Basic information
"Young Babylon" is a comedy film produced by Huayi Brothers and Chuangjing Huashi, directed by Xiang Guoqiang, and starring Dong Zijian, Li Meng, Shang Tielong, Li Daguang and so on.
The film is adapted from Lu Nei's novel of the same name, telling the story of Lu Xiaolu's youthful and passionate experience and love in the Daicheng factory. The film was released on January 13, 2017, in Chinese mainland.
Synopsis
The story of "Young Babylon" is set in Dai Cheng in the early 1990s, and Lu Xiaolu did not enter the university after graduating from high school, and worked in a saccharin factory under the operation of his father. He was not able to master the basic vocational skills in the workplace, and he lived with a master named "Old Bull". In the mechanic class, there is nothing but screws, and in the electrician class, only the light bulbs are changed. In addition, he also likes to fight, chase women, and play pranks. By chance, the road path met the white and blue. The freshness of the white and blue instantly attracted him, and then in a series of yin and yang mistakes they met and came together. Bai Lan played the role of Lu Xiaolu's sister and enlightenment mentor in life, and finally Lu Xiaolu applied for the night university under the suggestion of Bai Lan, and Bai Lan also went to Shanghai to study for graduate school, so far, the two people embarked on their own life journey.
Biography
Road trails
After Lu Xiaolu graduated from high school, his father found a relationship to stuff him into the factory, he first worked as a fitter, and then became an electrician, but in fact he did not have any skills, nor did anyone teach him anything. When he was a fitter, his daily job was to follow his master to repair the pump—more precisely, his job was to screw down the four screws on the pump. Later, after turning to electrician, he took a ladder every day to the factory to change the broken light bulbs. He couldn't find the direction of life in the besieged world, and later under the encouragement of Bai Lan, he remembered to go to the night university. In the end, Bai Lan will inevitably stay away from the road of nothingness for the sake of his dreams, even if they once had life-and-death sex and unforgettable acquaintance in the earthquake. Little pout is another object of Lu Xiaolu's affection, she is not like Bai Lan who has a self and independent personality, she is more grounded. Lu Xiaolu is a person with a sense of justice and tradition in his heart, he adheres to the view that his friend's wife cannot be deceived, does not combine with Xiao Pout, and eventually becomes a good friend. Lu Xiaolu's love ended with the departure of Bai Lan and the fall of Xiao Pout. The loss of love means the collapse of his hopes and ideals in life, and it is also the reason why Lu Xiaolu left Daicheng for Shanghai. Meet his wife Zhang Xiaoyin on Shanghai Road, although Zhang Xiaoyin's description is not much, and as a character outside the story of youth, it represents the beginning of Lu Xiaolu's new life, the stability of the family, and the realization of ideals.
Lu Xiaolu, the image is particularly distinct, he has some street habits, but also a bit of poet cynicism. Lu Xiaolu is a "man who awakens in the text", he is not exactly rebellious, he is screaming in obedience. "Lu Xiaolu's inherent violence, ignorance, and rap are all like Ah Q, but he has capital, youth and good luck. It was a typical worker's son who inherited the dilemma of that class. In Lu Xiaolu's memory, in those twenty years or so, Bai Lan may be his most exquisite memory, and the feelings of the two people are pure and natural.
White and blue
Bai Lan was a medical student who dropped out of School in Beijing and returned to Daicheng, she claimed to have seen the big scene of life and death, so she was very dismissive of the fussy ordinary people, Lu Xiaolu was an alternative, so she fell in love with this alternative. She urged Lu Xiaolu to read literary magazines such as Harvest and persuaded him to go to night school, and the two of them warmed each other and affirmed each other, but they also understood what form this love would eventually end. Bai Lan is indeed another outlier of the chemical plant, "but she is different from the muddy nightmare of the road path, she is sober and rational, and has a rational plan for life and the future." So she finally abandoned the road path and went to the Gold Coast of the United States. Many years later, she accompanied her foreign husband on a business trip to China, and met Lu Xiaolu, she did not want to recognize each other, denied the title of "white and blue", but before leaving, she called to inform Lu Xiaolu that she was leaving and would never come back. From denial to acquiescence, Bai Lan's heart must have experienced a complex struggle, she abandoned the past, but eventually left regrets and worries. White and blue are not only emotional, physical, experienced, but also in the vision of future life, more rational and realistic than the road path. On the surface, the attachment between the two of them to each other is the boredom and helplessness of the external world, the escape and tolerance of the pressure of survival; there are too many initial imaginations and long-range visions of life in their bones, and they are also the imprint and openness of all possibilities of life.
