"On the Cliff": Mission with life

Poster for the movie "On the Cliff"

As a commercial genre film, "On the Cliff" restores the era with the people's historical view, pays attention to the core of the story and the shaping of the character image, and creates a sentient revolutionary discourse in the overall sense of restraint. On this basis, it connects with history, awakens the revolutionary spirit and heroic spirit, and expresses the theme of "there is always light on the cliff".

Restore the era with the people's view of history

In the sequence of domestic genre films, spy films are a relatively weak category, and there are few good works after "The Sound of the Wind". Zhang Yimou's "On the Cliff" is eye-catching with solid drama, mature film language and wonderful performance, which promotes the development of domestic spy war genre films. Different from the traditional spy war genre, "On the Cliff" does not adopt the narrative strategy of "superhero", but uniquely uses the shaping of group portraits, which is a film that restores the era with the people's historical view.

The film tells the story of Chinese Communist Party agents who returned from the Soviet Union in the 1930s to complete a top-secret operation code-named "Utra" and battled wits with the enemy. Zhang Yimou admitted that "On the Cliff" is the first work in his directing career to "shape group portraits", and he is very involved in making this film. In the movie, the 11 main characters have their own characteristics, and how to express the character traits of each character while expressing the spy plot and using a unified theme through it is a big challenge. In contrast to the secretive and great "Utra" operation, the unsung heroes behind these are obliterated in the vast corners of history. More importantly, Operation Utra is only one of countless actions, and in this sense, countless unsung heroes are the driving force behind historical development. The grandeur of history is established, and throughout it is not only the historical events that continue to move forward, but also the vivid and emotional people. Standing on the stand of the masses of the people to look at history, express history, and restore history is the concrete presentation of the people's view of history in the film.

It is worth pointing out that the group portrait modeling based on the people's historical view also dissolves the inherent "brain-burning" plot creation of the spy war type to a certain extent. In "On the Cliff", when the story is about halfway through, each character in the film reveals his identity to the audience, at which point the audience has an omniscient view of the dangers and tasks that the characters face, while the filmmakers do not know each other. Hitchcock's "bomb theory" states that there are three people playing playing cards, there is a bomb under the table, and if the narrator just tells three people playing cards and then suddenly explodes, then the story has no suspense; but if the narrator tells the audience of the existence of the bomb beforehand, and then shows three unsuspecting people playing cards, then the audience will always be concerned about when the bomb will explode. That is to say, the bomb is a display of crisis, forming a suspense between the audience's omniscience and the unknown of the people in the film. At the same time, when the more unknown people in the film, the greater the tension between them, and the suspense and tension of "On the Cliff" are just presented in the shaping of the group portrait. In the end, the power of the people prevailed. "Utra", which means "dawn" in Russian, has gone through a long darkness, and the light of dawn is bound to come.

The revolutionary discourse of "sentient" on the cliff

As a genre film, the code for the success of "On the Cliff" lies in the logical self-consistency of the story and the three-dimensional credibility of the characters. Heroes come from the people, a play is made for people, in other words, how to create a story embedded in a sublime situation, convincing terrain to shape the characters in the story is the top priority. In the film, Zhang Xianchen, Wang Yu, Chu Liang, Zhou Yi, and Xiao Lan are heroes, who are bold and loyal, sacrificing their lives and deaths for the sake of revolutionary faith, and having the courage to sacrifice. However, unlike the traditional heroic depiction method, "On the Cliff" cleverly injects emotional power into the revolutionary discourse, so that the characters are rich and plump, full of unique creativity and charming charm.

