Estimated reading time: 18 minutes
Last year's 56th Golden Horse Awards was an epoch-making year for Malaysian Chinese films. In terms of numbers, there are 11 Malaysian filmmakers who have been shortlisted for 13 awards, regardless of the number of awards, all of which have reached a new high. Compared with last year's considerable "quantity", this year's (2020) Golden Horse Awards shortlisted for the two Malaysian Chinese films "Nan Wu" and "You Are a Pig" (Note 1), although the quantity is not as good, but the "quality" of each other gives me more "this film can only be filmed by Malaysian Chinese".
As a lost film fan in the world, unfamiliar with this distant country, because of Liao Kefa's lens, rough understanding of the Communist Party of Malaysia, and then because of the film of Yasmin Ahmad, a college expatriate classmate, he knew about unfair ethnic policies, but his knowledge was always limited. This year,around huang Mingzhi's angry latest masterpiece "You Are a Pig", led by the campus brawl incident, although there is no lack of stereotypes and simplifications, it is enough to quickly grasp the malay, Chinese, and Indian racial entanglements in 62 minutes like a lazy bag, which can be said to have a long knowledge; and "Southern Witch", directed by Zhang Ji'an and shortlisted for the Golden Horse Award for Best New Director and Original Screenplay, is even more amazing, whether in the film form and local performance, it is a high art boldness.
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Frankly speaking, this is not an easy movie to "understand", but it has the aftertaste of hooking people.
At first glance at "Southern Witch", it is easy to be confused by complex cultural elements such as language, ethnicity, and rituals, but with the "main line" floating, the bottom card is out, as if it is touched by something, inexplicably touching, and I want to relive it. The second brush of "Southern Witch", deeply understand the exquisite layout of the film, but also by those distant mountains and rice waves and smoke clouds in the film that look ordinary scenery at first glance, in fact, there is a mixture of people, ghosts, gods, and immigrants of different ethnic groups coming and going to and from this land, but always looking at others outside the border, becoming a low-pitched melancholy of the psychological "remnants"; in detail, the director, as a son of man, dedicates his work to his parents and even the practice of various staggered generations, and also has a private introspective self-observation.
The story is not complicated, in short, the childhood of the father's head: in 1987, in northern Malaysia, near the Thai state of Kedah, under the elephant island, a Chinese couple Achang Ayan lived here. In order to drive away snakes, Ah Chang accidentally broke the wooden door of the Siamese neighbor Anan's house, and Anand had an accident that night and died suddenly in a car accident. Soon after, on a seemingly ordinary day, Ah Chang was catching fish in the field, suddenly fell to the ground, and then spat out a shocking bucket of rusty iron nails... Ah Yan is from Johor Bahru, near Singapore, South Malaysia, with a Western education, she initially refused to believe in the strange power of the gods, faced with her husband did not know what strange diseases, asked for Western medicine without results, asked Dato's male children, into the mountain god mother-in-law cave. Finally, from the mouth of the Malay wizard, he learned that there was a descending ghost in the tree outside the house, and secretly pulled away the clothes that their family had sunburned outside the house... At the end, Ah Yan obeyed the wizard's strategy, dug out a straw man with a ghost under the tree, together with clothes and the statue of Datuk, and threw it into the sea with the assistance of the mountain god's mother-in-law, successfully saving her husband's life.
Very different from the Hong Kong and Taiwan head films' hymns on the details of the spell procedure, the fierce mutated body, the fighting methods of good and evil wizards and other spectacles (Note 2), "Southern Witch" skimmed by in simple brushes, folding the shadows in the gaps in reality, allowing it to float naturally. The viewer must exert his initiative, pick up the small clues that lurk in the daily life, and on the premise that it is difficult to find a clear linear cause and effect, he will independently collage and connect, and touch one corner of the great mysterious reality - on this basis, the audience can be said to be placed in a position near Ah Yan, feeling the unknown and the edge, and the pervasive fear.
