"I laughed out loud and announced the news that the whole world is dominated by cement roads but they are neither good nor evil, but are used to control other people."
—— From "The Red Postbox on Escher Street"
1:15:37
Stills from "The Red Mailbox on Escher Street"
Looking at Yuan Ziwen's new work "The Red Mailbox on Escher Street", this is the line that best summarizes the whole film, and it is also in the middle of the film.
Cement-molded traffic roads are a vehicle commonly used as a metaphor for life, because pedestrians who are regulated by the road are afraid to get off track just as people are afraid to get rid of "being controlled".
At the beginning and end of the film, Yuan Ziwen creates a power subversion between "man and the road".
The film begins with an empty mirror, and as Yuan Ziwen "boots", the group performances gradually fill the streets, and Yuan Ziwen is filming "making his own movie", and this judgment is made because the field board reads "The red mailbox of Escher Street", and the background is the props that often appear in the film (including the red mailbox).
The Red Post Box on Escher Street is a very gardeny film that reflects his deep hatred of all established forms of operation and a penetrating democracy.
"The Red Mailbox on Escher Street"
It begins with order and ends in chaos, until the end of the film, the only two female protagonists in the group performance, Kiriko and Yasuko, only participate in a relatively lonely parade, speaking out for the "name of the group performance" and "freedom" in a floating state.
But it can still be said that they are "neither good nor evil" free from the shackles of the road.
But what kind of freedom is freedom? Perhaps Yuan Ziwen is not limited to artistic freedom here.
Just like the "Tokyo Gagaga" art group that Yuan Ziwen started in those years, people just shouted poetry and galloped, with zero political intentions, preaching "aimless, aimless, and unrespectful", and this frenzy was based only on the tearing desire from the masses.
Garden warmth
The story of the film is not complicated, except for the beginning and end, it is a story about the pre-preparation of the film.
Director Tadao Kobayashi is a well-known Japanese director in the film, he got the investment of the next project "Masquerade", concerned about the tight budget, he decided to use all amateur actors and return to his original intention.
However, the creative process was not smooth, and troubles such as changing the script and changing the actors under the unspoken rules were all encountered.
With a flyer for Masquerade recruiting actors, the story opens up a multi-line narrative, with the film dividing chapters into different characters, showing the background and story of each group performance, from their knowledge of the recruitment information until the interview failure.
These group actors are too rich, the most notable of which are Kiriko, who is lost in the pain of widowhood, and Yasuko, who killed her father, and of course, two five-member girl groups, namely the Drama Club and the Kobayashi Director's True Love Club.
Yuan Ziwen designed a lot of "two-by-two comparisons" between these characters, such as Kiriko's low depression and Anzi's bursting release.
A member of the drama club joked with himself as a "bitch" during the interview, they are all bad girls who are not liked, are fascinated by sex, become scorpions for men, but eventually lose interest in competing for men and throw themselves into a solid female friendship.
The five girls in Director Kobayashi's True Love Club exhibit stubborn madness and almost "eat" director Kobayashi, whom they have a crush on.
The slightly thinr contrast is between the civilian and elite temperaments of Aiko and Miku, and the two half-outsiders Machiko and Kanwa, who are tied up with a stamp.
The role of Machiko is particularly unique, she is the only character in the film who has a "movie-watching" scene, she does not have many lines, but she is reluctant to join the film industry from the status of a fan.
Machiko exchanged a stamp for a mask and pistol in Hirowa's hand, brought a flyer recruiting actors to the drama club five, and wore a fake mask to applaud the women's community that was rehearsing, and finally left flowers, fake guns and masks.
Yuan Ziwen wrote such a line "We should applaud her", and borrowed the mouth of the five people to say to Zhenzhizi, the metaphor here is already obvious, in fact, the Zhenzhizi in the film is the embodiment of "audience /fan", and Yuan Ziwen wants to express what invites the audience to join the movie and pay tribute to the audience.
Of course, although these imperfect female characters have some curious elements, they also sketch a map of women who have swallowed the bitter fruits of life, and Yuan Ziwen once had a pessimistic but realistic description of most women's lives in the documentary.
Documentary "Yuan Ziwen This Creature"
In fact, describing the stains and failures in women's lives will involve a lot of moral repression, women generally want to have a pure and unblemished life because they are so demanding, and Yuan Ziwen is keen to debunk this, the so-called "respect for women" is by no means obsessed with their sanctity.
Stills from "The Red PostBox on Escher Street" Stills from "The Red Post Box on Escher Street"
One of the most interpretive places in the process of watching the movie is that Yuan Ziwen stewed his "original self" and "superego" in a pot with this film, and he threw many fragments of Yuan Ziwen's form into it and pinched them into the flesh and blood of the characters.
In fact, Yuan Ziwen's avatar in the film is not only director Kobayashi, Kobayashi is just a gloomy director who collapsed, weak, and lost his creative inspiration under the suppression of many parties, but the girlfriend "Fangzi" who appears in the film is Kobayashi's true self.
