The cinema that opened in 2020 was unusually bleak.
Affected by the epidemic, February, which was originally full of good films, was also silent.
Fortunately, outside of theaters, there are still many word-of-mouth masterpieces that continue to appear.
Some time ago, this movie launched on Netflix is the most worth watching Chinese film in recent times.
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A Sun
Director: Zhong Menghong
Writers: Zhang Yaosheng / Zhong Menghong
Starring: Chen Yiwen / Ke Shuqin / Wu Jianhe / Liu Guanting / Xu Guanghan
Premiere: 2019-11-01 (Taiwan)
Duration: 155 minutes
It is no exaggeration to describe this movie as a "must-see of the year".
At last year's Golden Horse Awards, "Sunshine" received 12 nominations and numerous accolades.
In the end, it won five awards including Best Feature Film, Best Director and Best Actor, becoming the biggest winner of this year's Golden Horse.
Chen Yiwen won the film emperor
Director Zhong Menghong, friends familiar with Taiwanese films must not be strangers.
He regards Yang Dechang as an idol, and in the eyes of most Taiwanese film critics, his works do have Yang Dechang's legacy.
As the successor of the "Scalpel of Taiwan Society", Zhong Menghong's works are known for their delicate and sensitive narrative language.
Through the texture of the low-level characters and families, to show and expose the problems and scars of the whole society.
This is true from his debut novel "The Doctor" to the later "Fourth Painting", as well as the black comedy "All the Way".
Stills from "The Fourth Painting"
Of course, the more familiar work for mainland audiences should be "Big Buddha Plus" with Zhong Menghong as the photographer.
Under the pseudonym Nakajima Nagao, he directed the film, and his unique heterochromatic photography gave the film the best way to express it.
In the end, he also won the "Best Cinematography Award" of Golden Horse for this film.
Stills from "Big Buddha Plus"
Coincidentally, Lin Shengxiang, who served as the soundtrack for "Big Buddha Plus", also cooperated with Zhong Menghong again in "Sunshine".
However, behind this warm-sounding title, it tells a suffocating story.
At the beginning of the film, accompanied by soothing light music, there is one of the most sensual scenes.
CaiTou (Liu Guanting) carries a knife to the door on a rainy night in order to avenge his brother Ah He (Wu Jianhe).
As the knife fell, the entire right palm of the enemy Black Wheel (Zhang Lidong) was completely cut off, and blood gushed out.
Black Wheel has since become disabled, but Ah He and Cai Tou's life is not good.
Both were sent to prison for intentional injury.
The film takes this bloody and rough case as the guide, helps the audience tear open a hole, and leads us deep into the family of the protagonist Ah He.
As the poster of the movie shows, Ah He was born and raised in an ordinary family of four.
His father was a driving school instructor and the "ruler" and "talker" of the family.
The mother works as a makeup artist at the Wind Moon Place, playing the role of mother and "conciliator" in the home.
The two brothers in the family can be said to be completely different existences.
Younger brother A He has poor grades, has no ability, and always fights and causes trouble.
His elder brother Ah Hao (Xu Guanghan) is good-looking, has excellent grades, is kind, and is re-studying for the first choice of medical school.
Whether in the hearts of relatives, friends or classmates, he is a near-perfect existence.
Especially after his brother was imprisoned, Ahao became the biggest expectation of his family.
However, on an ordinary night, the family has undergone earth-shaking changes -
To the surprise of everyone, Ah Hao chose to commit suicide by jumping off a building, ending his young life.
This sudden tragedy plunged the family, which was already surrounded by yin, into a deeper level of chaos.
How do parents face the grief of "losing" two sons in succession? Where will Ah He go after he is released from prison?
The next plot, here are not too many spoilers, you can go to the movie to feel carefully.
Such a bleak, depressing and tragic story has a vibrant title.
For the four words of sunshine, I believe that everyone has a different interpretation.
Chen Yiwen, who plays the role of his father, understands that fatherly love is like sunshine and shadow, two sides of the same coin.
Where there is sunlight, it must be accompanied by shadows caused by the impenetrability of sunlight.
In the film, the antagonistic relationship between sunlight and shadow is placed on the two brothers in stark contrast.
Just like the "A Son" of the Film's English translation of "A Sun", the father has always only acknowledged the existence of his eldest son, Ahao, and is indifferent to or silent about Ah He.
An interesting setting is that the brothers are never in the same frame in the film in the form of a straight face.
