"If you can, you can tell everyone that Ah Zhuo can shoot commercials. Zhuo Yiqian, who has just won the honor of "New Director" at the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards, told Southern Weekend. For a long time before and after the filming of his debut work "Diary of a Youth", Zhuo Yiqian needed to make a living by filming commercials.
Some media commented that Zhuo Yiqian's new work "Youth Diary" proves that "Hong Kong films are not dead", and on Douban in the mainland, the score of this movie is also as high as 8.4, but as a low-cost literary film, the box office only exceeded 10 million yuan after its release a week ago.
It's a rather heavy film that seriously explores many social issues and unravels the scars within the family. The movie opens with a suicide note, revealing the despair and depression beneath the calm exterior of middle school students. Teacher Zheng, who teaches Chinese, wants to save the students, but the past buried in his heart gradually surfaces......
On April 14, 2024, Zhuo Yiqian became the first winner of the 42nd Academy Awards, he took the stage, received his own trophy from Carina Lau, and said dozens of names of thanks in one breath. "At that moment, I was really nervous, afraid of who I would leave behind when I said my acceptance speech. Zhuo Yiqian recalled.
The day after the awards ceremony, "Diary of a Youth" was still being screened in an air-conditioned cinema in Hong Kong. Southern Weekly reporters sobbed incessantly, and after watching the whole movie, some viewers used up a whole pack of tissues.
Director Zhuo Yiqian won the New Director Award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his first film "Diary of a Youth". The picture shows stills from the film. Courtesy of the filmmaker
"This problem happens all the time"
Zhuo Yiqian is 36 years old, and "Diary of a Youth" is his first work, but the origin of his creation began more than ten years ago. When I was in college, my good friend committed suicide, and the two were still chatting the night before, and there seemed to be no signs. "It turns out that he was so unhappy, if he could have been explained more in the first place, would it not have happened?"
Zhuo Yiqian's graduation thesis in photography was about suicide, and later he switched to film, and his graduation work was also about suicide. After graduation, Zhuo Yiqian entered the film and television industry as a screenwriter, but his career fell into a trough, and he once thought of giving up. With the encouragement of his predecessors, he simply picked up his dream of becoming a director and wanted to try it one last time.
In the past few years, a number of suicide incidents in Hong Kong society have attracted attention, and there are always some voices blaming the suicide victims, and Cheuk Yiqian feels angry. According to media reports, in the six months from September 2015 to March 2016 alone, there were 19 suicides and seven attempted suicides in Hong Kong. It was also at that time that he had the idea of writing a film about young people.
Initially, Zhuo Yiqian had some moral burden, and he always felt that such a topic might not be suitable for public screening, but as time went on, similar incidents did not decrease, and there were younger suicides, and he finally wrote the first draft of the script of "Youth Diary" in 2019.
There are two narrative threads in the whole movie, one is that after the suicide note incident, Mr. Zheng tries to help his classmates while trying to get out of the haze, and the other is the family encounter of Mr. Zheng's brothers when they were teenagers. In the 1990s, Mr. Zheng's father was the absolute authority in the family, providing for the family's life, but he would be violent to them at every turn, and his mother looked elegant and decent, but in fact, her heart was on the verge of collapse.
As the eldest son in the family, although he is only ten years old, he is under pressure from all sides. No matter how hard he tried, his grades were not satisfactory, and he finally lost faith in life in the face of his irascible father, desperate mother, and cold brother.
Jae's younger brother (middle) and parents in "Diary of a Youth". Data map
The diary is the thread that runs through the movie, and the young Jay can't find anyone to talk to, so he can only record all his thoughts. At that time, the ignorant younger brother only knew how to bury his head in learning to please his parents, and completely ignored his brother's heart. After his brother left, the diary became a link between him and his younger brother, who finally understood his brother and began to rebel against his father in his own way, choosing to become a teacher when he grew up......
"Growing up in Hong Kong, I felt that we weren't used to saying what we were feeling, and we usually went out to play and a lot of people drank together, but it was all impromptu communication, not an exchange of feelings, and we were missing that part. I thought that many things that could not be said could only be said in words, so I designed the diary as a detail. Zhuo Yiqian said.
Some friends think that Zhuo Yiqian has made a film that reflects domestic violence, but he feels that the problems of his original family are only part of his expression, and he wants to show social problems through movies. In Zhuo Yiqian's view, this kind of father figure is very common in Hong Kong society, and it is not necessarily even male, "Hong Kong usually makes more money people will have a sense of superiority in the family, and the internal reason for the father's beating is 'I was also beaten up, and now I am so successful, then I can also treat my children in the same way'." ”
"This is a problem that happens all the time. "Youth Diary" deliberately avoided being released before and after the start of school, for fear of causing unnecessary psychological fluctuations among young audiences. In Cheuk's view, the process of Hong Kong's development from a fishing village to an international city is a history of extreme pursuit of efficiency. Everyone is accustomed to speaking with numbers, which makes it easy for the weak in society to be discriminated against, so that some emotional problems are also suppressed. In the movie, Jay once told his mother that he was unhappy and wanted to go to the psychiatric department, but this need was immediately denied because his mother thought that only "crazy people" needed to go to the doctor.
