The Paper's reporter Chen Chen
The movie "Auspicious Ruyi", released on January 29, grossed 7.1 million yuan (as of 9 o'clock on February 1), which is probably the worst box office film in Dapeng so far. But this is indeed a movie that Dapeng is unexpected, and the Douban score is still maintained at 8.1, which is an absolute high-scoring film in domestic movies.
In fact, this film debuted in the main competition section of the Shanghai International Film Festival last year, and then walked through film festivals such as North Film and Golden Rooster, and many viewers who have seen it have included it in their annual best film list.
As of 9 o'clock on February 1, "Auspicious Ruyi" scored 8.1 points on Douban
The film is divided into two chapters, "Auspicious" and "Ruyi", of which the short film as "Auspicious" also won the best short film at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards. But such a work that seems to be a "peak of art", Dapeng said that he would rather not have made it. Because this movie is too real, it hurts too much.
It was supposed to be really a "auspicious" film like the title, about the New Year's Eve of a large family.
Poster of "Auspicious Ruyi"
Before becoming a director, Dapeng Dong Chengpeng was a comedian, a "dick man", or a talk show and online talk show host. Furthermore, he has also worked as a media reporter and website editor. Because of his work, he did not have the opportunity to return to his hometown for many years for the New Year, and used to report on the Spring Festival Gala, and after becoming an artist, he had to participate in various Spring Festival Galas. After becoming a director, Dapeng finally had the opportunity to return to the countryside of his hometown of Tonghua, Jilin Province, for the New Year, and he wanted to photograph his grandmother.
Dapeng once participated in the recording of the program "Strange Life", because the situation in the left-behind children's home touched the scene, and then revealed that he was also a "left-behind child" and was brought up by his grandmother. In the original conception, the title of the film was "Grandma". He invited the actor Liu Lu to return to his hometown with him to play himself, hoping to show the collision between the ideas of contemporary young people who have left their hometowns and rural women who have insisted on a large family all their lives.
"I was wondering, how will my grandmother celebrate the New Year?" When will she get up on this New Year's day? What will you eat and what kind of clothes will you wear? In the initial imagination, these simple curiosities may only be related to the nostalgia of a wanderer who misses his relatives in his hometown.
And when he really returned to his hometown in the northeast with a group of people, his grandmother died. So this shooting seems to be "providence" in the dark, and it also completes a more dramatic appearance of a movie with some cruel "coincidence".
Everything was disrupted, and the camera didn't stop.
Because of an accident, a large group of people gathered together neatly. Grandma has five children, the most beloved old three kings auspicious, when he was young because of illness hurt his brain, after the separation of his wife and children, he has been living with the old mother. After the old man's death, Wang Jixiang's maintenance problem became a problem that the family had to face.
Wang Jixiang's daughter LiLi has not returned home for ten years, so it is almost impossible for a "hit worker" who has been taken away since childhood, does not have too deep feelings for his father, and is tired in the city's hard work, and takes care of such an old father. Wang Jixiang's brothers and sisters have their own lives and difficulties, which has become a very dramatic contradiction in this year. This is the story told in the "Auspicious" section.
Poster for the short film "Auspicious"
"Ruyi" is closer to the documentary, Dapeng as the director breaks the fourth wall in the film's midfield, and the life in front of the camera becomes a theater, conducting a social, family, and even cinematic experiment.
This is a private affair of the family, and it is a motif that thousands of Chinese are familiar with. "Auspicious Ruyi" is not a commercial film in the traditional sense, but it is also not a kind of literary and artistic film that is high and low, and almost every audience can enter the life of the film with a strong sense of participation.
