Interface News Reporter | Yin Qinglu
Interface News Editor | Huang Yue Jiang Yan
"The subjects I like to shoot are all things that people don't want to invest in, the elderly, the refugees, they all find it inexplicable. Yesterday, director Xu Anhua said this at the film master class held at the Beijing Film Festival, which received applause from the audience. Dai Jinhua, a professor of the Department of Chinese at Peking University, believes that Xu Anhua is like a "lone woman" in the film industry, and this is an uncompromising capital, and her film road is destined to be very difficult in any era.
In this dialogue with the theme of "The Long Road of Female Independent Filmmakers", Dai Jinhua, director Wen Yan and Hui Anhua discussed the focus on women's experience in Hui Anhua's films, as well as the turning point of her creation in her later years.
01 As a film director, feminism should start from herself
In Dai Jinhua's recollections, the first time she was conquered by Hui Anhua's film was "Woman, Forty", and she often shared her feelings with her classmates in college classes about "Days and Nights in Tin Shui Wai", "Auntie's Postmodern Life" and "Sister Peach", and these creations are all about the female life of a female director in front of the camera.
But Xu Anhua admitted that he only began to think about gender issues when he was in his 70s and "there was almost no gender distinction", and it was only because he was a woman and knew women better that he happened to shoot those stories. She also feels that thinking about feminism should start from oneself, from examining oneself, rather than striving for it without thinking: "I recently watched the Oscar-winning foreign language film "Privilege Paradise", which tells the story of the Nazi Party, but the Nazi wife didn't know that she was also a part of the crime. This can also be seen in Xiao Hong's biopic "Golden Age", Xu Anhua believes that this film is not only about women, but about the twists and turns of life, so she looked back after filming this movie, and always felt that the concept in it was very good, but the paragraphs and scenes were not enough, "It would be better if there were more scenes of tying shoelaces and eating, and it would not be too much like a montage." ”
Wen Yan also mentioned that when she creates films, she starts more from herself, because her personal perspective is limited, there are too many puzzles and unknowns, so she will invite the audience to participate in the narration with her, so as to have a closer interaction with the movie, which is a better way to tell the movie. At the beginning of her creation, she was also very ignorant of the concept of gender, but because of her doubts, she gave birth to thoughts, and put these explorations and reflections into the film.
Tai Jinhua believes that the sequence of Hui's works is a long road in itself, and director Tsui Hark once said that Hui's works have changed the path of Hong Kong cinema and expanded the creative space and consciousness. But Ann Hui believes that it is not herself who has ideas, but her contemporaries and predecessors, she told such a story: "In 1975, the movie "Chivalrous Girl" won the Cannes Award, and I was very happy, but Tam Jiaming (Hong Kong director, also former art director) said, we don't want to make this kind of film, we want to make modern films, he wants to push the family ethics drama that was considered very old-fashioned in the past to the international position, and the TV series he made in 1975 are also the predecessors of the New Wave. Do data collection. ”
Xu Anhua also mentioned that in the 80s, it was actually martial arts films that really broke out of the world, not the new wave. However, the situation has changed now: "He (Tan Jiaming) wrote a letter to me, saying that if one day Chinese films do not rely on fighting and embroidery, but on real modern life to win awards, then Chinese films will do", this prophecy has indeed come true, films across the Taiwan Strait and three places are developing, and Wen Yan's "Carnival" was also nominated for the Venice Film Festival.
Hearing Xu's response, Dai Jinhua said with emotion that only female creators will return to the historical environment to think, and understand that no matter how great a genius is, he cannot achieve an era alone, but men will not do so. She mentioned that the female publisher Dong Xiuyu was praised for opening a new era in China's history, and she gave a similar answer to Xu Anhua, saying that it was her contemporaries and predecessors who provided convenience and shelter for her. It's an attitude that an accomplished woman would take, without highlighting her place in history. ”
02 Turning point in creation: old age and eating scenes
Up to now, Xu Anhua's understanding of movies has also changed, she believes that those things that are emotional and not real are movies, movies pay attention to views and feelings, and the narrative can be put into TV dramas. What I used to like and value can now be regarded as the main axis openly. In Dai Jinhua's view, "Woman, Forty" is a turning point in Xu Anhua's creation, and after that, more little people and things around him appear in Xu's movies, and there are also more scenes of tying shoes and eating. "I would say to young researchers that you [of Director Xu's works] are over-interpreting, and you are not specifically choosing characters to symbolize anything, that is, Director Xu's friends and life. ”
The reason for this shift is that there is a sense of approaching old age. Xu Anhua mentioned that when he was in his 40s, someone asked him to make a documentary about the elderly, so he visited many elderly people, and suddenly thought that he would also be old. So after a few years, he made "Woman, Forty", a movie about Alzheimer's disease. Dai Jinhua added that the elderly with dementia and disability are not only invisible in films, but also in social discourse: "In my perception, 'Woman, Forty' is the first Chinese-language film to show this issue, and Japanese films are a little earlier. ”
In addition to the problem of the elderly, Dai Jinhua also noticed that there is always a dinner plot in Xu's movies, and she laughed that after watching "Days and Nights in Tin Shui Wai", she came to a very untheoretical conclusion - movies that don't eat are not good movies, and "Tin Shui Wai" has a detailed description of the old woman living alone in beef stew. Xu Anhua feels that she has always paid special attention to details, but sometimes she can shoot it, and sometimes she can't. "The eating scene of "Tin Shui Wai" is so good, because the props group dishes are very good, and they are only burned during filming, and the actors also eat very fragrantly, and they even say that they will eat this dish if they don't eat. The way the scrambled eggs inside is different, some are not fully cooked, some are fully cooked, and they are all carefully designed. That's right, not for people to pretend to eat. ”
Finally, the three panelists also talked about the impact of Sora and artificial intelligence on film directors, Wen Yan has been using digital equipment from the beginning of filmmaking, although she hopes to shoot the texture of film, but she also believes that digital makes the film threshold lower and should embrace convenience. Xu Anhua also bluntly said that she likes technical development, and she is not sad about it at all: "It is so convenient when shooting, and the usage is also very equal and popular." Dai Jinhua added that this may also be an open-minded attitude for women, open to all possibilities, although they will still cry over film, but the death of film is not terrible, if the film is to live, even the digital film industry does not matter.