Although the domestic film market cooled down significantly after the "Eleventh" Golden Week, the Indian imported film "Hiccup Teacher" still achieved quite good box office results: the film's first day of release on October 12 had a 11.9% scheduling rate, inferior to another American imported film "Super Titan", but the first weekend box office was nearly 30 million yuan, far ahead of the latter who preemptively made the schedule. Audiences are once again paying for Indian films, for many reasons, of course, but it also proves once again that the viewing market for realistic films should not be underestimated, and it is also a rich mine to be continued to be developed by domestic filmmakers.
Hiccup Teacher poster
The plot structure of "Hiccup Teacher" reminds the audience of the French movie "Spring of the Cattle Herding Class", and also reminds the audience of "Master Brother" released at the end of August and starring Zhen Zidan. The narrative lines of the three films are similar, and they are all a "spicy teacher" who is not very conformist, teaching the story of a group of mischievous students. The teacher-student communication method found in "Spring of the Cattle Herding Class" is the choir; "Master Brother" relies on the teacher Chen Xia's fist and foot kung fu to "subdue" the students; "Hiccup Teacher" relies on the "Hiccup Teacher" Nai Na's entertaining teaching method to stimulate students' interest in learning. ——It should be said that the personality charm of the teachers set by the three films when creating the role of teachers, although each is different, can be vivid and vivid. Naina in "Hiccup Teacher", because of her character setting of Tourette syndrome, has more design in small movements and postures, and also makes the audience more impressed with the character.
Stills from Hiccup Teacher
The most important clinical manifestation of Tourette's syndrome is the patient's involuntary motor tics and vocal tics. When Naina became ill, her throat burped, hence the nickname "Hiccup Teacher". Due to the needs of film and television narrative, the display of the pathogenesis characteristics of Tourette's syndrome in the film does not strictly follow the pathological manifestations in reality. As the film progresses, the scenes of Naina's illness are greatly reduced, so that the audience can focus on the relationship between Naina and the students in the film, rather than watching Naina "go out of the ocean" like a monster.
Compared with another film that reflects on the problems of education in India, "The Starting Line", "Hiccup Teacher" is less critical of reality. Although the film also uses a long-range lens to scan the slums under the skyscrapers, and arranges a small scene of Naina's home visit to expose the gap between the rich and the poor in Indian society, the film's narrative home is still in a relatively closed campus environment. From this point of view, "Hiccup Teacher" is not even as good as "Master Brother": "Master Brother" at least tries to present the many ills of Hong Kong society as a flashy overview. "Master Brother" has the insight into the problem, and can not come up with a solution to the problem. "Hiccup Teacher" is a biopic rather than a social problem film, focusing on character development, although the pattern is smaller, the execution is more fluent.
The campus life in the movie is somewhat strange to domestic audiences. Like "Hiccup Teacher" and "Master Brother", it cannot be regarded as a faithful restoration of the realistic education system, with idealistic colors. Although Naina is engaged in teaching at the secondary school level, she is more like a general teacher who is also a class teacher. This is somewhat out of touch with the modern education system, especially in the secondary education stage, where one of the main purposes of further education is to take the exam, after all, there is a specialization in the art industry. As can be seen in the movie, the courses taught by Naina are mainly mathematics, physics, and chemistry. The film does not present the class of the 9F class in the humanities, presumably for the convenience of telling the story and avoiding the plot being scattered.
In the movie, Naina leads students to do physical and chemical experiments, using eggs and basketball as examples, teaching mechanical knowledge, which is a "good-looking" plot design, but teachers who are really engaged in secondary education know that such a teaching method can stimulate interest in learning, and it is difficult to ensure that sufficient information density of knowledge is imparted in a limited time. The latecomers in the film, in less than four months, ranked among the top students, which is not in line with the pedagogical laws in reality, and is a dramatic arrangement of forced chicken soup.
Hiccup Teacher has no negative characters in the strict sense. Even the eugenics class teachers in the film who always contradict Naina are just at odds with Naina's teaching philosophy. The plot of the film design leak incident increases the degree of twists and turns of the plot, which is the usual and effective screenwriting technique of commercial films, although the watchability of the film is enriched, but it is damaged by the actual referentiality. As for the repeated line "There are no bad students, only bad teachers" in the movie, it is also too idealistic, resulting in the film, although the image of "Hiccup Teacher" is clear, the student group is more vague and is a labeled role.
The idealistic narrative strategy is also an important reason why "Hiccup Teacher" cannot reach the same artistic height as "Spring of the Cattle Herding Class". In "The Spring of the Cattle Herding Class", the problem student Montaine once showed signs of being inspired to be good, but in the end he did not change his teaching and burned the school building. In recent years, with the exposure of many juvenile crime cases, the society has gradually realized that the campus is not a paradise, and the cause of education is not only the cause of the teacher group, but also the cause of the whole society. Unrealistically elevating the sanctity of education is a solution to severe social problems by strong generals, hoping that education will go all the way. Confucius's three thousand disciples and seventy-two sages, converted into modern educational terms, is that the excellent rate is only 2.4%. "Hiccup Teacher" does not avoid the questions of the students in the film about "not all people can become top students", but points to the answer to "at least everyone can become a kind ordinary person", this answer can not be said to have a big problem, or some painless.
Another issue that cannot be avoided in films with educational themes is whether the audience should provide high-quality educational resources in the hope of the high-quality teachers portrayed in the film. Education is essentially a service industry with human capital as the most important input, and there is always a shortage of quality supply. In recent years, the relationship between teachers and students has always been a social issue of concern in China, and it has run through the entire educational stage from kindergarten to graduate school. "Hiccup Teacher" shows the audience the shaping effect of an excellent teacher like Hiccup teacher on the students, but there is no answer or way to answer the question of how to "copy" Hiccup teacher in batches. The ideal vision of teaching and learning for the audience shown by the film is inevitably a bit of a castle in the air.
For Chinese audiences, the bowl of chicken soup in "Hiccup Teacher", probably really worth drinking, is the optimistic and cheerful attitude of "Hiccup Teacher" Naina in the face of her own disease. According to statistics from the China Disabled Persons' Federation, by the end of 2017, there were as many as 34.04 million people with certified disabled persons nationwide, accounting for about 2.5% of the country's total population. Of course, people with Tourette's syndrome are not disabled, but in real life, there is indeed a considerable proportion of people, who are "unsound people" in the secular eyes. Naina encountered a lot of discrimination and prejudice on the way to her job search and in the early days with students, but she was still able to adjust her mentality and fight for her beloved education. This tenacity is a valuable spiritual wealth for both "able-bodied people" and "unsound people".
For Chinese literary and art workers, excellent films on educational themes have always been scarce. The last educational film that caused wide repercussions in the whole society probably dates back to a 1991 film about the life of a primary school class teacher, "Smile in the Candlelight". "Smile in the Candlelight" won the 12th Golden Rooster Awards for Best Children's Film, which is both touching and real. Contemporary literary and art workers, if they are interested in the filming of educational film and television works, may wish to revisit this film from more than 20 years ago and find their original intention.
1991 film Smile in candlelight