To take an example, how did Ah Chang get down to the head? On closer examination, it is related to Aunt Kaew (Anan's mother, which is a common name in Thailand) played by Cai Baozhu, and it should be that she suspects that her son's death is Achang's ghost, and casts a spell to retaliate. However, the information about the process of "how" happens is quite limited: in the middle of the night after Anand was killed by a truck, the film arranges a long-range picture taken from the protagonist's home (still half-covered by curtains), allowing the audience to look at Aunt Kaew holding a candle, approaching the potted plants between the two houses and the statue of Datuk Gong "did something" - what was actually done, not closely written - and then left with the suitcase; then the movie cut into the late-night empty scene of the big tree, ah yan's bed sleep close-up, and somehow came the ghostly mantra ... The audience, like the characters, is covered with hindsight shadows, wide-eyed and anxious in the film a large number of long-range scenes look around for reasons, when you are at the end of the movie, looking at the Datuk god statue thrown into the sea biting the straw man, and with a rare close-up in the film, whether you will also recall the first half of the movie, "Uncle Tian" appeared in Aunt Kaew's about to deserted field, the background song sang "You retreat and avoid, if you do not retreat, I will curse you", while creeping and dancing, while mouthing the grass, this magical scene, And what about brain connections for these two scenes?
In this way, "dailyizing highly dramatic elements" (Note 3), which highly relies on retrospective understanding and amplification of details, in addition to substituting the viewer into the protagonist's uneasy physiological perception, its kneading reality into artistic hand strength is also reminiscent of director Hou Xiaoxian (Note 4). If we say that Bi Gan's "Roadside Picnic" in 2015 and Zhang Dalei's "August" in 2016 let us clearly see how the seeds of Taiwan's new films flutter overseas, take root and sprout and then drift back, this year's new film legacy, with Chinese films have no chance to enter the Golden Horse Gate, Taiwanese films have expanded towards commercial genres, and more and more richly manifested in the thriving "Southern Witch". For example, various comments on Hou's films: "In the new film works, death comes without warning and in the most ordinary circumstances", "The inevitable reality – food, scenery, nature – is more important than our story and forms the basis of human experience", can be found in "Southern Witch" with rice paddies, trees, distant mountains, clothes, shrimp, curry, dried meat stacked on the trivial daily life.
Of course, elements like Hou Dao are not rare, going dramatic, trivial everyday, deliberately not telling you, and never directly equating with artistry.
One of the keys to the "boring" and "good-looking" of Hou Xiaoxian's films lies in the innovative use of delayed exposition. The so-called delayed narrative means that under the continuous progress of the timeline, it is different from allowing the audience to continuously and progressively understand the whole picture of the narrative, but first throw out some seemingly unrelated information, and then reveal the correlation and intention, resulting in the viewer's delayed understanding, resulting in a sudden realization, the original everything has been traced. In fact, "delayed narratives are not new, especially in Hollywood (suspense is made up of it)." But Hou's originality lies in his unique treatment of the narrative of delay: secondary events and major events, intermingled equally, and we are rarely prepared for the latter to happen. ”
The so-called "secondary events and major events", in Hou's films, such as a large number of daily piles and three deaths in "Childhood Past"- because the former piles up time and is unaware, to the point that the characters are perfunctory and numb, and when the latter appears, they are more caught off guard and weak; in "Southern Witch", not only the crisis and climax are handled daily, but also a more extreme and ingenious detail, such as the cause of the major event that caused this effect before Ah Chang caught a fish in the field and suddenly fell (from behind, it should be clothes), The handling is very bland, (non-Malaysian background, familiar with the head down) is not easy to perceive that there is something wrong, but when you carry the cognition of "it is the clothes are ghosted" to recall/re-brush, another layer of fear rises - because the film is filmed through the voiceover to express that when Ah Chang can't find clothes, the image jumps to cut to the scene at this time when the clouds are light and the wind is light, but when you think back to it, it makes your back chill: in the daytime, next to the tree that is attached to the invisible descending ghost, A group of children (including childhood director Ahn) are playing in ignorance (Note 5); so the secondary event not only diverts our attention from the major event, but also seems to foreshadow another hidden major event (which may have happened but [fortunately] did not happen in the film), once again echoing the daily dangers.
