Stills of "Auspicious Ruyi": The third uncle Wang Jixiang and his daughter Lili.
An auspicious story: a life that grows naturally in the shot
Reporter/Kui Yanzhang
In Dapeng Studio, there is a hallway cabinet with dolls, photos and trophies. Among them, there is a Golden Horse Award trophy, which is the honor won by Dapeng director's short film "Auspicious". Four years ago, Dapeng returned to his hometown of Ji'an, flashing the idea of shooting his hometown, which eventually evolved into a short film called "Auspicious" and the upcoming movie "Auspicious Ruyi".
Until then, Dapeng had always given the impression of being a comedian and director. Those comedies did well at the box office, but the reviews were mixed. Most of the stories are about the experiences of small people chasing their dreams, in fact, those experiences are almost the deformation of the story of Dapeng going out and wandering after the age of 22.
This year, Dapeng is 38 years old, and he showed the public another side of him: hometown and relatives, the world he most closely connected before he went out. Surprisingly, when Dapeng turned the camera on his hometown, abandoned the deliberate design of the plot, and filmed life itself, he made one of his highest-profile works so far.
Capture Providence
Dapeng and Grandma stood in the village, about to separate. The students who returned from the winter vacation saw Dapeng and gathered around to take a group photo. This time back home, Dapeng wanted to say to grandma, "Grandma I miss you", but the words have not been spoken. Before parting, Dapeng was mentally prepared or wanted to say this sentence, seeing too many people watching, the words came to his mouth, and swallowed again. Dapeng thought that he would come back in a month and felt that he still had a chance.
This was 2016, when Dapeng was preparing for the movie "The Sewing Machine Band", and he took advantage of the gap between the construction of the guitar statue in the film to return to the village from Ji'an to visit his grandmother. Dapeng grew up with his grandmother. This time at his grandmother's house, he saw pictures of his family from different periods hanging on the wall, and he had an idea to make a movie about his grandmother.
He plans to shoot the film in a special way. The film will only have Liu Lu, a professional actor, playing a "female version of Dapeng". The other characters are played by Dapeng's relatives. At that time, in Dapeng's imagination, the film will shoot a lively New Year's scene, in which Liu Lu will complete a intergenerational dialogue with his grandmother: a collision of values between a woman who is wandering outside and a woman who has lived in a village for a lifetime.
In addition, Dapeng will launch two crews. One crew shoots the feature film itself, and the other crew records the filming process. Eventually, the two films are edited together to form a nested structure that is intertextual with each other. "Probably because I came from a background in online content, was subtly influenced by the thinking of the Internet, and looked forward to breaking the structure and having some exploration." Dapeng told China News Weekly.
Before the official start of filming, Dapeng did preliminary work for "Sewing Machine Band" in Ji'an, and Liu Lu went to dapeng's hometown village in advance to try to integrate into the life of this northeastern family. But an accident happened, and Dapeng's grandmother was seriously ill and was taken to the hospital. When Dapeng returned to his hometown, the old man had fallen into a coma and died shortly after. Dapeng sat on the edge of his grandmother's bed and decided to still complete the shooting plan, "Finishing this film is a farewell to my grandmother, from an emotional point of view, I need this film to be completed." Dapeng recalled to China News Weekly.
He reorganized the shooting plan and aimed his eyes at the third uncle. Once, when his relatives were working in agriculture, the third uncle was the head of the oil field protection section and the pillar of this big family. Later, the third uncle reached middle age and fell ill and dementia. The third aunt insisted on divorce and took her daughter Lili away from home. Nowadays, although the third uncle can take care of himself in life, most of the time he will only repeat it, "find his mother tomorrow morning" and "Wen Wu Xiang Gui, one two four five". "Wenwu Xianggui" is the name of his brothers and sisters: Wang Jiwen, Wang Jiwu, Wang Jixiang, and Wang Jigui. And the third uncle himself was called Wang Jixiang.