According to the plot, Fangzi has died in a car accident a year ago, but she is the absolute original force for running the "Masquerade" project, she represents the driving force of Kobayashi's "original self" and the driving force of Yuan Ziwen's "original self".
In "The Red Mailbox on Escher Street", it is Yuan Ziwen who dominates the film, in the film, Fang Zi as Yuan Ziwen's real intention dominates the filming of "Masquerade", and director Kobayashi is actually The mask of Yuan Ziwen.
It was also Fang Zi who opened the opening in the production process of "Masquerade", which was the red mailbox on Escher Street, through which many actors poured into the film production process and delivered the registration letter.
Another feature of Fangzi's character is that she has a "camera" as her eyes, and as a ghost character without an entity, she always intends to freeze the real world through the lens, which is like a kind of rebellion and deviation from the presence of the absence, but also the invasion and occupation of the presence of the absence.
Returning to the set of "Masquerade" and the real film industry outside of "The Red Post box on Escher Street", the star actors and directors are always present, and the other crew and group actors are not present.
Watching these group performances more closely, you will also find many traces of Yuan Ziwen's early works, such as the "Li" character flag that always flies is from Yuan Ziwen's 1990 independent film "Bicycle Sigh".
Bicycle Sigh
And the film was around 1h17min, sounding the "Lemon Song" in "Kiko's Table", this time the track was used in the video platter of group auditions.
Here are many group faces gathered, and they have completed a complete line in "Masquerade", as Yuan Ziwen once said, "The film language that can become a movie line and make the scene meaningful should be the flesh sound of ordinary people in the city."
The significance of the scene also lies in this, and the importance of "ordinary people" as actors belies the gilding of the meaning of the lines to the actors.
"Do you realize the world is going to stop?" Stop, no, I know it's going to end. No, it will stop, all memories will stop, everything will stop, everything, including bonds, relationships, friendships and love.
What are you talking about? Does lack of sleep drive you crazy? No way, I'm normal, like the train next to you is moving, and you think you're moving. I'm normal, it's the world going crazy. ”
The above nihilistic sentence, which is pushed and pulled under "Lemon Song", truly confirms that "meat sound" can turn lines into a declaration with a strong sense of impact.
Combining "masquerades" to dissect its meta-film settings, you can also find something special, in addition to the title of the Kobayashi project using "masquerades", the "false masks" that have been passed on several times make the interpretation more plump.
It can hint at the masquerade (imaginary self) worn by the audience (Makotoko) to watch the movie, and it can also hint at the "masquerade worn in order to integrate into society", but there is actually another layer that implies that "the film can be the masquerade of the movie".
This undoubtedly goes back to the discussion of the ontology of cinema —
When we watch a movie called a movie, is it a movie?
To what extent can the concept of cinematography and the framework of film history, which has been accepted by the mainstream, determine the quality and significance of a film?
Perhaps Yuan Ziwen revealed the truth that many filmmakers who are following many concepts and frameworks have turned their backs on the search for the essence of movies, and mainstream films that are popular or have a considerable box office focus on the "good and evil" favored by the audience, that is, those interpretations that have a hidden and hoodwinked meaning.
So is Kobayashi's "Masquerade" a good movie? This is left to the audience to evaluate, but in the film, a clever closed loop can be found, that is, Kobayashi's ideal "Masquerade" is Yuan Ziwen's "Red Postbox on Escher Street", that is, the filming of "Masquerade" was finally successful.
Yuan Ziwen wants to express "betrayal" at the deepest level, betrayal of the audience, rebellion against film history, betrayal of the film industry system, and will not be betrayal for the sake of betrayal, after all, one of the reasons why he did not make his career when he was young was that he did not want to be an AV director, and his real hobby was to shoot eroticism that would disgust lustful people.
So in Yuan Ziwen's mind, there is a "bad Japanese film tradition" that needs to be overturned.
First, it is the legitimacy represented by the past masters of Japanese film history (such as Ozu, Akira Kurosawa...). But when a younger director makes a film with traces of master technique, it will be considered "advanced".
In fact, this legitimacy is the same everywhere, and the admiration of the domestic academy party Tarkovsky and Bella Tarr can be seen, as long as the portrait is taken, or the long shot is inherited, it will be praised as "promising".
Second, it is the current cultural rules that the Japanese film industry has corrected with cheap morality, which gives people solace, but it is a consolation based on covering up the truth of human nature.
This kind of film will tell the audience that everything is good, that everyone is good, that the social system works perfectly, that the people/humanity as a whole have a good future... There are also three words placed here, positive energy.
The third point is a pure rebellion against the language of the film, Yuan Ziwen once said:
If "movies" also have grammar stuff like that, then just tear it up. If there is something similar to "cinematic" lurking inside your body after shredding, then continue to shred.
At the end of the film, Yuan Ziwen ended the movie by turning off the camera, unless there is no longer a camera in this world, the film will not end, the resistance will not end, Yuan Ziwen This film has a rare straightforwardness, "he" said "turn off the camera, do as I say", Yuan Ziwen replied "boot".