What surprised Zhuo Yiqian even more was that when he began to conduct in-depth research, he found that although parents rarely beat and scold their children anymore, their situation and pressure are not much different from those of his own generation. "I don't actually know why the suicide rate among teenagers remains high, so I can only keep asking questions like Mr. Zheng in the film, but there is no answer. ”
Jay Tsai (left) and his mother (right) in "Diary of a Youth". Data map
There is no second part to shoot
Walking on the stage of the Academy Awards is both an encouragement and a frightening thing for Zhuo Yiqian. "On stage, you will see your partners along the way, seniors who are good to you, but there are also people who are not good to you. In the past two years, Zhuo Yiqian has taken "Youth Diary" to many film festivals, but only at the Academy Awards did he feel different. "I know almost everyone in front of and behind the scenes, and it turns out that I have spent a third of my life in this industry. Zhuo Yiqian said.
At the beginning of filming, he didn't think about it so much, but felt that this was a story that was "dead" when it was filmed, and even if it was released, it would soon be taken off the shelves. But he thought that if this was his only film, he would have to try all the actors he wanted to work with and the artistic experiments he wanted to do.
In Hong Kong, the first film can be made with government funding, and Cheuk Yiqian is also one of the beneficiaries, and "Diary of a Youth" applied for a HK$3.25 million grant from the Film Development Fund of the Hong Kong Film Development Council and Create Hong Kong, and does not need to be recycled. But when it comes to the second film, the situation will be much more complicated, if it is a literary film, it may not get investment, but if it is a commercial genre film, the management will not trust inexperienced young people.
"The young directors around me are living in various ways, shooting commercials, shooting music videos, writing scripts, teaching and even running restaurants...... There are really a lot of 'directors' in Hong Kong, that is, people who can't make a second film after making a movie, which is quite common. He said.
After completing the script, Zhuo Yiqian wanted to find a senior who was not too interfering with himself to be the producer, and some seniors recommended Er Dongsheng to him. Previously, the two had only had a simple intersection of some work, Zhuo Yiqian originally wanted to ask his seniors to introduce him, but the other party suggested: "You must go and invite him in person, otherwise he will definitely ask the young man why he doesn't come to ask himself." ”
When he sent the script, Er Dongsheng quickly gave him a long phone call, not only inquiring about Zhuo Yiqian's shooting plan in detail, but also borrowing an office to the crew, and saying that he would return the producer fee back to support the filming. "He looks very fierce, but he is actually so gentle. Zhuo Yiqian said. In 2023, the film will be shortlisted for the Asian Newcomer Unit of the Golden Goblet Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival, and Er Dongsheng shared after the screening: "Young directors in Hong Kong entering the industry are entering an industrial system, and enthusiasm is easily consumed, so someone needs help to let the industry see the potential of newcomers." ”
In April 2024, "Under the White Sun", which tells about the problem of old people's homes in Hong Kong, and "Diary of a Youth", which reflects the problem of schoolchildren's suicide, will be released at the same time, and both films will be produced by Er Dongsheng. Many critics believe that young directors in Hong Kong have begun to focus on realistic themes. But Zhuo Yiqian believes that it is just a coincidence that the two movies appeared at the same time, in fact, the movies that have emerged in recent years, whether it is "Lyrics L" and "Falling Flowers" and other works, are relatively private aspects.
"If we talk about the commonality, it's that we're all poor, and we all spend many years making a movie, and then we don't have it. Zhuo Yiqian said. Nowadays, many film companies have contacted him, but the first sentence he said was always "If you shoot again, will it be very similar to "Youth Diary"?"
Er Dongsheng often said: "Film is a commodity with artistic components, and it needs to be responsible for investors. This has now become a sentence that Zhuo Yiqian often hangs on his lips. "Filmmakers can't just say, 'My art is the greatest, and then ignore other people's feelings'. ”
"In the 80s and 90s of the last century, new films were filmed every day in Hong Kong, but now there are only forty or fifty films a year, and it is normal for new directors to get no investment, and it is difficult for investors to trust an inexperienced newcomer. Zhuo Yiqian can't predict when he will make a second or more film, but he describes his current situation as "seeing and walking".
"I don't think cost is the fundamental issue, sometimes constraints can be creative, who says you can't make movies on your phone? Of course I want to try everything, I like a lot of films, life is too short, it would be nice if I had the opportunity to make a different movie." For the future, Zhuo Yiqian doesn't want to set limits for himself, he feels that as long as possible, he is willing to try anything.
Southern Weekly reporter Yu Yaqin
Editor-in-charge: Liu Youxiang