The third uncle has been living with Dapeng's grandmother. A few years before grandma's death, every time Dapeng returned home, he could hear his family discussing the future of the third uncle: As grandma got older, what would the third uncle do? Do you go to a nursing home, or are you picked up by your daughter Lili in a big city, or stay at the home of a sibling? After the death of my grandmother, the person who was most directly affected was the third uncle. His future direction has become a problem that this big family must face and solve.
The relationship between Dapeng and the third uncle is not as close as the relationship with the grandmother, if according to the previous concept, Liu Lu continues to play the female version of Dapeng, the story will be difficult to establish. As a result, Liu Lu turned to play Li Li, the daughter of the third uncle. For actor Liu Lu, this is a shooting experience that has never been experienced before. During the shooting, she had no script or lines, and all she had to do was to figure out how to get along with Dapeng's relatives in front of the camera as Li Li.
Before the official shooting, Dapeng sat on the kang with his relatives and held a meeting. Relatives repeatedly asked Dapeng, "What are you going to shoot?" "What are we going to do?" Dapeng told them that all they had to do was to treat the actor Liu Lu as the third uncle's daughter Lili herself, and everything else would go with the flow. "I try to let them know a little less, and the less they know, the more real and effective it is for me." Dapeng recalled to China News Weekly that he did not intend to interfere too much in the lives of the relatives he was going to shoot, and what he wanted to shoot was a "providence" without a script.
The director's greenhouse is on the spot.
Inside and outside the play
Not long after booting, another accident appeared. After Li Li herself learned that Dapeng was filming in her hometown and that the actor played herself, she suddenly returned home after 10 years of not returning home. As a result, there were two "LiLi" on the scene.
Between filming, Dapeng will let actor Liu Lu communicate with Li Li, "I hope that Li Li's real thoughts can become the basis for her performance." "Liu Lu asked Li Li what she would do if her family accused her." I'll get down on my knees and kowtow to them, and I can't do anything else. Lily replied.
This sentence has always been in Liu Lu's mind. Chinese New Year's Eve dinner scene, the brothers and sisters of the third uncle quarreled fiercely over the future where the third uncle would go. At that moment, Liu Lu had an emotional breakdown, knelt on the kang and prostrated his head, attributing the responsibility to himself and repeatedly apologizing to his family. This scene became the core scene of the first half of the film's feature film "Auspicious".
In the second half of the film, in the documentary "Ruyi", which records the filming process, the real Li Li is another manifestation, and she is more intimate with her father. In the face of Chinese New Year's Eve meal, the quarrels between family members appeared, and she was much calmer. After Liu Lu prostrated his head, he could not control his emotions, and once left the shooting scene and ran outside the room to cry bitterly; and the real Li Li was playing with her head down in another room.
After the production of "Auspicious Ruyi" was completed, Dapeng held a small screening, and Li Li also went to see it. After the film was screened, someone discussed with Dapeng about Li li's performance at dinner Chinese New Year's Eve. At this time, Dapeng noticed that Li Li, who was in the chair of the movie hall, also lowered her head at that moment and stared at the mobile phone. "I realized it wasn't that she wasn't irresponsible and didn't want to listen, she was listening seriously, she just didn't know how to face it." Dapeng told China News Weekly.
In the film, there is no explanation of the final destination of the third uncle's auspiciousness. Outside of the film, life goes on. After the New Year of that year, the auspicious brothers and sisters agreed that auspiciousness would be taken care of by them in turn. Dapeng had offered him to pay someone to take care of the third uncle's second half of his life, but was rejected by his relatives. Although relatives will argue about the whereabouts of auspiciousness, in the end, they still hope that auspiciousness can be with their families.
In the past few years, Dapeng has carried a hard disk with the material of "Auspicious Ruyi", whether it is filming or participating in events, he tries to do some editing work whenever he has free time. In the face of the material, he was constantly dragged back to the moment of his grandmother's death, and was dragged back to the funeral. Once, he stared at the screen and watched the third uncle Jixiang cry bitterly when his grandmother passed away, he sat in front of the monitor and cried with the third uncle for a night, and then for a week, he could only put the material aside and did not dare to look again.
