The heroine, who does not have a single line, shines in Cannes

New Weekly

2024-05-23 15:03Published on the official account of Guangdong New Weekly

Author | Wu Chengjie

Editor丨Zhong Yi

  Title Picture | Premiere red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival

As the only Chinese-language film shortlisted for the main competition unit of this year's Cannes International Film Festival, Jia Zhangke's new film "Merry Generation" has attracted much attention since the news was announced. "Merry Generation" is another feature film by Jia Zhangke after a six-year absence, and it is also a video record of the great changes in China's social reality spanning 20 years.

"The Merry Generation" consists of three chapters, the first of which was filmed in 2001. After completing his first film produced in the film industry, Platform, Jia Zhangke assembled a small production team.

They don't have the freedom to shoot in their destinations, in their favorite cities, their favorite places. These images, sometimes purely documentary, sometimes have a small script, but there is no specific idea of the film. Jia Zhangke likens this process to clouds – clouds can move in any direction and form any shape.

In 2001, when China joined the WTO and Beijing's bid for the Olympic Games was successful, the positive and high-spirited mood of the whole society was also presented in the first half hour of "The Merry Generation". As soon as the film opens, a group of rural women are singing and dancing in a humble house, almost as if they were performing.

Subsequently, in the middle of the film, time and space jumped to the Three Gorges in 2006. The rapid development of the economy has also made people begin to rebalance their inner coordinates. The heroine played by Zhao Tao was abandoned by her boyfriend and finally gave up after a period of hard pursuit. She always acted alone, walking alone on the road, or looking at the river from a boat, lonely, silent, and directionless.

Starring Zhao Tao Cannes red carpet photos. (Photo/Cannes Film Festival Premiere Red Carpet)

From 2020 to 2022, due to the epidemic, Jia Zhangke was forced to stay at home and began to look back at the shooting materials accumulated unconsciously in the past 20 years. In Jia Zhangke's view, this epidemic is an important time node for film history, and the mentality of the entire film industry, including filmmakers, has changed.

When looking back at the tremendous changes in the past 20 years, Jia Zhangke's first thought is sound. Once upon a time, our cities were filled with noise, such as the sound of motorcycle engines. Nowadays people still ride motorcycles, but motorcycles have become silent electric vehicles. "Gone are the noisy days of running with engine oil." "Now we have entered the era of renewable energy: it is silent. ”

The crew of "The Merry Generation" premiered on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. (Photo/Cannes Film Festival)

Zhao Tao, the heroine of "The Merry Generation", is also silent. She has no lines throughout the film, which constitutes the biggest feature of this movie. Jia Zhangke said that she represents many silent people in reality. Living from another angle, allowing the characters to speak, the possibility of the story is weakened, and silence represents the indescribable, the infinite words.

Zhao Tao connects these three chapters, and her role in the film is still "Qiaoqiao", highlighting Jia Zhangke's ambition to continue and review his previous work. Jia Zhangke said he saw the magic of time in Zhao Tao's face, "Time constantly erases their old selves and adds a new layer." The object is still to us, while the human face is changing. ”

Zhao Tao's silence runs through to the end - in the last scene of the film, Zhao Tao shouts out a loud "ah" - this is during a certain shooting, Zhao Tao can't help but shout, Jia Zhangke decided to keep it. The film also ends here.

(Photo/"Merry Generation" press conference)

After the premiere in Cannes, Zhao Tao shed tears. Jia Zhangke stood up, accepted the applause of the audience, and said: "Zhao Tao shouted just now, thank you for hearing it, thank you!" ”

After the premiere, Jia Zhangke was interviewed by Chinese-language media, and he talked about the original intention of the filming of "The Merry Generation", his understanding of female characters, the impact of the epidemic and artificial intelligence on the film industry, and the response to the sixth generation "going to sea en masse" again.

The following is an excerpt from the group interview:

The lighter it is, the heavier it feels

  Q: There is a lot of music in the film, and there will be different music in different time spans. How did the director choose the music?

