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"Mountains and Rivers Departed" is one of the few works directed by Jia Zhangke that are rarely released in the mainland. This work has attracted a lot of attention since its release. Let's not discuss the content of the film for the time being, so as not to over-interpret it, but only think vertically from the perspective of the director himself.
It can be found that this work has important innovative significance and enlightenment value for Jia films and the entire mainland film situation in terms of screen format and narrative structure, promotion of three-dimensional narrative, realistic works, science fiction attempts, innovative art paradigms, natural implantation of one's own emotions in the work to express oneself, and change sales strategies to meet the needs of market-oriented exploration of literary and art films.
"Mountains and Rivers Departed" is the precipitation of director Jia Zhangke's return to the mainland screen after 9 years of "The Good Man of Three Gorges", and many audiences re-acquainted with Jia Zhangke through this movie. In fact, many of his films have become internationally famous, but they are rarely released smoothly in China. Therefore, before the release of "Mountains and Rivers Departed", Jia Zhangke said that its smooth release is a victory.
Unexpectedly, under the attack of the Hollywood blockbuster "Ant-Man" and the popular small-cost feature film "Charlotte Troubles", this literary film with few films exceeded the 10 million mark at the box office within two days of its release, fighting a beautiful box office turnaround battle for the release of Jia Zhangke's mainland film.
Some people say that some directors now have to go through Douban film reviews to understand the connotation of their films. Although this is a joke, the public does over-interpret the movie.
What the film wants to express has different interpretations in the hearts of different audiences, and kidnapping other people's thoughts may not be beneficial. Therefore, this article mainly analyzes the exploration, innovation and enlightenment left to filmmakers from elements other than the connotation of film ideas.
Innovation in three-dimensional narrative: the screen participates in narrative structure
"Mountains and Rivers Departed" organizes the narrative from three levels: past, present and future. Unlike previous films that simply use subtitles to prompt the audience to change the period, this film conveys the concept of time change to the audience through the combination of three different screen format ratios and subtitles. This is another movie that makes a fuss on the frame after "Assassin Nie Yinniang".
While the manipulation of the frame is not uncommon in some foreign films, the awareness of some Chinese filmmakers to turn the format into part of the film's narrative is commendable.
Although the viewing instructions have told the audience that the film will have different frames, after watching the film consistently, I found that this kind of hint is actually superfluous, and the whole film has no sense of contradiction under three different frame structures, and the narrative is coherent and orderly.
"Mountains and Rivers Departed" presents the lives of three young people at the turn of the century in a 4:3 (1.33:1) format. This is the format specification in the early days of sound films, which was once popular in Hollywood, and one of the characteristics of this format is that it is more conducive to the performance of medium and close-up pictures. Therefore, in the narrative of this paragraph, it can be seen that the director uses a lot of medium and close-up scenes.
In 2014, the "now" section uses a 16:9 (1.85:1) format, which is now the most commonly used format ratio. The narrative section about the future of 2025 uses a 2.25:1 format, which is good at expressing large scenes and scenes, so there are many large scene compositions and fixed shots in the narrative about the future.
Three different frame compositions structure the whole story, with the past, present and future forming part of the story respectively, and the three segments juxtaposed to form a whole.
This practice of integrating the screen into the narrative itself is a certain innovation of mainland films, which is conducive to the formation of dramatic intertextual effects inside and outside the film, so as to achieve a "three-dimensional" narrative.
Although it seems that the film is only a useful experiment so far, it is of great significance to the entire mainland film industry, as the film's official Weibo Weibo said of the reason for the use of this format, "A film, see the reform of the film picture." ”
The Expansion of Creative Thinking: A Science Fiction Attempt at Realism
The third paragraph of the film tells the life of a father and son in 2025 after hastily emigrating abroad. This paragraph is the most controversial part of the whole film, on the one hand, in the love between old and young, on the other hand, in the sci-fi component integrated into the realistic creation. Here, we mainly discuss the significance of the latter for Jia Zhangke's works and even the entire mainland film industry.
First of all, it needs to be made clear that this sci-fi attempt is different from sci-fi realism. Simply put, science fiction realism is to integrate the creative attitude of realism into science fiction works, making science fiction works more realistic.
Jia Zhangke does the opposite in "Mountains and Rivers Departed", integrating sci-fi elements into realistic films, which is more like a bold adventure. After all, not every realistic film can incorporate sci-fi elements. Whether the two can be tacitly combined is inseparable from the characteristics of the work itself.
"Mountains and Rivers Departed" tells the story of nearly 30 years, and structures the entire film through three different time points. This way of structuring has similarities to documentaries, and using science fiction to tell the future story 10 years from now is obviously simpler and more effective than documentaries.
Beyond the expressive methods of previous works, "Mountains and Rivers Departed" opens up a different way to develop realistic thinking about the future. In fact, as a maverick guide, Jia Zhangke has always been remarkable for his sensitivity to observing society and the uniqueness of his perspective. Therefore, it is not surprising that the novel artistic paradigm of "realistic science fiction expression" appears in his works.
It's just that "Mountains and Rivers Departed" uses this technique appropriately, without any sense of violation. Therefore, in a sense, he created a new aesthetic dimension.
The love between old and young, the mode of getting along between father and son, and the rootless state of divorced women adrift form a certain causal connection with the previous two stories, making this philosophical science fantasy have a significance beyond the individual era. This sci-fi attempt has become one of the most important revelations of this film to the overall development of mainland films.
