At the 3rd Pingyao International Film Festival, a niche European film was quietly released and won the Most Popular Film Award.
The main creators are all unknown newcomers, but they have been shortlisted for venice, Busan, Toronto and other film festivals.
After the screening, many viewers shouted surprises, and even said that if you can only watch one movie in Pingyao, then it is enough to watch it.
It is "Sole" from the new Italian director Carlo Sironi.
Simply put, "Soleil" tells the story of a "selling children".
A set of shots at the beginning of the film simply and clearly explains the identity and status of the male protagonist Elmano: a "problem teenager" who wanders in the bright pub at night and steals a motorcycle from a friend to sell during the day.
His only pastime is to play bumper and bumper alone in the bar's game room.
At the recommendation of his uncle Fabio, Elmano became acquainted with Lena, a Polish girl pregnant with Liujia.
With the development of the film, from the fragmented dialogue and plot, we gradually clarified the main story line and the relationship between the characters:
Elmano and Lena pretend to be lovers and take advantage of legal loopholes to pass on the future baby to the infertile uncle and aunt Fabio for profit.
The assistant cinematographer-turned-director is very careful about the composition and color design.
The film boldly attempts the 4:3 frame, weakening the environment while focusing on highlighting the inner hearts of the characters. The slightly grainy picture quality and cool tones make people feel like dreaming back to the film era, which has the flavor of European literary films of the last century.
The use of fixed camera positions and fixed lenses frames the characters into a scene full of limitations, as if to replace the protagonist to tell the monotony and silence of the day.
And when Elmano took Lena back to his quarters and settled down, he returned to the dark room, and after thinking for a moment, as if with great determination, he opened the closed blinds.
Through the shutters of the gap like a water wave flow, the figure reflected on the window gradually blurred until disappeared, the room suddenly turned from dark to bright, from cold blue to bright blue, as if a metaphor for the two people "may usher in a turnaround" of youth.
As a young mother who is about to "sell parents and children", Lena does not seem to care about the fetus in her belly.
From haggling with her adopter to her expressionless face when she checks the fetal status, her childish eyes are always out of focus, and the child is just a commodity for her.
Elmano was bent on getting the 4,000 euros promised by his uncle.
Fearing that Lena would run away, he locked her in his home all day.
He has always lived on the fringes of society and has a weak sense of morality, eating, drinking and having fun with the money that would have been used for fetal examination, and of course, his favorite game console.
On the other hand, Elmano's aunt and uncle are full of expectations for the arrival of the child, and while doing their best to help Lena arrange the examination, they also set up the baby room for their future daughter early.
Due to the long-term suffocation of the family, Lena lied about the fetal stop in order to get a chance to go out.
Elmano, who received the call, hurried home and took Lena to the hospital.
After an examination, it was told that there was no abnormality in the fetus.
Lena had to confess to Elmano that "I just don't want to stay home" and finally won an hour to let go.
An hour later, Lena found him in the game room that ElMano frequented, and under his guidance, won a bumper.
The light from the machine screen reflected on the girl's face, and her eyes flashed with joy and novelty that had never appeared, which made Elmano realize that Lena was not only a bad mother who sold children, but also had a girlish innocence and liveliness.
As a result, the relationship between the two has undergone a subtle change.
They began to eat like friends, go shopping, discuss the future, and Elmano even took Lena to the party.
The lonely duo seemed a little out of place even at the party, sitting silently and reservedly.
Then Lena took off her old coat and twisted gently on the dance floor in the pink dress she had chosen with Elmano, a scene that many fans hailed as the highlight of the film.
Elmano looked at Lena's figure with some surprise.
When a friend asked if he liked this "Romanian girl", the male protagonist did not deny it.
The unexpected premature birth of a child makes a difference in life.
Lena, who had planned to leave Italy for Germany after giving birth, had to continue feeding her daughter for a while.
Boys, girls and babies who have been sold piece together a temporary home.
The child was named Soleil, meaning the sun, which is also the title of the film.
The sudden birth of Solai left the two of themselves as children at a loss.
Lena shut herself in the toilet, deaf to her daughter's cries; lay in her room practicing her German in preparation for her departure to Germany; and demanded an additional 1,000 euros from Fabio for taking care of her daughter.