The only conversation in prison was only one front and one back.
When Ah He was released from prison, his brother Ah Hao also passed away, which further highlighted the antagonistic relationship between the two.
And under this deformed brotherly confrontation, it reflects the deep-rooted ills of this patriarchal family.
After watching "Sunshine", I believe everyone will compare it with two other Chinese films.
The first film was "The Long Day", which won the Golden Rooster Awards for Best Screenplay and was nominated for Best Feature Film last year.
Both use the loss of a son as a clue to tell the tragedy of the Chinese family in a poignant story.
But the difference is that "The Long Day" has a grand perspective, and it aims to present the crux of the entire era under that special background and special policy.
"Sunshine" is delicate and nuanced, and it wants to explore the tragic roots of the traditional Chinese family under the authoritarian structure of patriarchal ideology.
In fact, it is not just the antagonistic relationship between the two brothers, this family of four has never appeared in the same frame in the whole movie.
Among them, the two sides with the greatest contradiction are undoubtedly the father and the second son, Ah He.
From the details of the film, you can see a glimpse -
When Ah He committed a crime and his wife called for help, the father only hoped to put this son "locked up until he was old and locked up until he died."
In court, the father even took the initiative to apply: "I hope that the judge will sentence him for a few more years, and let him learn more lessons." ”
He confessed that he had nothing to say to Ah He, and although he was a father and son, he was like a stranger.
The communication and dialogue between the two people is actually achieved through the connection of other family members.
The first half of the film is the mother who is the "glue", and the second half is Ahao, who gives his father "Tomeng".
Such naked irony reveals the essence of indifference and alienation among family members, and attacks the distorted intergenerational relationship under patriarchal ideology.
Tracing back to the roots, the stubborn and grumpy character of the father is already the fuse that causes all these tragedies.
The second film that will be used as an analogy is the "Big Buddha Plus" just mentioned.
There is a classic line in "The Big Buddha":
"Although it is the space age, humans can take a spaceship to the moon, but they can never explore the universe in other people's hearts."
Coincidentally, the director also said when referring to the original intention of the creation of "Sunshine":
"We can never see the human heart, even if we are close to our parents, but we can't fully understand our children."
The best evidence is Ahao's sudden suicide.
No one would have thought he would kill himself, and no one would have known why.
As Ahao's parents, the doubts in their minds are ten thousand times more than those of outsiders.
In fact, in the first half of the film, some foreshadowing has been laid for this turn.
When Ahao went on a date with a girl he liked in the park, he once said that the fairest thing in the world is the sun.
The world
The fairest thing is the sun
Regardless of the dimension
Every place throughout the year
Half the time of day and half of the time of darkness
But it was this fairest sun that made him unable to find the shadows and breathe.
In his last text message, he wrote:
[I] can't find a place with shadows to hide
There's no darkness, just sunlight
24 hours a day
Bright and warm Sunshine
Born in a family that was not very peaceful, from childhood to adulthood, everyone had the greatest expectations of him.
However, it was these expectations that gradually accumulated over the years and became the straw that crushed him.
He is like a non-stop, bringing a bright and warm sun to those around him.
But the people around him ignored it, and he was actually burning himself all the time.
Just like Sima Guang, who was trapped in the cylinder in the story he told.
Choosing to smash the cylinder, choosing to end one's life, is in another sense, the way to really redeem yourself.
There is also an obvious metaphor in the film, that is, the car.
Throughout the lives of these main characters, they are inextricably linked to the car.
His father was a driving school instructor; Ah He worked as a car wash after his release from prison; and Ah He went out on a bicycle with his mother.
The metaphor of the car to life is not uncommon in previous films .
At the end of "Seventeen-year-old Bicycle", rural teenager Ah Gui picked up the deformed bicycle and walked alone in the vast sea of people.
At the end of "Ten Thousand Arrows Through the Heart", Li Baoli kicked the broken car, cursed a dirty word, and then continued to push the car forward.
"Seventeen-year-old bicycle"
"Ten Thousand Arrows Through the Heart"
Similarly, at the end of "Sunshine", it is a mother and son who are interchangeable between the identities of "driver" and "passenger", riding the same bicycle through the streets.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps between the leaves, sparsely shining on my mother's face and on the worn-out bicycle.
How is this not like our lives?
Even if it is dilapidated, the days will always be pushed forward.
The moment you cross the shadows, you will eventually see the sun shining.
*Author: Zhang Bucai