Text: Overnight flowers
If I look at it personally, my favorite domestic movie of the decade will definitely not be "Daytime Fireworks". Even in 2014, when the film was born, on the sharpness, it may not be as sharp as Wang Xiaoshuai's "Intruder", and on the delicacy, it may not be as good as Lou Ye's "Tuina".
But at the Berlin Film Festival, it was Diao Yinan's "Daytime Fireworks" that won the Golden Bear Award and the Silver Bear Award for Best Actor (Liao Fan) that defeated strong films such as "Boyhood" and "Budapest Hotel". Because of this, the film has given Chinese audiences too high expectations, and many viewers seem to feel that whether it is a film or a performance, it seems that there is a gap compared with the previous international award-winning "Overlord Farewell" and "Qiu Ju Fights the Lawsuit".
In fact, the evaluation of the film cannot escape the background of the times. Comparing the domestic films in the decade 2010-1020, "Daytime Fireworks" is a milestone or an excellent model in many aspects, and has a strong inspiration for domestic films in this period, such as:
The monumental work of domestic film noir (although "film noir" as a classic genre in Hollywood in the last century, many audiences are not unfamiliar, but the core of rich literary and art films with "story" and "ornamental" strong genre films packaging, to attract a wider audience, is undoubtedly the mainstream direction of this decade);
The perspective jumps out of the elite and cultural groups, and targets more frustrated and bitter ordinary people (like Duan Yihong in "Blizzard Is Coming", the setting of the defense section is highly similar to Liao Fan in "Daytime Fireworks");
Use seemingly ordinary urban features to reflect regional culture, human feelings, and mental states (the cold and cold northeast of "Easy and Pleasant", the desolate and dilapidated Ordos in "Old Beast", and the damp and rugged southwest of "The Unknown Generation").
Although these unfolding are all good angles for dissecting "Daytime Fireworks", the biggest advantage of the film is that the story itself is deep enough to poke at the dark side of human nature - greed, delusion, and violence, which not only reflect the confusion of the underlying individuals under the constraints of the times, but also place it in the world's motifs of "desire" and "violence", so that more people from different cultural backgrounds can perceive the essence of the story.
When talking about "Daytime Fireworks" specifically, we must first understand the "version dispute" of the film. Whether it is the longer "Berlin version" or the "release version" that is shorter in the mainland for a few minutes, each one is complete in content. The relationship between them is not simply "deleted for a few minutes", the mainland version also has content that the Berlin version does not have in the details (for example, the end of the mainland version is Liao Fan setting off fireworks, and the Berlin version only sees fireworks and does not see his people). In short, the Berlin version of the blank and suspenseful atmosphere renders more, and the mainland version is more direct and obvious.
01
None of the main characters in Daytime Fireworks are absolutely positive. They have an unspeakable purpose for each other, whether it is the obscene and decadent chief of the security section Zhang Zili (Liao Fan), or the calm, cold, and unpredictable iceberg beauty Wu Zhizhen (Gui Lunmeng), all of them are painstakingly operating in their own abacus, and it is difficult to let go after all.
"Daytime Fireworks" is a suspenseful, crime, "criminal investigation" movie. The core of contemporary violence and criminal behavior seems to have an inseparable relationship with "sex", which is still secretive in past domestic films (even Zhang Yimou, who is good at talking about "sex", can only use some ritual pictures and allegorical stories to metaphor). However, for young audiences who have watched more European, American, Japanese and Korean movies, watching "Daytime Fireworks" again, it is not difficult to feel the essence of the relationship between the characters.
At the heart of the film's story is a mysterious "corpse case" in 1999.
For Zhang Zili, this case is the beginning of his nightmare, the lingering scar in his life. Because of poor execution, from the captain of the criminal police team to the security section, life began to enter a vicious circle of self-loathing and self-exile. The collapse of the career also aggravated the breakdown of personal feelings, and the marriage of Zhang Zili after the Cold War was also completely broken.
Similarly, Zhang Zili's admiration for Wu Zhizhen, on the one hand, is utilitarian and wants to find the gap in solving the case through Wu Zhizhen; on the other hand, it is instinctive attraction, cold and quiet but lonely and weak Wu Zhizhen, who naturally fills Zhang Zili's suppressed desire.
For Wu Zhizhen, the source of a series of murders lies in Li Lianqing, the owner of the original leather-clad man", the "Daytime Fireworks" bar. Li Lianqing's murder and the "fake death" of her husband Liang Zhijun (Wang Xuebing) caused people related to Wu Zhizhen to be killed by Liang Zhijun with an ice knife.