Actress Qin Hailu said that the female agent Wang Yu, played by herself, is not a "decathlon", but a secret agent like an ordinary person. The male protagonist Zhu Yawen said that Chu Liang, a high-caliber agent studying in the Soviet Union, played by him, is an ordinary person with firm revolutionary convictions and the impulse of pure love. They blended the duality of revolution and emotion to form a revolutionary discourse of "sentientity". "The 'lyrical' thing comes from the most thrilling collision between the poetic self and the historical changes." It is a type, an emotional structure, or a historical yearning, containing a hidden driving force. "On the Cliff" is in the form of a romantic legend that writes the revolutionary discourse of "sentient" in individual and historical form. Zhang Yimou said that this is an "extremely cold and extremely hot" movie. Its "cold" comes from the rendering of the overall tone. As the core visual symbol of the film, snow lays the foundation for a cold and poetic temperament. On the one hand, the snow that has been falling reflects the "extreme coldness" of the physical environment and the era environment, on the other hand, it also reflects the "extreme heat" of the character's heart, and "sentient" is generated in between. It stems from the courage and glory of the heroic character Call of Duty and betting on a new journey, and it comes from the phrase "live to find the child" between husband and wife, from the father's look at the child, from the silent crying of hiding in the bathroom, from the spirit of sacrifice for the partner, from the waiting for pure love, from the problem of moral choices everywhere... These details, which run through the plot of the espionage war, together construct the "sentient" of revolutionary discourse.

There is no doubt that the play "On the Cliff" stands up to scrutiny. The film is adapted from Quan Yongxian's novel "Holvat Street", and the story is based on Quan Yongxian's script. One of the major changes is that in the original script, only the core task was "Utra" operation, without explaining what this operation was, and the story mainly focused on how the four agents survived in the trap set by the enemy. During the filming process, it was clear what the specific task was, and this change made the character's motivation more clear, the character's revolutionary belief and pursuit of spiritual salvation more convincing, and the subsequent sacrifice was more in line with the logic of behavior. As Zhang Yimou said: "When specific tasks do not exist, or when tasks are nothing, people's faith has no point of support." Therefore, what should be shown behind the task is faith, blood and sacrifice, and faith and blood must have specific goals and specific things to fight for, which is enough to support the development of the narrative. In contrast to the instinct to struggle for survival, faith-based action, caring companionship, and growing inner self add a poetic touch to the revolutionary discourse, highlighting its "sentient" and psychological impact.

Cinema as "psychoeconomics": connecting with history and awakening the spirit

I believe that cinema is a medium of viewing and a "psychoeconomics" that has a great connection with the audience, with history and reality, and its value is realized in this connection, consultation and dialogue. In this sense, film is a bridge between the audience and history and reality. In the viewing of the film, through the reception of narratives and characters, the audience connects with history and obtains a more general experience, and then completes the inquiry of the increasing moral strength, revolutionary spirit, and heroic spirit. As far as "On the Cliff" is concerned, Zhang Xianchen, Wang Yu, Chu Liang, Xiaolan, and Zhou Yi are people walking on the cliff, they are in the dark, they cannot be reunited with their lost children, they cannot show their true identities, and they are facing the danger of being arrested or even dying at any time. However, although the cliff is hundreds of feet deep, blood and tears can penetrate the rocks. Faith is the light of life, illuminating the adventures and dark paths ahead, they fight and dedicate silently for the dawn, and they have the courage to sacrifice and sacrifice their lives for righteousness after their identities are exposed. They are the most vital people, revolutionary fighters who insist on faith, unsung heroes who insist on fighting, and interpret the noble spirit of "the last bullet left to themselves" with their actions.

This spirit needs to be awakened, the hero's strength needs to be continued, and the hero's story needs to be known by more people. Only in this way can its spirit be passed down and gain the driving force of self-insight and presentness. Today's era of peace and a better life are not easy to come by, and countless heroes and martyrs have paid the price of their lives for this, so only by building a good country and vigorously carrying forward the spirit of democracy and science can we be worthy of the countless martyrs who sacrificed for the revolution. The meaning of history lies in "remembering", which is not only the history of events, but also the history of the spirit. Although the hero in "On the Cliff" is "past tense", its spirit is "present" and "futuristic". I believe that such stories can be widely disseminated, connect history, awaken the spirit, integrate culture, and let more people get the spiritual motivation to move forward in history and reality, modernity and the future.

(The author is the director and researcher of the Film and Television Research Institute of the China Academy of Arts)

Author: Ding Yaping

Source: China Literature and Art Network