Similar to the artistic ambition of silent but hidden multiple mysteries, with the main and secondary lines crossing concealment, side jumping shot (cutaway), natural air scenes and other techniques throughout the film, Zhang Ji'an's deployment patience, trust in the audience's insight, for only the first time to direct but exceptionally sophisticated feature film works, inject watchability and endurance.
As a world where ghosts and gods coexist, "Southern Witch" also involves how the "invisible" animism is reproduced, which is delicate in this exhibition: in addition to the mountain god mother-in-law who first "sounds" and then seduces the eyes to find "shadows" in the shadows, the silent but silent characters (and the audience) are chicken and feathery, "can't look back!" "The descending ghost, which is "visible" in the first and still breath-taking apparitions inspired by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, there are also sudden flashes of supernatural interludes (such as the taxi that seems to have hit something on the way home from the hospital), the low-lying shots hidden in the grass under the hospital seat (in fact, the first scene of the first scene after the opening shadow puppet scene, the camera is mounted in the low behind The Datuk Gong, looking up to see the snake panic Achan), This kind of more common type of interesting "invisible" trick; mention another detail that is easy to "turn a blind eye" - after being reminded by a sharp-eyed friend, it is found that when Ah Chang was paralyzed and sent home, there was a long-range jumping shot inserted into a statue of Datuk Outside the door, and if you look closely, the incense burner in front of the statue is being fired! There is worship and there is really a blessing, and the gods are silently paying attention. The whole film pays more attention to the environment than the wide format of the small individual, and it is intriguing to turn and taste.
In retrospect, whether it's the delayed narratives of Hou Xiaoxian's films or Southern Witches (or arguably, the delayed narratives have been internalized into the overall narrative structure of these films), the brilliance is not just "boring and good-looking" or "the audience must invest enough effort to get the benefits (?). "Pleasure" also involves a worldview that mixes everything "equally in status", and when the audience lifts the clouds and looks up with the narrative of the film, it also understands the throbbing of the creator's vision behind this worldview.
The whole film is 105 minutes long, about the second half of the 70 minutes, through the heroine's action from "unbelief" to "willing to try", bringing out the coincidence with the mother-in-law of the mountain god (or it should be said that it is inevitable under the secret protection of the gods), and putting up the emotional bottom card under the surface of the evil story - the sorrow of the scattered Chinese. In this ancient drama, the mother-in-law of the mountain god told the truth that her real name was Ke Niang, originally a princess of Quanzhou, who came here with the prime minister, and when she stopped at the harbor of Kedah, she was looked at by the malay wizard riding an elephant, and Ke Niang did not follow, and the wizard took revenge, so that the elephant sucked dry the sea, the boat became a mountain, the boat was blown away by the wind, the crew was buried in a foreign land, and Ke Niang was trapped and could not return home. In addition to the moving legend itself, it is more important that Zhang Ji'an deals with it in a very cinematic way: this set of video montages with the oral voice of the mountain god's mother-in-law (singing with different people) is assembled from the inside scene of the cave, and the previously frequently interspersed and seemingly single-function air scenes of Kedah State, such as the distant shadow of the lonely mountain like a quiet mountain, the endless rice sea in the autumn wind, and the field mound of the mound of the mound, which is inserted again at this moment, the ordinary scenery is amazingly injected with strong emotion, the scenery is love, the wind is crying, and people are crying.
However, what is choked up is not only the ancient legendary figures who are superficially stated, but also the ghosts and shadows that are scattered in this land, the trance of people's hearts, and the common mourning after various losses and confrontations.