During the filming process, Dapeng made some designs for the story, such as: he once designed a dream with metaphorical colors for Li Li, forming an intertextual structure between the dream and reality, and also designed the plot of Li Li running in the snow and wind, and finally finding her missing father under the fireworks. In the end, Dapeng cut out all the parts of these designs, leaving only the story of natural growth of life. "You wanted to be dramatic, but life itself has gone beyond dramatization." Dapeng told China News Weekly.
In 2018, Dapeng won the Golden Horse Award for Best Creative Short Film with the short film "Auspicious". At the award ceremony, Dapeng, who had been looking directly at the partner in front of him, suddenly raised his head and said to the sky, "This award is dedicated to my grandmother." "Went back to the hotel that day and broke down crying again. For four years, Dapeng once went to a psychologist, and the doctor told him, "When your movie is finished, it is released, and everyone has watched it, this matter has a stop, you go to your grandmother's tombstone, you talk to her well, you tell your grievances and your debt to your grandmother." ”
Stills from "Auspicious Ruyi": Family photos of the walls of the house.
Chasing dreams and hometown
At the end of "Auspicious Ruyi", Dapeng used a piece of family DV footage filmed in 2008. Dv filmed the daily state of Dapeng's grandmother and third uncle living together. At that time, Grandma could still walk around, the third uncle was eating buns, Dapeng held up DV to record this scene, and at the last moment, Grandma pushed open the door to show the Spring League after going out - "auspicious and ruyi".
That year, also dapeng's first year into the film and television circle, he participated in the movie "The Perfect Bride", and lived in a triple room in the crew during filming, and the film remuneration was only 5,000 yuan. Four years later, he became famous for the web series Di Si Man, and later made the comedy films Pancake Man and The Sewing Machine Band, becoming what everyone thinks of today: a film director who shoots comedies.
In those comedies he shoots, he has a villain who chases seemingly unrealistic dreams and ends up miraculously succeeding. In a way, these characters are the deformation of the Dapeng who left Ji'an and went out to wander. Dapeng's life after the age of 22 is a typical story of chasing dreams in the north drift. In college, he found a record company and wanted to become a singer, which ended up being defrauded of nearly 40,000 yuan. After graduating, he came to Beijing to work as an online editor at Sohu, starting as a temporary worker. After turning positive, he took the opportunity of the host's diarrhea to take the initiative to ask the host, and gradually became the host of a network program.
In the years of going out and wandering, Dapeng encountered troubles, and his grandmother was the most important object of his talk. Although many times grandma could not understand what he said, she could understand his emotions. When making the movie "Auspicious Ruyi", when he had an emotional breakdown, he would think of his grandmother repeatedly, "If my grandmother were here and something similar happened, I would definitely tell her, but if my grandmother was not there, you would lose the person you could talk to." Dapeng recalled to China News Weekly.
After Dapeng became famous, the friends who had contact in his hometown were limited to a few partners when he first formed the band. The band's keyboardist was working as a piano teacher, the bassist was working at the power plant, and the closest to the arts was the drummer, who worked in the troupe in Ji'an, which after the troupe collapsed, made a living from wedding and funeral performances. Now for the New Year, if Dapeng comes home, a few people get together, don't drink, don't string, but go to KTV and sing the songs they liked when they were young.
Ji'an belongs to Tonghua City, Jilin Province, and this year due to the serious epidemic in Tonghua, Dapeng could not go home for the New Year, and the screening of "Auspicious Ruyi" that was originally to be done in Ji'an was also forced to be cancelled. He was a little sorry, but he also felt nothing, "will be online, can be seen online." Dapeng told China News Weekly that shooting hometown and literary and art films should not be the norm for him to create, and he is still more inclined to create works with more commercial value. Two months later, his new film will be on, and it's still a comedy movie. And "Auspicious Ruyi" is like an overflow, a dream, a farewell, or a providence.
(Interns Xu Ying and Cao Yuyue also contributed to this article)