Jia Zhangke: The musical structure of the film is divided into three situations. The first is that my music partner Lin Qiang helped me write most of the electronic music, which is relatively subjective music. The second is the music used by the people singing and dancing that we recorded in the real space we were shooting.

The other part of the selection is mostly rock music, such as "Wildfire" at the beginning. I didn't think much about the era in which it was produced, and it was also very subjective music, with a narrative. We also think that the structure should be a little more liberal this time, and the whole film is very much like a Rubik's Cube for one audio-visual - there are multiple ways to combine them.

  Q: Movies have been using music to advance the narrative, is it to create a sense of unreal, detached from reality but in the midst of it?

  Jia Zhangke: I really wanted to make this film lighter. When I was looking at the material, I pulled the material to fast forward, and I found that we have come through the life every minute and every second, and then look back, it turned out to be so light, you can take it lightly with one mouse in the time and space tunnel. It's like a huge plane, after taking off, its figure is very chic and light, but the lighter it is, the heavier it feels.

  Q: We've noticed that a lot of old old footage is used in Merry Generation, including some 1:1 format footage. When did you shoot these footage? What are the considerations for changing the format?

 Jia Zhangke: When we first read the movie, the senior director said that there is nothing new under the sun, and the memories of people's lives are much the same. This is not a very cruel thing, but more importantly, the situation of each individual. In different eras, the details of people's lives are different. For example, a broken love story can be a broken love story in the era when there was no phone, a broken love story in the Internet era, or a broken love story in the era of artificial intelligence.

We decided from the beginning that we should have a clear story line loaded with rich information about the times and the feelings of the characters. It's like a river, this river doesn't have to be complicated, it doesn't have to be always twists and turns, it is the flow of natural human life. Only on such a stable river can the sparkling, fleeting feelings above be loaded.

In the middle, we also thought about whether it is possible to use the method of time and space interlacing, or the method of flashback, the emotional efficiency will be very high, and the audience will be infected immediately. But in the end, I decided to use a linear narrative, because the 20 years of filming have shown a linear rhythm of change.

On the other hand, our lives are linear, and we can't live a non-linear life. I have a habit of shooting when I see something I'm interested in, so when I edit, I basically keep the aspect ratio of the original material. At that time, it was 1:1.85, so it was 1:1.85, and when it was 4:3, it was 4:3.

(Photo/"Merry Generation")

  Q: I would like to ask a question about the way you and Mr. Zhao Tao cooperated. This time in "The Merry Generation", how did you and Mr. Zhao Tao reach cooperation?

Jia Zhangke: Because we don't have a script in front of us, we are completely forming a narrative in the material. After the cut, we took the final cut, and then showed her the script of the contemporary part of 2022, and she couldn't shirk it, because the first 2/3 was played by her. That's not negotiable, so let's finish the movie.

The characters don't speak,

It doesn't mean that she doesn't have an expression in her heart that she wants to confide in

  Q: We noticed that most of the characters in this film are silent and use words instead of dialogue, what kind of atmosphere do we want to create?

Jia Zhangke: Actually, Zhao Tao played a lot of talking parts, and in the process of editing, we slowly felt that she should be a silent woman. But the fact that this character doesn't speak doesn't mean that she doesn't have an expression in her heart that she wants to confide in. Just like many women in reality, although they speak, they have no channel to confide. We wanted to make the concept of the "silent man" concrete.

But in general, it is the direction of a feature film, and it is still necessary to have an emotional flashpoint and a narrative turning point. At these points, we use the traditional black-and-white film method to advance the narrative, and we also interrupt the narrative, borrowing the method of the subtitle version of the silent film to distance ourselves from the story itself.

(Photo/"Merry Generation")

  Q: When Mr. Zhao Tao was working in a supermarket, there was an interactive shot with artificial intelligence. Personally, I understand that the interaction between artificial intelligence and people and the exchange of emotions still cannot achieve the delicate effect between people. I would like to ask the director what is the reason for arranging this scene?

Jia Zhangke: The appearance of robots in movies is a very deep feeling for me, that is, the times are really changing too fast. Just before and after the epidemic, the activity of technology has also increased in recent years. The first time I came into contact with robots was when I was seven or eight years old, I watched a movie called "Future World", and there are robots in English textbooks, which are completely sci-fi.

