The movie "Auspicious Ruyi": wandering, hometown and hidden self

Stills from the movie "Auspicious Ruyi"

If I hadn't known in advance that this was the work of director Dapeng, I believe many people would have the following doubts as I do: Is this the work of comedy director and actor Dapeng? Is this grim and serious work of scrutiny of human nature really a Chinese New Year comedy? Intuitively speaking, this film is not only a conventional commercial New Year's eve film, but also a basic drama. "Auspicious Ruyi" presents only a family storm caused by the death of the old man, in addition to truly recording the helplessness and sigh of the Chinese family under the impact of the contemporary information society, it also shows the director's objective and rational examination of the family affection of the current era. Of course, there is also the ubiquitous goose feather snow, which silently decorates the bleak world in the film. The thick snow fell to the ground one by one, accumulating deeper and deeper, and soon became a background color in the black land of northeast china that we are familiar with, gradually blurring into a regular tonality that repeats every day between heaven and earth, just like the ordinary people who rush to get together in order to make up for the lack of family affection at the end of the film and finally have to separate themselves because of their livelihoods.

To put it in layman's terms, the story of "Auspicious Ruyi" is a kind of life that we can see everywhere in the vast countryside at present, but it is coincidentally recorded as an image to show in front of the audience. In a small mountain village somewhere in the northeast, a series of changes in the family were triggered around the death of the old lady. There is Wang Jixiang, who has lost her memory, the second brother and sister-in-law who have a grudge, and the daughter who has not returned from home for ten years and is a little guilty. The drama of the whole story is that people's subjective wishes are always good, but unfortunately they often backfire.

The story of the movie "Auspicious Ruyi" is composed of two parts, the first half of "Auspicious" mainly tells the story of the third uncle Wang Jixiang, through his perspective to tell the family affection and wandering in life. The second half of "Ruyi" changes the focus of the narrative to Dapeng himself, using the camera to present the thoughts and feelings of a young man who leaves his hometown and returns home after breaking out of a world. The connection of the two parts of the content is done through the scene at the end of the screening of the first part, and the bridge in the middle is the director Dapeng himself - the female audience after watching the film asked a question that the audience cares about in her rational and even voice: As a commercial film director, why did you choose such a theme to present? Dapeng's face looked at the serious female audience under the stage with some solemnity, and did not answer. After a moment of blackfield, the film continues back to the northeast, and the second story begins.

The first part, "Auspicious", is more like a short film, quite a bit of the tone that is common to college students' short film works. Remote mountains, continuous snow villages, the protagonist of Alzheimer's disease, and a daughter who suddenly returns ten years later. These elements are combined to resemble the standard of a literary film. But unexpectedly, the direction of the plot did not go in the direction that the audience usually expected, but when it came to the question of where to go for the demented old man, it was solved with only a group scene of Chinese New Year's Eve night family dinner. Around the fate of this old man named Wang Jixiang, the family had various opinions, and finally the second sister-in-law, who had been in charge of taking care of her at home for many years, left the table emotionally in the face of the incomprehension of the crowd and led to the inability to discuss. Wang Jixiang's world should have been relatively rich before dementia, which can be seen from the mouths of others. He was once the head of the security section of the oil field, and he would also go to great lengths to open the hukou of his two nieces from the countryside of his hometown to the city, and he had been doing his best to protect this big family for decades. Even after losing his memory, he still visited his sick old mother every day. The director does not have much ink on this character, but it well conveys the concept of "family affection is scattered and impermanent but cannot be missing".

The significance of "Ruyi" comes from a couplet, which is the past in a video recorded by Dapeng with a handheld video camera when he returned to his hometown many years ago. At that time, the third uncle Wang Jixiang was still very healthy, with a rosy face and normal thinking, and now the deceased grandmother was also walking like a fly. The green Dapeng boasted to a pair of Spring Leagues that this was brought back from Beijing. After opening the door happily, Grandma pointed to a pair of Spring Leagues and said, This is the best. The camera gradually draws closer, and it is written "Ruyi" on it, and the film ends here. If the first half of "Auspicious" is a director who actively explores the meaning of family affection in the current society, full of a posture of scrutiny; then in the part of "Ruyi", Dapeng completely turns the perspective of narrative into an objective record, and the creator is more like a participant in the image.

The two parts together constitute multiple aesthetic meanings in the entire work of "Auspicious Ruyi". Whether it is the gain or loss of family affection or the gathering and dispersion between people in the traditional sense, there is no doubt that it has been affected in the current rapidly developing social context. Many times, the indifference of family affection and the alienation of the homeland make modern people helpless. It is difficult to say who caused this situation, but on closer examination, it seems that those of us who are in it are inseparable from this situation. Contemporary people are busy all day, busy with life, busy with life, but often ignore the most basic and precious existence of their own survival - family affection may not be converted into currency, but home is the eternal harbor of people's hearts, without the warmth of home, without the call of hometown, we are like rootless weeds, duckweed on the water, even if the surface is strong and dense, but always can not escape the fate of wandering.

In this sense, the audience should thank Dapeng for a different kind of blessing he sent during the Spring Festival, the most important festival in the Chinese. Perhaps this blessing is a little harsh, a little prickly, and even pokes us with hidden pain, but the reason why sincere things are scarce and remembered by people is because it sincerely pays tribute to our original intentions. When I first started watching "Auspicious Ruyi", I didn't understand why the girls in the carriage had to carry so much dry food when they returned to their hometown in the northeast. Now think about it, the "taste of home" that contemporary people often yearn for may be the taste of this cold dry food.

(The author is a teacher in the Department of Drama of Zhejiang Conservatory of Music)

Author: Zhang Yongming

Source: China Art News