Before "The Woman Who Ran Away", I have not seen any of Hong Changxiu's works, and I hardly know much about this typical Korean author filmmaker, and I think that Hollywood commercial blockbusters can feel cool without any brains, which is still very good.
The philosophical meaning of daily chores and male and female love, the intricacies and fickleness of human nature, are said to have always been The theme of Hong Changxiu's favorite movies, which reminds people of Hou Xiaoxian and the Lee Ang when filming "Eating Men and Women".
I thought that the master's work must have something tall and literary, and I watched "The Woman Who Escaped" driven by pure curiosity.
Comparable to the quality of domestic TV dramas in the 90s of the last century, simple and daily indoor scenes, natural to two- or three-person dialogue without any performance traces, rough and unfamiliar lens use (fixed shots, plus sudden closeness, follow-up), no suspense linear narrative, so that I am accustomed to watching the lens language exquisite and beautiful, the plot is compact and bright, the picture is full of texture, and the commercial blockbusters that are reversed to the crowd have given birth to a large number of black question marks.
The black question mark continues, and the plot of "The Woman Who Escaped" is so simple that even the domestic web drama is not as simple as: the heroine played by Kim Min-hee is over forty years old, the family is happy, and when she has nothing to do, she decides to visit the three good girlfriends at the beginning, which triggers a series of dialogues.
In a dialogue between women discussing life, family and men, the whole film seems casual, slow, and lifelike, with no texture and equally casual lens language, more like a rather stage drama experimental film written and directed by a recently graduated academic director.
"This is Hong Changxiu's daily life", when veteran movie fans tell you this, the feeling of "something must have been missed" came out of nowhere.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > women's war</h1>
As a straight steel man who is accustomed to going straight and not going around the bend, the series of dialogues hidden in the cotton and pondering in "The Woman Who Escaped" are obviously beyond my comprehension, after all, the palace fighting classics such as "The Biography of Zhen Huan" are to be experienced with the heart to taste the taste.
However, the soft-spoken and soft-spoken women in the film are constantly using various life trivia and parents to attract attention, arouse reverie, and lead to topics.
It may be a few words, a minute or two of the plot, the women have broken out several tense mouth fights, and the flag clearly distinguished the victory and defeat.
Two scenes that impressed me more:
In the first scene, Kim Min-hee and Seo Yong-hee eat grilled meat, and the two have a lot of arguments about whether to eat meat or vegetarian food. Kim Min-hee, on the premise of losing a city first (admitting that he likes to eat meat), uses his eloquence and self-confidence to fight back, trying to show that he can become a vegetarian (a more perfect woman).
Xu Yongwei is not willing to show weakness, pretending to play a round field for the good girlfriend in front of her (the soul and body of the cow are binary, so it is no problem to eat meat), the implication is that you are still dead (eating meat).
Two rounds down, Jin Minxi did not take advantage of any advantage, simply put the harsh words after not eating meat, unexpectedly, from beginning to end a bite of meat did not eat Xu Yongwei, very natural a sentence you should eat meat, will be the other party burning, gambling curses of the harsh words, four or two thousand pounds of refutation.
In the second scene, Xu Yongmei's roommate Li Enmei likes to feed stray cats, and the neighbor's wife does not like stray cats, so the neighbor's husband looks for Li Enmei's theory. Throughout the dialogue, the tone of the two sides was gentle and polite, but it was murderous, and you came and went.
The neighbor's husband first unceremoniously pointed out that these stray cats are pirate cats (specializing in stealing things to eat), and advised Li Enmei not to keep them, and Li Enmei pointed out tit-for-tat that stray cats did not steal or rob, I have been feeding ah (which eye of yours saw the theft).
Therefore, the neighbor's husband changed the topic, saying that the wife does not like stray cats, human life should be more important than cat life, Li Enmei immediately retorted, people and cats are the same life, your wife does not like cats is their own problem.
When Xu Yongwei and Jin Minxi joined the debate, the neighbor's husband felt that the other party had a numerical advantage, and simply sacrificed a big move to find the neighborhood committee (property) theory (rising contradiction), and the women did not want to show weakness, and directly used the killer skill: feeding cats is not illegal (no one can control).
