Today is the 65th anniversary of Zhang Guorong's birth, I want to say a movie about him starring, the reason why I chose "Ah Fei Zheng Biography", because this movie was released in the year I was born, and it is also an iconic movie for me.
Introduction: Set in Hong Kong in the early 1960s, the handsome Ah Fei is an arrogant and rebellious prodigal son, a Shanghai immigrant raised by his adoptive mother after being abandoned by his own mother since childhood, due to emotional lack, he has lived with the conductor Su Lizhen and the dancer Mimi, but later abandoned them, in order to find his birth mother, he went to the Philippines alone. Chao Zi, who has always had a crush on Su Lizhen, witnesses Su Lizhen's break with Ah Fei and changes his career to running boats after the death of his mother. He met Ah Fei in the Philippines and became acquainted with him, but eventually because Ah Fei was seriously injured in a station fight, before dying, Chao Tsai asked him if he remembered what he was doing at 3 p.m. on April 16, 1960, Ah Fei said that he would always remember what he wanted to remember, but he asked Chao Tsai to tell Su Lizhen that he did not remember. In the end, Ah Fei died on a foreign train...
One afternoon, Ah Fei went to the snack bar and said these words to Su Lizhen, "You were with me one minute before three o'clock in the afternoon on April 16, 1960, because you and I will remember this minute." We're friends for a minute from now on, it's a fact that you can't change it because it's already in the past. ”
Then Su Lizhen's monologue: I don't know if he remembered that minute because of me, but I always remember this person.
A minute of commitment, a lifetime of remembrance
Su Lizhen is a character who runs through many of Wong Kar-wai's films, making her debut in "The Legend of Ah Fei". Su Lizhen is a typical oriental woman, introverted personality, careful life, the treatment of their feelings is also in accordance with the rules, the appearance of most of the dress is short-sleeved shirts, long skirts, a shawl long hair, these are the implicit and traditional presentation of her personality, Su Lizhen this kind of self-esteem brought by the personality, noble temperament is an important reason for Ah Fei to be attracted to her, but also because of this, she is destined to become Ah Fei's "white moonlight".
Ah Fei proposed to her "one minute together", and in this brief moment Su Lizhen fell in love with him. However, her traditional and conservative personality is unable to keep Ah Fei, who is good at maneuvering among various women, and in the face of her love enemy Mimi, she can only be sad alone, but she will not scold and quarrel in front of Ah Fei.
Su Lizhen's personality is the epitome of most Oriental women, conservative, gentle, simple, Ah Fei's one-minute commitment may have changed the trajectory of her life. Let her remember this man thoroughly, and the one-minute commitment became a lifelong remembrance. Before meeting Ah Fei, she had always believed that she would go on like this, like the cousin she had always envied with a comfortable life, but the policeman Chao Zi told her, "People are incomparable." Her cousin may have a comfortable life as plain as water, but she may not meet a man who gives her a minute of excitement like Ah Fei.
Forget about this person from this minute
"I used to think a minute would pass quickly, but it could be a long time. One day someone pointed to my watch and said he would remember me forever for that minute, and I thought it was beautiful... But now that I look at the clock, I tell myself that I'm going to forget about this person from this minute. --Su Lizhen
The relationship between time and love has become so important because only the time that has happened in the past can give people a real fixed sense of security, just as Ah Fei uses this minute to determine the relationship between Su Lizhen and him. As for time, someone once understood it this way: "There is no love story that transcends the times." Maybe it's only in memory. ”
Ah Fei used the "one minute" rhetoric to bring Su Lizhen into his world, the two fell in love but were reluctant to give Su Lizhen a promise of marriage, "one minute" the rhetoric seems to be a short physical pleasure between Ah Fei and Su Lizhen, and the marriage commitment is diametrically opposed to this "one minute" is diametrically opposed to the long, in Wong Kar-wai's film love is not a symbol of eternal romance, but as a kind of inverted love myth.
Ah Fei used "one minute" to lure Su Lizhen to fall in love with him completely, but let Su Lizhen completely despair after "one minute", Chao Tsai in order to let Su Lizhen forget Ah Fei, accompanied her in the middle of the night, silently watching the passage of time under the clock, but this minute made Chao Tsai deeply remember Su Lizhen. The same time experienced, some people remember but some people forget.
A minute is fleeting in the long river of time, but in the concept of time, Su Lizhen's feelings for Ah Fei are condensed, as if frozen in this minute, can no longer be changed. People's feelings and mentality can change at any time, and it does not matter what year or month this minute is, what is important is to find eternal certainty in that moment.
This minute will always be remembered
Before Ah Fei was dying, Chao Tsai asked him, "What were you doing at three o'clock on April 16 last year?" Ah Fei said, "What she told you" "I will always remember what I want to remember." ”
As Ah Fei's time consciousness passed, he found that everything that happened was a fact, and no one could change it. Like being abandoned by her own mother, her relationship with Su Lizhen and Mimi will become a thing of the past with the passage of time. Until his death, Ah Fei still told Chao Tsai not to tell Su Lizhen that he remembered that minute, so that everyone would be better off. Because these things are in the past after all, there is no need to mention them again.
Ah Fei's concern is precisely out of pity for Su Lizhen, for her, instead of dwelling on the doomed tragic results, it is better to forget about the jianghu. The short-lived beauty of the past will eventually disappear in the long river of time, there is no so-called true sense of eternity, remembering every past of life, may be the best way for us to fight against the nihilistic life.