At this point, the relationship between this "family" is still estranged, but under the superficial alienation, the inner temperature is quietly rising.
The second half of the movie, you may have guessed.
Perhaps because of the breakdown of the family since childhood, Ermano and Lena longed for a complete home in their hearts; or perhaps because of the same situation, in the process of caring for Solai, the boy and girl became more and more affectionate, and gradually grew up unconsciously.
The cries of the newborn baby tore their hearts and lungs, and in desperation, Elmano took the first step, he tentatively comforted Solai, and Soleil really calmed down in the arms of his "father".
This scene seemed to soften his heart.
As time went by, the boy, who at first gave Lena only snacks and biscuits, began to take the initiative to cook, and even went to work in the old depot where he used to sell stolen motorcycles - he began to want to take on the responsibilities of "family".
Lena, on the other hand, gradually shifted from indifference to care for the child.
For example, at the beginning of the film, when the male protagonist's aunt showed her the child's future small room, she showed disdain, and after Elmano let her and the child live in her large room, she hugged Solai and whispered: "This is our new room." ”
One night, while taking his mother and daughter for a ride, Elmano said that when he was young, his father always took him for a ride, and the only way to make him sleep. The two defensive young men gradually opened up to each other.
Just as both of them were getting used to such a family life, his uncle Fabio offered to take the child away.
The night before they prepared to send Solai away, the two quietly cleaned her, and their love and reluctance for the child were hidden in the tender water in their hands.
This warm scene was interrupted by a sudden power outage, and the house fell into darkness, vaguely meaning that the three-person world was "good and not long".
In the darkness, Elmano plucked up the courage to say to Lena, "Actually, you don't have to give up on her, I will take care of you both."
In the depths of love, under the cover of darkness, the two embraced and kissed, but at the moment when the sudden call light came on, it suddenly stopped.
Just like the transactions, love and commitments between the two people, they are hidden in the shadows and cannot be exposed to the light.
The next morning, Lena took her daughter out for a walk and bought an early breakfast to go home.
The two were eating croissants at the dinner table, like a normal couple, but the beauty of this moment was quickly stopped by a phone call from their uncle.
What kind of future will this fragile and precious family go into? Will the Fabios eventually adopt Soleil?
The shop leaves a suspense here, and interested friends can go to the movie to find out.
Throughout the film, the word conciseness runs through the whole process.
As mentioned earlier, photography is one of the highlights of this film: restraint, calmness, and no lack of sensibility.
The emotional performance of the two protagonists is also the same, and the frugal lines and convergent performances are always grasped in the due scale, without excessive catharsis from the character image.
In terms of sound design, silence is combined with white noise, and only the slightly psychedelic electronic music is used at the end of the film and when Lena dances, which is deliberately intended by director Carlo Sironi for such a de-dramatic treatment.
Not showing off the complicated audiovisual language, and telling the relationship between people in a down-to-earth and delicate manner, this may be the reason why this debut work seems so sophisticated and moving.
In the story, Soleil's appearance is like the sun, briefly illuminating the boys and girls in the darkness, and they are also marginalized people who are tentatively groping and warming each other in loneliness.
The role of the lawyer appears twice in the film, the first is to introduce Lena to the uncle and nephew as an intermediary, and the second time is to teach Elmano to deal with social work and transfer custody, which shows that the phenomenon of parent-child sales has formed a mature gray industrial chain in some areas.
However, the film does not clearly criticize or give specific solutions, but focuses on individual emotional changes, and also shows the distress and harm caused by parent-child sales to teenagers who are not deeply involved in the world.
The film weakens the contradictions between the characters, there is no showmanship, no sensationalism, and even no symbols to interpret, everything is told in the daily trivialities.
Regarding the previous history of the two, such as who the child's biological father was, what Lena's previous occupation was, etc., the film does not explain too much, which also implies that the characters in the film are mutual guests, and focus more on the portrayal of the current characters' lonely situation.
As the director once said in a post-screening interview, "Most movies have a literary interpretation of loneliness, and I want to show the concreteness of loneliness in real life." ”
Although the male and female protagonists in "Soley" are all marginalized people from the mainstream of society, loneliness is the same, one person plays the game console, one person watches the sea, or one person sits at the table where the two once shared.
Maybe it's a moment you and I have had.