The unconscious mental state of individuals wrapped up in the development of the times is actually largely contradictory, on the one hand, it is impossible to get rid of the deep-rooted traditional ideas in the old order, and on the other hand, it is the swaying left and right of the modern ideas of open change in the new order.
The transition from the old order to the new order is faced not only by the transformation of the external environment of society, but also by the transformation of the individual's internal spirit.
Therefore, for the urban comedy films that have emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, the audience superficially sees a lot of life plots that make people laugh and even embarrassing, but if you analyze according to the background of the times, you will find that behind these funny life fragments is the recognition of self-identity and the search for self-spirit in the social transition.
In the fifth generation of directors, compared with the critical reflection of Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige on the old social system and ethics and morality, Huang Jianxin unusually focuses on the changing modern urban life, and he looks forward in exploration and returns in exploration.
Whether it is the "pioneer trilogy" of the 1980s or the "urban trilogy" of the 1990s, the appropriate irony will always use the open-ended ending to complete the transmission of ideas, not intense but profound. Huang Jianxin is like a fighter standing at the forefront of the alternating old and new orders, combing through the collapse of the collective and the loss of the individual, as well as the flood of material and spiritual confusion.
Before, I have already said that Huang Jianxin's "Urban Trilogy" of "Stand Straight, Don't Lie Down" and "Back to Back Face", compared to the strength of these two needleworks, the last part of the trilogy, "Red Light Stop Green Light Line", is much more relaxed. Maybe it was some kind of compromise, but I think he was more about completing the final interpretation of the core of the modern urban spirit.
The location of the story is a driving school, which is in line with Huang Jianxin's consistent narrative style of small and big. Learning to drive is only a superficial appearance, and the most substantial core is to use the matter of learning to drive people with different identities together, and then, in the collision of each other, slowly spy on the imprint left by the changes of the times on everyone, thus analyzing the main factors driving social development.
Driving school is equivalent to society, the display of various unspoken rules is not for simple criticism, but to try to enter the real life of everyone at the same time, try to cross the shackles of these unspoken rules, try to find the remaining shining point of human nature in people's hearts, so as to pass on the good nature possessed in the past collective life era in infinite magnification.
Perhaps, in the process of the development of the planned economy towards the market economy, personal selfish desires will be tempted by material interests and continue to expand, and there will always be a phenomenon of hiding dirt and filth behind the prosperity of society, but the important factor that can ultimately determine the progress of society is the good nature hidden in everyone's heart, which is also an indispensable spiritual quality in economic development.
Huang Jianxin's works are exposing and criticizing the ugly side of society, but he also puts his hope for the beautiful into it, which is an expectation, a yearning, and a firmness.
Therefore, his urban comedy films are not funny at all, just like everyone in the film who learns to drive with different purposes, in fact, they ultimately learn the rules of social survival, bitter but realistic. I think that today's life is like the life of that time, everything is changing, but everything seems to have not changed.
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Released in 1996, "Red Light Stop Green Light Line" is adapted from Ye Guangqian's original book "Anecdotes of Learning to Drive". The relationship between the characters in the novel is actually very simple, the coach, the principal and the car learner, but Huang Jianxin's film has made a large degree of changes to the novel, he has made a detailed presentation of the life background of each character, and then, using different professional identities to highlight the various problems faced in the development of the times.
Of course, a large part of the emergence of such problems is related to the policy of continuous opening up of the market economy at that time. The market is open, the modern things such as the car are more, so when the fashionable things such as learning to drive continue to impact people's lives, although everyone is eager, but they have not given a reasonable plan for future life, blind obedience with the current can not make individual life have a real sense of identity and belonging.
Gou reporter learned to drive a car for the convenience of the interview, but when the leader asked him if it was more convenient to drive a motorcycle, he was speechless; the laid-off female engineer Fen learned to drive a car in order to be able to find a job for renting, but the cognition of this industry was still very superficial; the self-employed mung bean learning car was purely forced by his mother to go, and he himself had little interest; the large-scale old errand car was more for the purpose of being able to highlight his position with the help of luxury cars in the future.
Everyone gathers at the driving school with different purposes, but they cannot give a reasonable explanation for these purposes. The emergence of new things is always accompanied by a blind pursuit of rushing up, which more or less exposes the individual thoughts and spiritual confusion wrapped up in the times.
In particular, when people suddenly break away from collective life, individuals who were accustomed to relying on the collective have to learn to rely on themselves, and this recognition of self-identity requires a lot of experience and a long time. Even though more than two decades of reform and opening up had passed at that time, it involved breaking the original rules of survival and trying to understand and accept the new rules of survival.
In fact, the focus of contradictions in the film is mainly focused on the Gou reporter and the big old man, the former is good at using the rules after obeying, and the latter is good at making rules after destruction.
At the beginning of learning to drive, in order to make it easier for the coach to teach more skills and not to embarrass everyone, Gou reporter proposed to pay fifty yuan per person to buy tea and cigarettes for the coach together, and he also took advantage of his position to take indecent photos of the coach as a tool of revenge.