The reason why Rong Rong (Wang Jingchun), the owner of the dry cleaning shop who covets Wu Zhizhen, survived was also given a metaphor by the director (in fact, it is already a metaphor), and Rong Rong was hindered by an unspeakable hidden disease (most likely "sexual impotence"), and had to achieve personal catharsis through some habits, rather than being able to truly fall in love with Wu Zhizhen.
Liang Zhijun's "ice knife" is an externalized weapon of desire, and he cannot realize his love for Wu Zhizhen, so he "imprisons" everything about Wu Zhizhen through an almost perverted way, and kills all people who may have ambiguous feelings.
02
The hidden truth has always been the biggest mystery of "Daytime Fireworks". Was Li Lianqing, the owner of the "Daytime Fireworks", really killed by Wu Zhizhen? In fact, the answer is not necessarily. Although Wu Zhizhen admitted and testified, and personally denied her husband's involvement, the film still did not seal the conclusion.
"Femme Fatale", as a typical female image of the "film noir" of the classical Hollywood era, is considered to be labeled on the one hand, to demonize women, with a strong male perspective of subjective assumptions; on the other hand, it is also considered that women began to get rid of their attachment to men and move towards autonomy.
Wu Zhizhen, played by Gui Lunmeng, can be seen as a localization transplant of such roles. Throughout, she was veiled in mystery. If according to her arguments, because she could not afford to pay the huge indemnity of the leather coat (the "twenty-eight" in 99 years was quite considerable), under the oppression of the owner of the leather coat, Li Lianqing, he was forced to kill people, and naturally he could be believed to be a story of oppression and hegemony by powerful and rich businessmen.
But in the "daytime fireworks" boss lady's words, she and Li Lianqing are more like a kind of consensual "extramarital love" between the two sides. That is to say, there is also a possibility: Liang Zhijun was dissatisfied and too controlling, and killed Wu Zhizhen's lover Li Lianqing. In the end, Wu Zhizhen himself took the blame and said that he "betrayed" her husband Liang Zhijun.
Many times, the audience over-amplifies her scheming and indulgent aspects (for example, she wears lipstick and is both admiring and seductive to Zhang Zili, which is why she is proactive on the Ferris wheel).
In fact, even though Wu Zhizhen is often indulging in desire and covering up her mistakes for self-preservation. But in essence, she has a strong sense of guilt and tolerance for others. She has a decent attitude toward her boss who covets him and is sexually incompetent, and is tolerant and considerate of her sick husband, and he does not take the initiative to try to kill people.
But she feels guilty about the people who died because of her, and her "confession" and "smile" at the end are a kind of redemption and a relief. In the portrayal of Wu Zhizhen, the film not only cleverly uses blank space, but also exerts the "cold" characteristics of Guilun Magnesium to the extreme, and gives different audiences more imagination space for the emotional color and degree of recognition of Wu Zhizhen.
03
"Crushed ladybugs, horses that have lost their reins, zhang self-exertion in self-exile, fireworks that bloom in the daytime."
If it is said that behind Wu Zhizhen, it is a metaphor for the concentrated outbreak after the suppression of "sex" by contemporary people. Then Zhang Zili's solo dance at the end of the film (Liao Fan's performance is not inferior to Zhang Guorong's Solo Dance of Xu Zai in "The Legend of Ah Fei"), revealing a deeper bitterness.
The film's revelation of the background of the times is not as obvious as the later "Blizzard Is Coming" ("Blizzard" and the end of the state-run era). More through the phenomenon of fragmentation, the estrangement from the characters, the decadent mental state, to the side to reproduce those humble individuals who are crushed by the giant wheel of the times.
In the era when collectivism is gradually fading away and moneyism is supreme, Zhang Zili is like a ladybug that has been crushed, a horse that cannot find its master, and from the "banishment" of the criminal police team to the security section, he does not think about how to regain appreciation, be re-accepted, and be re-identified.
His obscenity and decadence were just a cover for vulnerability, and when he "lured" Wu Zhizhen to help solve the case, his merits were not appreciated, and at that moment, only a complete despair remained in his heart.
His solo dance, without the slightest sense of beauty, unloads all the burdens of delusion, and is free to release, seemingly funny but full of desolation. Behind the "daytime fireworks", the "Li Liansheng" who came ashore in the economic tide enjoyed themselves and enjoyed the pleasure brought by rich materials.
Compared with the mainland version, which shows Liao Fan setting off fireworks on the roof, the fireworks of the "Berlin version" have no head and no tail, and fly freely during the day. This is undoubtedly a more convincing ending, and behind Zhang Zili, there are countless lost people.
In the cold and cold Harbin, every lost and suppressed heart is like a fire under an iceberg, the day is the head, and the looming burning fire is fleeting. It is not so much a "cry" of Zhang Zili to Wu Zhizhen, but rather a kind of release after Zhang Zili's inner despair of reality.