On the one hand, she is a viewer of crazy life in this world, she is also a painkiller for painful youth, she is a balancer of desire, and she is also a spiritual refuge for escapism. The white blue and the road path, like the two sleepwalkers of the saccharin factory, danced alone on the stage of life for the shadows in the void, and the light in those darkness did not know where to come from, because they were warm to each other, illuminating the corners of youth that no one understood.
Appreciation of works
Thematic ideas
The theme of "Young Babylon": redemption and enlightenment from absurdity and ridicule.
In The Young Babylon, Babylon's simplest explanation is the depraved exuberance, "which tries to label a city, an era, or even a day that a person has experienced."
The 1990s, the age of "Young Babylon", was a special era of complexity and mountain rain in Chinese history. The smoke of the previous generation's nihilistic passion has dissipated, leaving only empty memories and old desolation, and Lu Xiaolu's father, Lu Daquan, and Lu Xiaolu's master are the main representatives of this generation. They have reached middle age or twilight, youth and passion have long since receded, and numb nerves and souls are in the mechanically rigid factory year after year, day after day, getting by. And the road trails are in the ascending stage of life, eager to take the baton of life from their hands, and realize the desire in their hearts in a full of enthusiasm and ambition. However, the reality is cruel, backward education does not provide a good learning environment for the roadmen, most of them are doomed to have no connection with the university, can only spend their lives in the factory.
The 1990s was an era of rapid transformation, an era in which the spirit could not fly with the material, an era when the individual could not keep up with the pace of the times, an era in which the rhythm of the heart and the body was incompatible, and an era when the world gradually broke away from the "control" that human beings thought was and went away on its own. In the face of the rapid rotation of the times, everyone will have a rollercoaster-like dizzy feeling, even a rebellious youth like Lu Xiaolu will feel powerless. Everything is like light and shadow flickering by, those feelings that are too late to clean up, those love affairs that end before they can say goodbye, those who meet and part, everything turns into fleeting regrets and memories. In such an era of transformation, the arrogance of human reason began to be revealed, and the gap between spirit and matter made people more and more show a sense of powerlessness, and this powerlessness also made people more and more inclined to surrender to the material, and the rebellious power of youth made all this shocking - "I am separated by a river from the world around me, and each other regards each other as a nerve split." "The river leads both to the daily life of the narrator and to the historical and spiritual world of this generation. Lu Xiaolu's confusion in the times, incompatible with the air around him, his confusion and confusion are the common experiences of this generation.
Factory life is full of weird hierarchies and unwritten rules, the law of the jungle is widely recognized as a principle of survival, and bullies and bullied people no longer realize what they are doing, do not think about the reasons or complain about suffering, take it for granted, and cannot think of resisting, let alone changing. In such a complicated circle, step by step, even live with taste. At the same time, under the rules that no one thinks of changing and has the ability to change, it is full of human warmth and coldness. Friendship, mentorship, love, the people of the chemical plant are like ants crawling on the ground, silently crawling on a given route, not sad or angry - because they can't think of another way to climb. And the pain of the road comes from this, he does not want to take this established road, but he can not climb out, the only thing he can do is to stop, not even retrograde - no matter how he struggles, the life of the chemical plant has never changed, and it will not change because of him. This strange circle makes the road almost suffocate. He knew that it was bad to be indifferent and do nothing, and he was afraid of his numbness and sinking, but he didn't know how to break free, and he couldn't imagine what he would look like after the change. He hated both chemical factories and missed them. This complex emotion makes the work create a tragic-comedy effect: pain and misfortune become the objects of ridicule, that is, the content of tragedy in the form of comedy. So this creates a special style of humor – jokes always play on ourselves. Because we live in an absurd world, we also stubbornly hope to attach purpose and meaning that suits us to things that are either accidental or have purposes and meanings that are far from what we can provide. Life then becomes a joke—a form that both acknowledges, shows absurdity, and encompasses it all in the human longing.