Earlier, "Auspicious Ruyi" had been determined to be in the form of feature film + documentary, and all the crew signed a confidentiality agreement to ensure that the relevant information of "Auspicious Ruyi" would not be leaked. So the film has a very unique way of presenting, and part of the film that is first filmed becomes the cause and effect of the other part. "'Auspicious' and 'Ruyi' are two parts of the film, and the 'Ruyi' part is another story, but it has a close connection with 'Auspicious'. It is as if "Auspicious" asks questions, and "Ruyi" solves problems, gives answers, and finally becomes a complete and unified whole. ”
It can be imagined how much impact and challenge The unexpected death of Grandma brought to Dapeng was. As a creator, he needed to overturn the original shooting plan, and as a family member, he had to face the death of such an important relative, so shooting such a movie was very cruel for Dapeng.
The film took 4 years to finally complete the editing, producer Chen Zhixi once revealed that Dapeng collapsed several times in the face of material editing in the past four years, so even if the film progressed slowly, she did not dare to urge, "Dapeng buried the emotions very deeply, I know how much he endured to make this film." ”
Dapeng said, "After so long, the movie is finally released to the audience. I think for me, this is the end of a personal experience, life always has to move forward, new things have to happen, the next movie is still going to continue to shoot, and I don't want to be immersed in the emotions of facing this movie repeatedly over the years. ”
If the filming of "Pancake Man" has become an opportunity to be a director, just in time for the Chinese film "Chicken Dog Ascension", a large number of actors turned to direct the outlet, "Sewing Machine Band" witnessed Dapeng's more solid efforts and ambitions for the expansion of the film genre. The good reputation of "Auspicious Ruyi" from The Golden Horse to the current release may be a more professional recognition of Dapeng as a director.
In an exclusive interview with The Paper, Dapeng said that he was not a college member, there was no clear artistic ambition, more of a record of loyalty to himself, but he also said, "I hope to go a little slower, I hope that every shot I make everyone feel different, this is the goal I set for myself, every time the audience sees you have a new work, it will exceed everyone's judgment and expectation for you." ”
Dapeng set photo
【Dialogue】
The most powerful content is really flowing
The Paper: I'm still curious about the filming process of such a film, what is the attitude of the family to become a part of your film?
Dapeng: Their attitude is to trust me and support me, because no matter what kind of evaluation is given to me by outsiders, my family actually only sees me as a child, and they don't think of you as a film director or a celebrity. Even if I'm not a filmmaker, I'm in another profession, they want me to be good, and if they can help me, it's even better.
In fact, I don't talk to them about the performance, they are really not performing, everything is very real. Because if they realize they're performing, everything becomes less comfortable. So I'm also very grateful to them, it takes a lot of trust to achieve such a situation, if I go to shoot another family, or another person to shoot my family, it is not such an effect.
The Paper: Will the two of themselves as directors and as family members fight?
Dapeng: In some scenarios, from a macroscopic point of view, I do have these two identities, but in the "at this moment" when things happen, I actually have only one identity, that is, family. Because the shooting of this scene does not need to start and stop, nor does I need to instruct the actors how to talk and what to produce. So for me, as long as I'm on the spot.
What you call "fighting", only at the time of the funeral, I may have had distractions. It wasn't that I was going to shoot, but that there were thirty or so crew members around at the time, and I didn't want them to see my breakdown and vulnerability because I didn't want that.
The only actor in the film, Liu Lu plays Wang Qingli
The Paper: If you thought at the beginning that it was just to record what happened, why would you bring an actor back? And Liu Lu plays the daughter of the third uncle, did you foresee the contradictions and conflicts of this family in advance?
Dapeng: When I found Liu Lu, I really didn't realize that there would be so many things behind me, but I simply wanted to shoot my grandmother for the New Year, and Liu Lu first played me.
At the beginning of our film, it was called "Grandma", and I invited her to play me, because I was thinking of making a literary drama, and what I wanted to express was an old man who had been in the countryside all his life and a young man like me who was drifting north in a big city, and they were all women. I would like to see from some of the things that happened between the two women during the Spring Festival new year to see if there can be a collision and a spark of thought.