The depth of self-analysis: the embodiment of the director's personal emotions is more delicate
Jia Zhangke is a defender of realism, which is reflected in many of his previous films. Although his lens focuses on an individual among all living beings, his perspective can always transcend individual sorrows and joys to derive social significance with epochal value.
It is this overly frank mentality that has led to his internationally renowned works but repeatedly hit a wall in China, but we all know that some things may really disappear if no one shows them.
I still remember that when the mainland release of "Destiny" was rejected, director Jia Zhangke wrote on his personal Weibo, "I can't bear it, I don't need to endure it anymore, go back underground..." It can be seen that Jia Zhangke has always been both persistent and anxious, and the nostalgia temperament in the work is obvious.
Without discussing the deep connotation of the work, only from the director's personal emotional performance, "Destiny" may be too straightforward, and the imprint of the times is obvious that it can even ignore its personal expression and become a tool of the times, in this sense, the "Mountains and Rivers Departed" two years later is a success.
Ye Qianwen's popular song "Precious" in the 90s, as an episode of this work, is precisely the expression of her personal emotions, which embodies the implicit sense of melancholy and sadness just right.
Different from "Destiny", the personal emotions and embarrassing situations in "Mountains and Rivers Departed" are no longer highlighted by a seemingly accidental event, but are brought to life through bland dramatic conflicts and character relationships, which is more calm and natural.
The film does not have any intense events and emotional expressions, the triangular relationship of youth, the divorced life of middle age, the drift in a foreign country... All kinds of emotional points are up to the end, and the realism in them touches people's hearts.
This is undoubtedly the director's personal accumulation and precipitation, throwing aside the anger of "unbearable" two years ago, this film spreads out his sense of social responsibility and humanistic care psychology to express it in a real sense. And the audience laments the fate of the protagonist while also reaching their own concern and understanding of the director's personal emotions.
Enlightenment for the development of literary films: the transformation of literary film sales strategies
For a long time, the incompatibility between literary and artistic films and the current film market has been a major problem for mainland films. In the past two years, although domestic theaters have released some literary and artistic films that have returned from abroad and have topical topics, the box office results are regrettable.
Since the release of "The Intruder" on May 1st in 2015, the problems of low scheduling rate and poor box office of literary and art films have attracted widespread attention, and the box office results of "Assassin Nie Yinniang" have also been unsatisfactory. How to change the weak position of the literary and art film market is worth thinking deeply about by filmmakers.
As a literary film, "Mountains and Rivers Departed" also faces a low ranking rate, but it still exceeded the million-box office mark on the second day of its release, exceeding the total box office score of "Interloper", which is an intriguing phenomenon. Excluding the fact that some audiences pay attention to movies because of the fame of directors and actors, in fact, this phenomenon is closely related to its sales strategy.
Nowadays, the competition in the film market is almost intense, and the living space of literary and artistic films that have always been high and low has been repeatedly compressed, in order to adapt literary and artistic films to this commercial film market, it is necessary to adjust its own sales strategy, clarify its own selling points and then lock in potential audiences. "Mountains and Rivers Departed" has made a positive demonstration for future literary films at this point.
The film's selling point is two words - feelings. This "feeling" includes not only the feelings of life in the movie story, but also the tragic shaping of Jia Zhangke's works finally returning to the mainland screen. The analysis found that this selling point is very flattering, and almost all of the films with better box office results in the mainland in recent years are related to "feelings".
The entrepreneurial passion of "Chinese Partner", the memory of first love in "That Year in a Hurry", and the Hong Kong film sentiment of "Hong Kong". In addition, the latest market research results show that word-of-mouth evaluation of a film has become the second driving factor for choosing a film, second only to the star cast.
Before and during the release of "Mountains and Rivers Departed", a large number of positive word-of-mouth were released through the Weibo platform to guide the audience, and many stars also cheered for it through various online platforms; From the film's screening to its release, there are constantly comments from well-known film critics... Many viewers are attracted to this kind of topical discussion.
Literary films are different from ordinary commercial films, and their artistry has an unshakable supreme position. Therefore, literary and artistic films should adapt to market demand and achieve the great mission of expanding the literary and artistic film market, and commercialization attempts should start more from changing sales strategies.
The reason why many films do not have high artistic quality but can achieve high box office revenue is because they have clear selling points and can impress potential audiences with suitable sales strategies. For literary films, in order to gain a foothold in the current film market, changing sales strategies in a timely manner is by far the simplest and most feasible method.
epilogue
Shen Tao, who dances alone in front of Wenfeng Pagoda, is also a self-referential of Jia Zhangke's film survival situation in a sense. Rooted in Chinese film traditions, draw on Western film theories, innovate film language, and tell "Chinese stories" in a way that audiences like to hear.
Highlighting the cultural identity of Chinese films and getting out of the current lonely state of "high and low" is a transformation problem that Jia Zhangke must face, and Herzen's thesis that intellectuals are "not doctors, they are diseases" has a special sense of vigilance and reflection.
"Mountains and Rivers Departed" had already shined at the Cannes Film Festival long before its release in the mainland, and it was the only Chinese mainland film shortlisted for the New York Film Festival in 2015. This film has a deep accumulation of oriental national culture and tells a bland and profound oriental story.
Regardless of the ideological connotation of the work, director Jia Zhangke has incorporated many innovative elements into this work, integrating the frame ratio into the oriental narrative, carrying out realistic sci-fi attempts, integrating personal situations naturally and smoothly into the film, and enlightening the commercial exploration of literary films.