The tragic fate of the footless bird
"I have heard others say that there is a bird in this world that has no feet, that it can only fly all the time, and when it is tired of flying, it sleeps in the wind, and this bird can only go down to the ground once in a lifetime, and that time is when it dies." - Ah Fei
Ah Fei has always compared himself to a lonely and tired footless bird, and after the Ah Fei in the film lies on the bed with a lonely face and says this sentence, he stands alone in front of the mirror and dances with the music, and his body moves with the rhythm, as if entering a state of nothingness and laissez-faire. The sad thing about Ah Fei is that he can't see the past clearly, can't understand the present, can't promise the future, has no clear life goals, and has never had a sense of belonging in his heart, and the only thing he clings to is who his biological parents really are.
"On April 12, 1961, I finally came to my own mother's house, but she refused to see me, and the workers said she didn't live there anymore, and when I left the house, I knew there must be a pair of eyes behind me looking at me, but I wouldn't look back, I just wanted to see her, to see what she looked like, and since she wouldn't give me this opportunity, I wouldn't give her this chance." - Ah Fei
After Ah Fei learned that he was not born to his adoptive mother, he kept searching for his roots, and eventually, he found his birth mother, but was turned away. From the background of this dialogue and his clenched hands and striding away, it can be seen that he has been greatly hit by the matter of his most important recognition of his mother, and as in the past, he has armed himself again and pretended not to care, and he will not show anyone his fragile heart. Ah Fei made a promise to himself, that is, he would never give his mother the opportunity to meet with himself, his dream of finding roots was broken, and how could he land without "roots"?
"I used to think that there was a bird that could fly from the beginning until it landed the day it died, but in fact he never went anywhere, and this bird was dead from the beginning." - Ah Fei
Ah Fei's death is the inevitable result, his tragic result means more from the rootless culture of Hong Kong, as a British colony of Hong Kong, director Wong Kar-wai came to Hong Kong from Shanghai at an early age, but also conveyed the sigh of history and memory all the time, in that era of Hong Kong people also infiltrated a sense of identity all the time, in Wong Kar-wai's later works, there will be a background of this discussion and pursuit.
Wong Kar-wai's works rarely appear in the so-called happy ending of the reunion, and more are expressed in the sadness of some inner loneliness and regret. Ah Fei in "Ah Fei's True Biography", the meaning of searching for roots is interrupted, the "footless bird" can only be exhausted in the end, Ah Fei was shot on the train in a foreign country, the train is still moving, and he also knows who his favorite person is at the very moment of his life.
Rejection and rejection
These are the consistent themes of Wong Kar Wai's films, which have always been repeated in a variety of character relationships and different forms of expression. In Wong Kar-wai's films, the entanglement of love between men and women is undoubtedly an important story thread that runs through many of his subsequent films, and Ah Fei and Su Lizhen and Mimi in "The Legend of Ah Fei", as well as Zhou Muyun, who only appeared at the end of the film, have also become the character archetypes of other Shanghai nostalgic films.
As Wong Kar-wai once said in an interview: "After five consecutive plays, I found that what I have been saying is nothing more than a kind of rejection, fear of rejection, and the reaction after being rejected, the reaction between choosing memory and escape..." In "Ah Fei's Biography", Su Lizhen and Mimi like Ah Fei, but Ah Fei rejects them for the "rootless feeling" in her heart. The policeman Super Boy likes Su Lizhen and accompanies her to forget the "one-minute promise", but Su Lizhen does not like him because of this, Mimi falls in love with Ah Fei, and even runs to the Philippines for him, and the money to the Philippines is what she likes but can't get her crooked boy.
People who love each other are rejected and afraid of being rejected, and they can't end up loving each other. Because of love, rejecting the love of others is often the fate that these characters cannot get rid of. The reason why these characters do not get the real so-called love is not because of external realities (money, class or disease), but because of the insecurity of the long-term relationship, because of the fear of not getting love or choosing game love, or paranoid about the love in memory, and finally missing out on what they love forever. It can be seen in Wong Kar-wai's trilogy of "The Legend of Ah Fei", "Fancy Years" and "2046" in the 1960s.
When you are tired of flying, sleep in the wind
The arrogant and decadent Ah Fei in "The True Biography of Ah Fei" is quiet, impulsive and sad on the one hand, and on the other hand, he is charming, willful and stubborn, forming his temperament that is different from other men. Zhang Guorong can interpret this kind of mixed personality through his eyes, words and deeds, which makes people have to believe that he is Ah Fei, and Ah Fei may also have his shadow on him, which may be the actor's skill.
"The Legend of Ah Fei" is Wong Kar-wai's early work, through the inner world and emotional entanglement of an arrogant and rebellious youth, truly reproducing the living environment and social conditions of ordinary young people in Hong Kong, as an epoch-making banner of Chinese films, director Wong Kar-wai will slowly show his nihilistic and rootless art to the world. Behind these image worlds, it is the rootless confusion of people in modern cities.
As Renoir said, "a director only makes one movie in his lifetime" Wong Kar-wai in his subsequent works, more or less with some of the shadows of "Ah Fei Zheng Biography", whether it is in the bustling downtown, or at the intersection of red and green lights, ah Fei's soul is also floating.