As a result, my grandmother had an accident, and the whole direction of the matter changed. But it was also at that time that I found that the most powerful content was the content that really flowed, it was not the direction I wanted to make things go, or what I wanted Liu Lu to say, those were the things I thought were simple at the beginning. That's why I say that in the end I'm basically a family member and not a director. There was no way to carry out the character relationship I designed, so we decided to go to the third uncle (Wang Jixiang) on the spot, and only then did we think that the third uncle had a daughter and had not returned for a long time. As a result, another coincidence occurred, that year, (the third uncle's daughter) Li Li actually returned.
The Third Uncle and "Li Li"
The Paper: I myself as an audience member has a curiosity, is Liu Lu's kneeling and prostrating her head her own improvisation?
Dapeng: I think the truth of that part is that before shooting, we basically maintained communication every day, facing the day's material to exchange and share our feelings. Because it happened that This time Li Li also returned to the countryside, the three of us would talk together. One day we asked Li Li, if everyone really talked about your father, what would you do? She said, "If that's the case, I'll give them a knock because I don't know what to do." "This happened before we filmed that scene, or even a long time ago, so Liu Lu's reaction should be that she retrieved a memory of the previous communication on the spot and entered the role to react like that."
True and false Lili is in the same frame
Post-editing took 4 years, and the film was released to say goodbye to an experience
The Paper: One of the things that impressed me very much after watching the film is that you said that In Beijing and Dapeng, which returned to your hometown, are completely two people. What do you think of this sense of division yourself?
Dapeng: In addition to ourselves, each of us is also composed of people around us, because your emotions will be reflected by them, and the lovers, colleagues, friends, and people you come into contact with will become a part of yourself. So when a person like me who works in the field has the opportunity to return to his hometown, the relationship between the people and characters you come into contact with changes accordingly, and the content of discussion and communication changes, and naturally you will feel that the things you pay attention to seem to behave very differently.
Family photo
The Paper: Compared with previous films, is the feeling of dissecting this very personal emotion to the audience different from the experience of making a comedy or inspirational movie?
Dapeng: The works are different, and the experience is definitely different. This work has a certain particularity, in addition to being a new film of mine, it is also a part of my life experience.
So in the last 4 years, I've spent a long time grinding the post, because I still feel cruel when I face those materials. Sometimes I had to stop, there was no way to continue to do it, so it dragged on for 4 years. In the process, this feeling can not be diluted, for me is getting stronger and stronger.
So today we finally have to face the audience to release the film. I think its release is of course the beginning of the film to the audience, but for me it is the end of an experience. This matter is very important, life always has to move forward, new things have to happen, the next movies still continue to shoot, and I don't want to be immersed in the emotions of facing these contents for several years forever. I'll be launching a new movie in April, and maybe it's a new beginning for me.
The Paper: Another aspect of this surprise is that you have made explorations and experiments in form, why do you have such a creative impulse?
Dapeng: It was really conceived from the beginning. The time of conception was in 2016, which may stem from some of my work habits after I joined the workforce. My work experience began as an editor on a website, maybe more than a decade of internet work experience, it trained me a certain curiosity about formal innovation, it is also my creative impulse.
People say how different I am this time, but for me, this time is in line with my previous content. For example, when I was doing Pancake Man, I don't think Chinese audiences actually saw China's own superheroes on the screen, and the image of a Chinese in a tight suit and a cloak was what I wanted to do. When "The Sewing Machine Band" was made, it was also thought that the audience had not seen the actors playing instruments on the big screen, and formed a band to truly restore the appearance of a performance scene. I have seen people play guitar in many movies before, because I can play it myself, so I look at it all fake, and the restoration of the music scene is very rare in domestic movies.
To "Auspicious Ruyi". At the very beginning when I was conceiving this content, I wanted to be able to have an innovation in the form, so that everyone had not seen a similar movie, there was nothing to compare and refer to, which was my own starting point.