It can be seen from here that journalists who have been dealing with various personalities for a long time have long been familiar with the handling of interpersonal relationships, and the mode of getting along that should be based on sincerity has become a pure transaction because of the mixing of interests. If coercive constraints in the collective economy can temporarily suppress the expansion of individual desires, then loose management in the market economy allows individuals to continue to flood their selfish desires.
Since someone will use the rules, then there will be people who break the rules, and the breakers of the rules in the movie are precisely the old people who have wealth. He can spend more than 10,000 to enjoy the discount of learning to drive, or he can spend money to ask someone to help start and clean the car, money is omnipotent, at least the old man thinks so.
This involves the allocation of resources in the context of reform and opening up. People who use development trends and policies to facilitate the acquisition of wealth often do not learn how to use wealth reasonably, and the enjoyment brought by materials washes away the improvement of self-thinking and quality and morality, and the slogan of first getting rich and then getting rich put forward by social development at the beginning is also unconsciously flowing into the form, which is also easy to cause the differentiation of social classes.
Therefore, in the film, the old errand can use money to break the rules, and even directly modify the rules, which is actually a very realistic modern urban survival rule, but the film has done a condensed treatment, not amplified and extended, but also makes the audience feel bitter and helpless.
Although the film only focuses on the driving school, it can be seen from the director's five identity settings for learning to drive.
Cheng Fen belongs to laid-off workers, Mung Bean belongs to self-employed households, old poor people belong to capitalists, college students belong to intellectuals, and Gou journalists belong to freelance occupations. Five different identities represent five different values, but there is one obvious common denominator between them, that is, they are all part of the social changes that are taking place.
The creators gathered these five people together to learn to drive, which will inevitably produce various contradictions, and the five people lack a clear purpose for learning to drive, and after a series of ironic things, they have exposed the shortcomings of social change.
It is true that people have now eaten and drunk, but they have lost their sense of direction for life, and various social rules seem to be used to regulate people's behavior, but in the end, they cannot resist the temptation of shrewd calculation and money.
This driving school invisibly represents the entire society, the alternation of social order and the disregard of social rules are accompanied by the confusion of personal life and spiritual difficulties, everyone seems to be full of self-confidence, but the purpose behind the learning behavior to support them is in the blank. In the end, everyone learned to drive, and the coach was dismissed because of work problems, but how to face the overwhelmed life next? This is indeed a question of value that has to be considered.
Society envelops individuals, individuals promote society, the alternation of the old and the new will inevitably go through a long period of confusion, but at the moment, this period of confusion still exists, the social chaos presented in the movie is still staged, the material and spiritual dislocation, social and personal rupture, the new order has been established, but how to balance what is left in the old order? This is indeed a question worth pondering.
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Huang Jianxin's early works do have great practical ironic significance, but they always intentionally or unintentionally bury a kind of humanistic and good ideological theme in these works, whether it is the writer in "Stand Straight and Don't Lie Down", or the acting curator in "Back to Back Face", or even the learner in "Red Light Stop Green Light Line".
Although individuals continue to suffer from material or power interference in the changes in the new and old eras, they have not completely lost the minimum moral bottom line of being human, which is a valuable traditional spiritual quality in the transition between the old and new orders.
Although Mung Bean is unreliable as a person, he is at least filial to the paralyzed old mother; although the big money and the old man are rich and powerful, they are not stingy and finally fulfill their promise to invite everyone to eat at a large hotel, and they also promise to arrange work for Mung Bean who succeeds in drug rehabilitation in the future; although the reporter Gou does paid news, sneaks up on the superior leaders, and even tries every means to reimburse the invoice, he finally tears up the invoice to preserve the last dignity.
At the end of the film, instead of carrying out the satire and criticism of society to the end, Huang Jianxin just chose to present ugliness, and then ended it in a harmonious way, leaving the thinking to the audience.
Some people will probably be disappointed by this and feel that Huang Jianxin, the fifth generation of directors, has compromised to the market. But what I want to say is that, in fact, this is the core theme of all the films directed by Huang Jianxin.
Standing on the port of the development of the times, it is important to clearly and clearly see the various uglinesses that exist in the current society, but if we can extract the good nature and spiritual qualities that have not been discarded from impetuosity and loss, this is the most important, after all, it is easy to find the ugliness of human nature, but it is not easy to find the beauty of human nature that still exists.
Reform, opening up and the market economy have indeed brought unprecedented opportunities to social development, but at the same time, they are also a challenge for individual life. People of different classes and different identities are forced to get involved, they are overwhelmed but have to make choices, sandwiched between the old and the new, constantly exposing the blind obedience of life and the spiritual drift.
But what cannot be ignored is that the sense of unity and struggle that breaks out in groups of individuals in times of crisis is strong and solid, and I think that the human nature in the hearts of ordinary people, which is maintained under the influence and influence of traditional culture, is only temporarily closed and has been looking for a suitable place to stay.
Standing in the modern city, Huang Jianxin is like a "scavenger", constantly picking up beautiful things from the criticism of social ugliness, he is looking forward, and even more in retrospect, just like this movie, selfish desires run rampant, rules are used and destroyed, but because of the good nature of all people, it is enough to show that society will indeed develop in a better direction.
Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer films with such realistic themes, and instead of many fantasies divorced from reality, is it because society has progressed to the point where it does not need criticism?