But suddenly, when I went to the hotel, it was a robot delivering something, although it didn't look like a human, but it was indeed a robot, and it was talking. I'm really in a trance, and it's been more than 20 years since science fiction turned into reality. When our stills were released, someone asked, section chief, are you making a science fiction movie? I said I'm not science fiction at all, but in reality this thing is running around.

On the other hand, why does this character want to communicate with robots? The first is loneliness. This woman lives alone, and she doesn't have any friends in the supermarket, but a robot will come and ask: Are you in a good mood today?

(Photo/"Merry Generation")

  Q: The actor in the film, Brother Bin, followed the entrepreneurial wave to work in real estate when he was young, and returned to Zhuhai after falling ill. When he wanted to start his own business again, he could feel that he was out of place in this era. How is this character set up?

  Jia Zhangke: If the female characters in the film are people trapped by the waves, Brother Bin is a person who has been crushed by the waves, and he is not even physically complete. This is my reflection on men, on the joys of male social competition. In the end, our price is to crush ourselves and learn from women – to focus on emotions, to focus on life itself.

  Q: Some viewers can't understand that the female characters in the movie give up their lives to pursue (love), which is a bit instrumental. You're talking about people who are stuck in the wave, what do you think about the character setting?

  Jia Zhangke: Beauvoir said a very good thing, there is no such thing as a natural woman, and women are a kind of self-identification in the process of growing up. This movie has a span of 20 years, and this woman is not born with female consciousness, but slowly gained female consciousness in the process of growing up. Her change is from a person who is very dependent on feelings, to being hurt and looking for feelings, to categorically separating, to we can imagine that after people reach middle age, she may become a person to live, maybe there is no need for a relationship between men and women, and it may be possible.

For the film, I want to show the growth of women and the process of women's self-consciousness awakening. On the other hand, this is also the reason why Zhao Tao's clever character is so attractive to us to cut out so much in so many materials that can be cut into many different movies, that is, from the scenes and plots at different stages of our shooting, we can see that she is becoming stronger and stronger, and it is also a process for me to slowly understand women.

(Photo/"Merry Generation" press conference)

  Q: What matters about a movie is not the era in which the story is told, but the era in which the story is told. I would like to ask you why you chose to look back at the beginning of the 21st century at such a point in time?

  Jia Zhangke: I wrote an article in which I said that maybe the future films will be pre-pandemic films, and post-pandemic films, just like the last time it was divided into pre-World War II films and post-World War II films. This kind of catastrophe that is commonly experienced by mankind, and the great changes in the outside, will make art end a stage and start another stage.

It is also under such objective conditions that you have a lot of time to look back at the past at such a turning point of the times. It is not our choice, it is arranged. Then to do this is to follow the will of God.

  Q: The post-reshoot of "The Merry Generation" is in 2022, which shows a lot of social conditions. Want to know how you handle and respond to this history? How did Merry Generation achieve this?

  Jia Zhangke: In any historical stage that we have gone through, if we are interested in expressing it, then we should do it, and we should do it honestly. Its existence is experienced by people all over the world, not just in China. Under the epidemic, people still have their own content of life. Like me, as a teacher, I still have to attend classes during the pandemic. I think it's good to be honest about my personal experience.

Foreign netizens spoke highly of "The Merry Generation". (Picture/Screenshot of extranet evaluation)

  Q: What do you think about the fact that you and the sixth generation of directors have gone to sea together again and come to Cannes this time?

  Jia Zhangke: I don't think there is a collective going to sea, and we didn't discuss it, and we didn't know that the other party had sent the film. That kind of coincidence, I think it shows that everyone still has a (consensus) on the medium of film to express the times and life. Especially in the past few years, everyone has lived in a common collective memory, and everyone has maintained such a tactile sense of reaction.

(Part of the information is based on thefilmstage's interview with Jia Zhangke)

Proofreading: Meet

Operations: Hee-hee

Typography: Sweet

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