The Paper: "Auspicious Ruyi" may be your smallest cost so far, but it is the closest film to personal expression, and it also allows you to gain high honors and word-of-mouth recognition. Will authorization be the direction you'll be more interested in later?
Dapeng: I'm not actually a director who has been trained and grown up in a traditional film school, so for me, although I am making films, the starting point of each film may be different from that of other colleagues. For me personally, I understand "Auspicious Ruyi", it is just a content that I want to express during this time, I don't have so much ambition or think too much, the future may change with my life, because you will experience different things affect you, and the things I may be interested in will become different.
I don't think that this work will affect my later creations, because a work does not represent anything, nor does it represent me, I think it is a product of a stage. As an independent work, it also has its own living space. I'm a person who doesn't like to look back, whether it's done well or not, or the film has won an award, or what the word of mouth is, that's the fate of the work itself. Anyway, I'm going to look ahead and do the next thing I'm interested in.
Many people call their parents after watching the movie, which is the meaning of this movie
The Paper: Before you knew about the history of Dapeng Bei drift's hard work, and then the state of Dapeng's life in his hometown before, what was it like in your memory? What kind of impact do you think that life has had on you?
Dapeng: I remember spending more time with music because my parents were laid off when I was very young. Later, the two of them ran a restaurant and were not at home most of the time at night. At that time, I was basically alone, I liked to play music, play guitar, write songs, play the piano and sing songs every night, and play with myself. Although it was a little lonely, I could understand my parents, otherwise our family would have no source of income and would be a problem.
These relatives are emotionally close to their own families, but the reality is very realistic, and everyone does not have so much time to stay together. I think for all adults, the family environment and the way relatives get along with each other will definitely have an impact, although there is no way to accurately pick out which side of the personality is affected by what, it should be a subtle, and there is no way to specifically determine which part it is.
The Paper: There is also a very touching point in the movie, that is, after the eldest elderly person in the family is gone, it may be difficult for a family to get together again. After the old man left, how did you feel that your relationship with that hometown changed?
Dapeng: They have a few brothers and sisters, and they occasionally get together, but there is really no more gathering. My own situation is actually not representative enough. Because I have been in the late stages of the past few years, this process has often made me face my hometown and my relatives, which has made me closer to my hometown and family. After my grandmother is gone, I will call them often and visit them more often than before. But more children, it is really possible that the elder in the family will be more estranged from their own home after the death of the elder.
The Paper: In the movie, wang Jixiang's life has never given a specific answer, what happened in real life?
Dapeng: He is still in the original place, and after filming this content, I also proposed that the living expenses behind him should be paid by me, and I would find a professional organization for him to take care of him. I found a lot of nursing homes near Tonghua, took photos, learned about the specific situation, the price, and then went to communicate with my family, but in the end no one agreed to send my third uncle over. They could discuss the future of the third uncle fiercely, but when there was really a choice in front of them, no one was willing to let the third uncle leave the family to be taken care of by others. So I think it could be family.
Third uncle
The current situation is that there are 4 people in "Wenwu Xianggui", and each person goes to take care of him for three months, so that it is exactly one round a year.
The Surging News: Everyone's impression of the New Year and the New Year should always be jubilant, choosing to release such a very "New Year's" and very sad movie at the New Year, do you think it is a challenge to the audience?
Dapeng: Through the screening of the film, as well as the screening of the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Beijing International Film Festival, and the Golden Rooster Award, there have been many opportunities for audience exchanges. Basically, after watching the movie, everyone walks out of the movie theater and immediately calls their parents, I think this is the value and meaning of the movie, it will make us think about our relationship with our families, it will make us reflect on whether there is a place where we can do better.
Originally, I wanted to say that I often went home to see it when it was too late, but in the case of this year's epidemic, many people may only be able to celebrate the New Year in situ and will not stay with their parents. I think this situation makes us realize how precious the time with our loved ones is. At first, it was not considered commercially, but now it seems that it is very appropriate to release it at this time.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Ding Xiao