We, all our lives, are looking.
Although there may never be an answer.
It was okay last night, I watched another movie.
Zhang Guoguo, Yao Chen, Dou Xiao, Zhang Yi and others starred in the 2016 Lunar New Year movie "Everything Is Okay".
After watching it, I wondered why such a deep movie was draped in a funny gimmick for the New Year.
This is obviously one of the most in-depth films in the history of Chinese cinema for so many years.
Reflecting reality and understanding the essence of the phenomenon, there is no pretentious pursuit of a happy ending, but a realistic portrayal of the original face of life.
The film is about a retired geological team member played by Zhang Guoguo, because his wife died, and he wants to see his four children who are now living in the world to see how they are doing.
So he hit the road.
The first stop he made was the home of the photographer's eldest son in Beijing, but the door was locked, and he waited all night, not waiting for his son to return.
So, in the midst of loss, he set off for Hangzhou.
When he arrived in Hangzhou, he saw the eldest daughter he thought about day and night, Guan Qing played by Yao Chen, but Guan Qing saw his father suddenly appear, and it was difficult to hide his shock.
Because she had just received the news that his brother, the photographer who was in charge of collecting wind in Tibet, suddenly disappeared, she was anxious like an ant on a hot pot, and she had just experienced a divorce, and these two major events were carried out in secret from her father.
But after years of workplace experience, Yao Chen still handled it very well, and in order to comfort his father, he forcibly pulled his divorced ex-husband to help act - still strong.
Later, he finally sent his father to the second brother's house.
Dou Xiaoyan's second brother is an unreliable master of selling houses and starting a business, and Zhang Guoli has also witnessed all kinds of hardships in his son's entrepreneurship.
There are obvious barriers to paternity communication.
The three views are different, and water and fire are intolerable.
Zhang Guoli remembered to go to see his youngest daughter, Guan Chu, Guan Chu was a ballet dancer since childhood, went to Macau for his dreams, but the result was sad, Guan Chu had obviously given up his original dream.
Zhang Guoli was devastated, robbed by gangsters, unconscious in the rain, and when he woke up again, it was already four children around the bed, the family reunion moment.
The story is not complicated, thrilling, and does not have the nonsense funny elements of the Chinese New Year film, it reflects the deep social reality, and the dilemma that each of us who is a child or parent is facing or will face.
However, the surprise of this movie is that the same old wine is made with a brand new bottle.
Film is an art, and the most important thing in art is form.
At the end of the story, the screenwriter did not deal with contradictions in a conventional way, but respected reality and respected the laws of artistic creation.
Unlike many family ethics dramas, at the end of the story, Yao Chen did not reconcile with her ex-husband Zhang Yi to satisfy her father's imagination, she is still a strong woman.
Independent, autonomous, their own marriage is up to themselves.
Dou Xiao insisted on starting a business, and obviously did not succeed, he still distributed leaflets on the street and was chased by the city management. Presumably, he must have made the wrong decision to sell the house.
The ideal is very full, the reality is very bone.
What awaits Dou Xiao is certainly not a kangzhuang avenue.
The eldest son has returned, and probably also picked up a life in the hands of the god of death, but Chen He does not have the artistic temperament of a photographer from his image to temperament, and he is still flowing with Zeng Xiaoxian (the biggest failure of the film).
Mean, and mean looks make people play.
The youngest daughter, Guan Chu, gave up her dream of ballet, and she realized that she had no talent, but the artist relied on talent.
Giving up, is it not a kind of fulfillment of oneself?
Four people, four stories, four lives, as a father, Zhang Guoguo did not interfere with the freedom of choice of his children, but chose to return to his hometown and return to the place where he belonged.
As I said, this is the most in-depth film in the history of Chinese cinema in so many years.
Because he didn't force a story reunion to satisfy the poor utopian fantasies deep within the audience's hearts.
Yao Chen did not remarry, Dou Xiao did not succeed in starting a business, Chen He returned from death but also saw through life, Guan Chu gave up his dream and chose to be an ordinary person.
This is very different from the previous narrative of Chinese films, sober, calm, objective, neutral, and the director shot the film from a completely spectator perspective.
And he has his intentions, or appeals.
That is, he wants to convey a whole new philosophy, a whole new ethic, marriage, love, family, life, career, dreams, reality, and so on, and so on.
As adult individuals, we should all be independent, autonomous, and unintrusive by anyone, even if that person is our own father, we still can't get out of it.
This is a completely new concept.
The right and civilized philosophy.
However, it is the first time that such a simple truth has really reached the big screen to tell the audience.
This is the greatest meaning of this movie.
Moreover, this film actually has his deeper and more secret appeal, that is, the destruction of tradition.
Not broken, not standing.
The symbol that destroys tradition is Zhang Guoguo, the father in the film.
He represents patriarchal culture, traditional culture, and outdated and conservative culture.
In the end, Zhang Guoli, in a sigh, chose to return to his hometown, in fact, announcing the film's success in destroying patriarchal culture.
On another level, the film is also explicitly and implicitly showing feminism, and it can be said that this film is also an ode and praise for women.
In the traditional cultural narrative, Yao Chen must compromise, for the sake of his son, for the sake of his father, for his husband (is there a shadow of three from four virtues?). ), and finally reunited with her ex-husband.
But in this movie, there is no, Yao Chen still chooses to be single.
This is an attitude that clearly declares that women will no longer be attached to men and will live according to men's three views.
He likes the obedient little nurse, so go for him.
Another character in the story who has never appeared, but who has a strong sense of existence from beginning to end, is Zhang Guoguo's wife, the soul character in this movie, the mother.
From the beginning of Zhang Guoguo's journey to find his children, to the end of the story, it is all for this woman, and it is also this woman, so that Zhang Guoli's search for a new life on the road.
She is the mother, and the mother of all men, and she can be said to be a cultural symbol that guides sentient beings to find their own lighthouse.
Especially in the story, the secret of each child is actually known to the mother, but the father has been absent.
It is impossible not to say that the meaning is profound.
Of course, the most colorful stroke of this movie is the light emitted from the youngest daughter Guan Chu.
Although the movie does not explicitly say that Guan Chu is a lesbian, everyone knows that she is.
She is a brave woman who, like her sister, chooses the life she wants, including love and a partner.
And the most shocking thing is that the father in the movie, Zhang Guoguo, gives recognition and recognition to his daughter's choice, although he does not understand, but he respects.
This is love in the true great sense.
Although I can't accept it, I respect your choice.
This is civilization.
Great love Yao Chen.
It is hard to imagine that she is still the grinning Guo Furong in "The Legend of Wulin" that year.
It can be said that in recent years, her film and television dramas have been shining, for no reason, as she herself said, I want to be a thoughtful actor.
The mind is mellow.
The acting skills are mellow.
You are the daughter of Fuzhou Sanfang Seven Alleys!