At the end of the film, there was a small boat in the sea, and all the problems seemed to have been solved, and the mountain god mother-in-law said to Ah Yan: "You can go home, but I can't cross this border, I can't go back to my hometown." "Southern Witch" through the mountain god mother-in-law "really can't go back to the hometown" of the actual declaration, Qu Shootyu visits the characters " obviously in the 'hometown', but not the 'hometown'" contradictory feelings. Through the word card, the film clearly states that this is a story that takes place in the "border", Kedah was once a territory of the ancient siamese country, and although it belongs to Malaysia today, the people living on it are still deeply influenced by the civilization and beliefs of the past. Although the protagonists in the film have different language tones, they are all Chinese immigrants with discrete backgrounds (Note 6): Ah Yan is from Johor Bahru in South Malaysia, Aunt Kaew and Anan, who occasionally switch to Siamese, and from the far northerner Border Town of Danno. The state of "hometown is not hometown" is not only caused by external exclusion, the political level of the film point so far - the Limitation of Chinese Rights and Interests by the Malays, the suppression of the Dialect Community by the "speak more Chinese, not speak dialect" movement; there are also inner thoughts, yearning for the other side of the moon, lack of confidence in their own country, the aunt of the vegetable market always feels that Thai shrimp is more fragrant than local seafood. Look at the inhuman world in the film, the abandoned Buddha statue outside the Siamese Buddhist Temple that is climbed by a group of monkeys, the mother-in-law of the mountain god who loves to wear sarongs and eat betel nut Malays, and the descending ghost of the Japanese dancing image (World War II Nanyang Japanese soldier?). ), all with a sense of dislocation of "body" and not self.
In the face of the drifting zeros who cannot take root and dangle slowly, Zhang Ji'an adopts a symbolic compassion and look down on The Similar Hou Dao, looking at all sentient beings and spirits equally, existing and ignoring, and constantly observing. This perspective makes "Southern Witch" more parting ways with most downside movies. There are often "perpetrators" in the films that descend their heads, and under the framework of often adopting the opposition between good and evil, it is the highlight of revealing who is the perpetrator, which is usually carefully arranged to surprise and satisfy the audience. However, in "Southern Witch", except for about 43 minutes, with ah chang not being ignored by Ah Yan (I am afraid that at this time it is not taken seriously by the audience), "I want to talk to her (Kaew aunt), she thinks that I killed Anand, maybe she will untie my head" refers to the scene, closer to "reveal" but lacks the function of "reveal", located in the video montage of the oral encounter of the mountain goddess mother-in-law, it is a picture of Kaew aunt with her back to the audience and sitting cross-legged in front of the potted plant - again, What is she doing head-on? In the magic? I didn't show it to you; the preceding and posterior accounts of this set of images are clearly not intended to reveal the explosion point or enhance the spectacle, but to string together her and the mourning of the remnants.
The accusations against the "perpetrator" have been downplayed, and under the framework of maintaining "my husband has a strange disease, what should I do" and taking Ah Yan's actions as the main axis, the film then uses The Siamese scriptures of Aunt Kaew to chant the shadow puppet ceremony and embrace the soul of her son, these two insertion clips, through Cai Baozhu's brilliant performance, to achieve heart-rending sorrow, but people are confused, is it really the poisoned hand of this weak woman who also advised Anan not to quarrel at the beginning? The truth was shelved, the position of good and evil was questioned, she should just be tricked by fate to cause her son to die early, but also because of ethnic differences and misunderstandings (Thai also think that the Chinese will take revenge?). And the poor bereaved man who is in danger?! As an autobiography that opens with the explicit statement that it is "adapted from childhood memories", the director himself put into the adaptation process is not only the quiet A-An (Zhang Ji'an said that he has had a slight autism since the age of 5), but also the creator's vision that is separated from some distance, like saying with a mature mentality of the world: She is not a "bad person" who harmed my father, and the conflict between our family and other dissidents is just a microcosm of this sentimental land ravaged by man-made disasters.
