouyang Jianghe.
Jia Zhangke, director of "Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue", producer Zhao Tao, the main characters in the film, Liang Hong and Duan Huifang, art consultants Lin Xudong, Ouyang Jianghe, Lian Yirui, script author Wan Jiahuan, recording director Zhang Yang, editing director Kong Jinlei and other main creators and representatives of various producers came to the scene to meet with the audience.
"It's not just a film premiere, it's a gathering of friends and family in film and literature." Director Jia Zhangke said.
"Swim until the sea turns blue" director Jia Zhangke
Back at home, four generations of writers look back on China's past
"Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue" is somewhat similar to the director's previous film "Legend of the Sea", in which the characters sit in front of the camera as interviewees and tell the history of past individuals and families. Jia Zhangke is also obviously a good interviewer, placing the interviewee in a familiar and comfortable environment, and with his personal familiarity with local China, there is never a shortage of hot human fireworks in the lens.
The film unfolds the narrative in chapters, and the subtitles of each chapter are also very simple, and when the interviewee talks about any topic, he simply uses it as a title, and even the name and surname of the interviewee can also be used as the title. In the middle of the eighteen chapters, there will occasionally be a passage in which the poems are read by ordinary people. The three modes of expression complement each other, giving the whole documentary a very clear theme and story.
Poster of "Swim Until the Water Turns Blue"
The first writer to appear in the film is Ma Feng (1922-2004), and since the old writer has passed away, this part of him is mainly narrated by other writers and villagers in Jiajiazhuang. An elderly person in the nursing home recalled the situation in Jiajiazhuang before 1949, when people generally did not have enough to eat, "bitter vegetable willow leaf reed grass is the three treasures of Jiajiazhuang." As one of the representative writers of the yam egg school, an important genre in the history of contemporary Chinese literature, Ma Feng's arrival gradually changed the face of the place, "He proposed to cure alkali (saline-alkali land) before treating water..."
The post-50s Shaanxi writer Jia Pingwa is the second character to appear, and he sits at home and recalls the past under the calligraphy of "white eyes and watching the world". He said that after a period of confusion, he returned to his hometown of Shangluo, "riding a bicycle to wander around the township every day, eating and sleeping on the road", which was the writer himself "the most painful and happiest period". He wrote a lot of prose in his homeland, and even wrote his famous novel "Impetuous".
Writer Jia Pingwa
At the premiere scene, Jia Zhangke laughed and said that Jia Pingwo in front of the camera was like a storyteller, "and Yu Hua is like a star in a talk show, and Liang Hong is like a girlfriend around us." Subsequent zhejiang writers and Henan writers contracted the laughter and tears in the remaining films.
Yu Hua, a post-50s writer, was interviewed at a small restaurant in haiyan, his hometown, with green plastic curtains. He was originally a dentist, but he wanted to work at the prefectural cultural center. The writer made no secret of his "feeling poor and loving the rich" when he first began to submit articles, "I have great ambitions, as soon as I came up, I first sent "People's Literature" and "Harvest", and after returning (drafts), I submitted "Beijing Literature" and "Shanghai Literature" with a lower grade. In the end, it really can't work, like the literary magazine of Luliang in Shanxi, I also sent it. These words ignited a burst of laughter in the dark venue, and Wang Meng, the deputy editor-in-chief of Beijing Literature at the time, sat in the audience.
Writer Yu Hua
When Liang Hong, a post-70s writer, was interviewed at a tailor shop in her hometown in Dengzhou, Henan Province, she couldn't help but choke up when she mentioned her mother, saying that if she could talk about it, it would be the real abandonment. When interviewing Liang Hong's son, Jia Zhangke also specifically asked him to introduce himself in Henan dialect. And Liang Hong's son grew up in Beijing, and the writer taught him to repeat it sentence by sentence on the spot - for the next generation, the countryside has since become the story of the previous generation, and it is difficult to re-experience and experience it.
Writer Liang Hong
Flutter a few more times and swim until the water turns blue
At the end of "Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue", Yu Hua stood on the blue sea and said, "When I was young, I looked at the sea here as yellow, but the textbook said that the sea was blue. When I was a child, I used to swim here. One day, I wanted to swim all the time, I wanted to swim until the water turned blue. This sentence not only points to the topic, but also reflects the life experience of the writers in the film from the countryside facing the loess and facing the sky to becoming famous and becoming a family in the city.
After the screening, the young writer Ban Yu stood up and said, "When I watched the title, I thought of the novel I wrote, "Winter Swimming." I wish I and my peers had a few more flutters and swam until the water turned blue. Wang Meng, 87, was the oldest writer to be there that day, "I'm older, I usually snooze when I watch a movie, and I don't snooze from beginning to end in this movie." He said, "This movie is dare to do it, everywhere else it relies on excitement, it depends on stunts, it depends on stars, [this movie] doesn't rely on this." ”
In the dialogue session, Liang Xiaosheng said: "It is the meaning and value of this film to tell this history to young people today with an absolutely credible narrative that is closely related to their own growth and their own literary maturity. Dai Jinhua said that she was deeply touched by the story of Liang Hong in the film, and she also believed that watching this film requires understanding the writers and literature in the film, and there is a certain threshold, which arouses on-site discussion.
Stills from "Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue"
Director Jia Zhangke shared the original intention of the shooting, "This film is not only about the countryside, not only about literature, I hope this film is like an index, let everyone recall some past events." ”
The main characters of the film, Liang Hong and Duan Huifang, are all "electrocuted" for the first time, and when it comes to the shooting experience, Duan Huifang said that this shooting allowed her to know her father Ma Feng to a certain extent.
Liang Hong believes that the grand historical narrative is a concept in front of private emotions, and for individuals and families, history is all composed of their emotional experiences and individual feelings.
"We must go to see this movie, just like we put ourselves into life and experience life, throw ourselves into the sea of life and swim, in order to really discover how the sea turns blue." 」 Ouyang Jianghe said.
"Swim Until the Sea Turns Blue" will be released nationwide on September 19.
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Luan Meng