At the end of the novel, Lu Xiaolu sees a dog biting a child near the factory, so Lu Xiaolu takes a dead branch to chase the wild dog, and the dog is forced to the end of the road and reflexively bites him, so he is chased back by the dog. Then he picked up another steel pipe and chased it after it again. Running back and forth through the chemical plant several times, the number of people standing at the entrance of the factory to watch the bustle changed from a few to dozens. "At that moment, I was in a trance with this wild dog, and it was asking me: 'What the hell do you want to do?' I said to it, Lao Tzu is going to kill you. Later I felt that it asked me a deeper question: 'Why are you alive on earth?' I can't answer. This question was raised to me by a mad dog, who did not know who had rabies. I threw down the steel pipe, and I couldn't understand why I was alive, so ridiculous, running over in this world. "This is actually the real intention of the whole novel. Lu Xiaolu heard this question, but more Lu Xiaolu still ran over in this world absurdly.
The redemption of youth
If Lu Xiaolu, the flower of life, was destined to wither in the factory, then he was obviously lucky, because he met Bai Lan, the woman who had been like a sister in his life, re-injected vitality and passion into his soon-to-be-sinking soul, allowing him to find hope and strength in the filthy and decaying environment. As soon as this girl dressed in white appeared, lu Xiaolu's eyes lit up, thus stimulating his emotional excitement, which unconsciously turned into a complete fascination. During a pump discharge, Lu Xiaolu was injured and sent to the infirmary, where he met Bai Lan again, this time, Bai Lan's image was clearer, and her position in Lu Xiao Lu's heart was clearer. Lu Xiaolu found a kind of spiritual refuge in Bai Lan, and the caring and harsh attitude she showed to Lu Xiaolu was exactly what Lu Xiaolu needed in the process of youth enlightenment. Subsequently, on the tricycle that sent the Eggs to the rescue, Lu Xiaolu fell in love with Bailan without hesitation, love is a proposition that accompanies youth, and love is also the most powerful way to enlighten youth. After becoming familiar with it, Bai Lan persuaded Lu Xiaolu to study more than once, and it was under her bitter persuasion that Lu Xiaolu finally applied for the Night University. Bai Lan's eyes are keen, she does not want to see Lu Xiaolu grow old like this for ten years in the factory, and hopes that Lu Xiaolu will find a real life trajectory of her own through reading. This is a very important step in the process of her youth enlightenment of Lu Xiaolu, without this, Lu Xiaolu may not have resolutely resigned in the end and gone to a distant place to find her own life.
What is more important than the enlightenment of life is obviously emotional enlightenment: Bai Lan uses the dedication spirit of "spring silkworm to the end of the dead silk, wax torch into gray tears to dry", constantly guiding the direction of youth for the confused and lost road path, helping the road path through the thorns of life, sweeping away the dust all the way, and solemnizing his youth years in the past and the true feelings. Even if the white and blue finally left, the road path no longer lost its way, but continued to move forward in the direction of the white and blue enlightenment for him to meet the morning light woven for him by the white and blue. Youth is like the leaves on the tree, rustling in the branches in summer, falling to the ground in autumn, stepping on it and crunching, the rustling sound is beautiful, the crunching sound is also beautiful, and both sounds are the echoes of youth. Here, the work touches on the softest part of many people's hearts, because this experience and feeling is common to human beings and does not disappear or fade away because of the difference in living individuals.
The redemption of love
A fresh, simple love story is played out between Lu Xiaolu and Bailan, with touching, misunderstanding, and more sadness. The plot of the work is actually relatively simple, and it is true that it is copied to many people in that era. The work is written about the sorrow and pain that can be encountered by the road paths, but the sorrow and pain contained in it are the universal feelings that have resonated with generations of people. In the long and clear youth, joy and helplessness constituted the basic outline of the time.
"Young Babylon" is the spiritual legacy of the generation that remained in the 1970s in the 1990s, which had just turned away.
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