Then go around and talk about the hidden "man-made disaster" in the film.
The film clearly sets the time point in August-October 1987, with its intentions. In addition to people and ghosts in the film, there are still political clues that are either explicit or hidden. For example, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the National Day, the TV instilled patriotic ideas (but Kedah's TV received Thai-scale programs from time to time, even the Thai national anthem, and the border land had the possibility of escaping beyond its reach); AYan from South Malaysia had a special subscription to Chinese newspaper; in August, Ayan's newspaper under the grinding bowl in the kitchen read "The trilingual teaching method experiment was successful, and Chinese primary education will lead the era"; in September, in the school, Aan hung a sign of "speak more Chinese, do not speak dialects", and Chinese female students changed their Malay names. In September, a Copy of Sin Chew Daily (the word "Star" was folded) in Ah Yan's hand, and the title of the article that flashed shortly at the bottom of the picture read, "The strike is inevitable", seemingly pointing to the fact that something big will happen; but then, Ah Yan drove home, and the radio was full of news of the success of the multi-ethnic teacher assignment policy, as if a song and dance had risen.
These political clues, which have not been followed up, do not seem to be resolved, but once compared with reality, it is highlighted that "omission" itself is a message. During this period, Malaysia, at a time of great noise, can be said to be the white terror of the Chinese, due to the then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad regime, the appointment of Chinese primary school teachers controversy, resulting in a fierce Chinese-Witch conflict, the center of the storm is especially in the capital Kuala Lumpur, on October 27, the government staged a "ThatchEd Action" mass arrest, the aforementioned Sin Chew Daily, once forced to suspend publication. Mahathir and Umno, who were in power at that time, are still very powerful today, so it may not be possible to say too clearly, and to say too clear is also to blur the theme. During the media interview, Zhang Ji'an did not deny that there were censorship considerations, and only 90% of the film was what he wanted.
However, there are still many reminiscent innuendos in the film, such as a scene that attracts a lot of laughter: Ah Yan filters and boils the water given to her by Datuk's male servant until it is dried. The reason why the Taiwanese audience laughed was that it overlapped with Ah Yan's position, and they were half suspicious of the shaking foot boy who just happened to be cut by the frame, and they were very impressed by the somewhat absurd and appropriate "scientific" reaction. However, this paragraph has several associative points: First, it interrupts Ah Yan's action, it is the child who shows her a "document that the school teacher wants to sign for the parents", she can see it so much that she forgets that she is boiling the water, this scene happened in October, why can she see it? Is this document also suspicious to her? The second is Datuk Gong Boy, a Chinese character played by Cheung Ki On himself, when he scolded Ah Yan that you are a Malaysian, but you do not worship God and do not speak Malay, he withholds what Cheung Ki On said in an interview: "Malaysia's totalitarian politics is witchcraft for this country"; is there any hint at this Chinese image of "helping the Malay regime to suppress the Chinese"? Reminiscent of Wong Ming Chi's "Spicy Death To Your Mother", in the name of three food judges, alluding to the two political parties of MCA (Ma Tai Wah) and the National Congress Party (Du Guoda), which are the echoes of UMNO (Wu Youqiang); in addition, the scene of meeting Dato's gong and boy is set up as an above-ground picture with an incense burner, and two books ("Claw Wei Spelling Course" and another book that should be about gambling to make a fortune), "Claw Wai Spelling Course", an old book from the 60s, Is it related to the controversy in July 2019 that the Malaysian Ministry of Education wanted to put The Jawi (Java) language into the Chinese primary school curriculum?