At this point, the neighbor's husband was defeated, busy bowing and leaving, and the women smiled and did not smile in return, celebrating the victory in their hearts.
In "The Woman Who Ran Away", there are many such open and secret struggles and endless fun, and almost all of them are informative and very connotative.
Under the leadership of the heroine who thinks that she is happy and has no desires, the audience feels the women who hide needles in the cotton in a harmonious atmosphere, and the war full of gunpowder, which is the well-deserved daily life in "The Women Who Escaped".
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > the significance of the battle</h1>
The women in "The Woman Who Ran Away" are so curious and belligerent that they try to unravel one mystery after another and participate in one palace fight after another, in order to want more show love, show life, and show themselves.
When I think about it, I can't help but laugh dumbly, and when I think about it again, I can't help but be creepy.
It turns out that this is the true face of life.
Following the constant satire of "ridiculous men", Hong Changxiu used a rather lifelike, casual "Women Who Escaped" to ridicule those brave and uncompromising women.
Hong Changxiu still maintains the keen insight of the artist, capturing and refining a series of words and deeds that everyone sees strangely, but full of vitality in life, through the focus of the camera, the refinement of the script, and the exaggeration of the performance, and finally presents a kind of life fragment that is unbearable but thrilling.
However, apart from these so-called refined and exaggerated fragments of life, in fact, "The Women Who Escaped" is about a group of modern women in their 40s, who want to be dissatisfied with their lives.
For example, the heroine played by Kim Min-hee, who boasts about her family happiness and her husband's thoughtfulness, hangs the sweet words of "being together every day for five years", but has to visit and talk at the homes of several good girlfriends alone, and more than once says the sigh of "I really want to live in such a house".
It seems that this is a logical contradiction, but in fact, it is very stupid to use logic to interpret women's behavior.
Kim Min-hee and her old friends, Xu Yongwei (who actually has a roommate) who lives alone in divorce, Song Xuanmei, who is complacent about falling into a love triangle, and Jin Xibi, who robbed the heroine's boyfriend, show a special contradiction:
They not only want the happiness of sticking with their husbands and girlfriends, get affirmation and admiration, but also desire to be self-sufficient in spirit and material, to show people as independent women, full of self-confidence on the surface, and hesitant in the heart, burning in words, and gentle harmony in expression, both because of a moment of boredom, a one-night stand with the poet, and because of the poet's entanglement, and fall into pain and scold each other's madness.
This series of insincere and inconsistent words, even if it is confusing, always feel reasonable.
Therefore, don't be deceived by the label of so-called "women's movie", "The Women Who Escaped" is more like a superficial restoration of life, but actually opens the pain points and laugh points that are easy to be ignored by people for you to see.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > content or form</h1>
As if overnight, even if it is a successful movie that can attract the attention of the audience, under such a subconscious influence, the film and television circle will inevitably trigger a round of follow-up, and the matryoshka movie will become inevitable.
Korean films have received exclusive Certification from Hollywood for "Parasite", and through commercial films such as "Busan Trip", they have gained the attention of specific genre films among global audiences, and they have finally gone out of Asia and into the world.
Even if it is still Yan Sang-ho's knife, the one-sided routine and action of "Busan Line 2: Peninsula" are disappointing, and the routine tendency of hollywood blockbusters to match the same type of blockbusters has begun to appear silently.
Is the form of routine important, or is the innovative content important?
If according to the logic of the market, as long as the audience likes, the assembly line mass production is finished, and when the audience is tired, it is good to change a new type.
However, the audience can never be satisfied, and this so-called entourage will eventually ruin the entire film market.
Able to go against the times, not play cards according to the routine, and even against the audience's viewing habits, Hong Changxiu, who has been quite unique since his debut, has done it sincerely enough and persisted long enough.
Therefore, like Hong Changxiu, the form of expression seems to be very casual, but it is particularly valuable to be able to come up with fresh and typical content.
This is also one of the reasons why Hong Changxiu's niche film "The Women Who Escaped" can still attract the attention of fans in the vast number of high-quality and high-entertainment commercial blockbusters.