The ambush line is everywhere, and the understanding of Malaysia is still shallow, so it stops. Returning to the overall aspect of the film, the synchronic scattering of the above-mentioned reality message is introduced, including the ending word card saying that after the father's recovery, he became a beggar boy who used Malay witchcraft to relieve the Chinese, showing the possibility of some kind of communion, synthesizing these external information, and then trying to position "Southern Witch": like the aftershock outer edge (Kedah) at the epicenter of a key historical event (Kuala Lumpur), telling a small historical story that belongs to the director's childhood anecdote, and the expression of another ethnic tension/coexistence/fusion relationship in the border position. Further, as the son of Ji Shi's children, Zhang Ji'an is also making this film that begins with a high sense of ceremony in shadow puppetry a good "witchcraft" that tends to be close to the evil and avoids the evil - to remove the charm and vaguely hope for a better home country: If the gods of different backgrounds can join forces, why can't the crowd? What if the serpentine Malay shortsword, which was handed over to Ah Yan by a Malay shaman and was a symbol of power, could be done instead of the horrific remarks made publicly by UMNO youth leader Najib Razak (who later became prime minister) before the rumors circulated before operation Thatch in 1987: "Use Chinese blood to cleanse the Malay shortsword"...
To be honest, "Southern Witch" can see the regret of the production level, in addition to Cai Baozhu, most of the actors' performances still have a lot of room for improvement, the special effects of the snake, like the excited nurse miss who huang Mingzhi crossed over from the movie, and the ending song of dancing tone, all of which I can't accept. However, at the same time, it can clearly see the great "potential" displayed by Zhang Ji'an under limited resources. Although when using the word "potential", I can't help but ask, although "Southern Witch" can be called the excellent student of Hou Xiaoxian Primary School in terms of ideas and execution, few people can stand out in recent years, but from the perspective of the originality and originality of the technique, is it really so good for the development of Southeast Asian films that have not been taken off the framework of Hou Xiaoxian or Abichapharbang? Taking a step back and asking about my own viewing framework and habits, will it be highlighted that I, as a Taiwanese film fan, look at the voyeuristic nature of Xingma films, and have not seen new ideas in them?
Don't dwell on what originality is, innovation has a heritage, everything has a process. "Nan Wu" is the best and most important Chinese drama film I have seen this year, in addition to allowing people to brush up on the fun and understand the complexity of Malaysian Chinese, but also to see how a creator who is deeply influenced by Taiwan's new film can make his own "Childhood Past".
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This year's Golden Horse Awards also features other films with Malaysian backgrounds and finalists, including "Hey! The director of "Mythical Beast" Chi Ka Qing is Malaysian Chinese, with Malaysian elements, one of the producers of the Singaporean film "Boy King" is Malaysia; the songwriter of the song "The Name Engraved in Your Heart" is also from the Singma region. In the film festival part, There is also Ye Ruiliang, produced by Dahuang Film, who directed "One Moment and One Moment", which is also quite interesting.
关于港台降头片70s、80s的猎奇发展，可见拙文〈《邪魔》：正典之外的歪道混种〉，与《香港电影评论学会季刊》第48期〈蛊惑人心：漫谈邵氏的降头片〉。
The full-form quotation mark comments on Hou Xiaoxian's films are quoted from James Udden's No Man is an Island: Hou Xiaoxian's Film World.
In the interview, the director admitted that he was inspired by "Childhood Past", and the second favorite director was Hou Xiaoxian, and the first favorite was Ozu Yasujiro.
The terrible effect of this scene also involves hanging multiple bird cages behind the children's playing place. In the second half of the film, the caged bird inexplicably dies.
Zhang Ji'an said that he grew up in a multilingual environment, Teochew, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, Malay, etc., and several future scripts mentioned in the interview with the "Baige LIVE Reception Room" are related to Chinese immigrants, such as Majie and Baba Nyonya. The new project "May Snow", which won the CNC Cash Award at Golden Horse Ventures, will be the story of the Malaysian drama team spanning 50, 60 and 2019 (Malaysia's first political party rotation), with major events such as 513 before and after Malaysia's independence.
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