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I once watched a documentary about prostitutes and women, and director Xu Tong ate and lived with sex workers in a certain place in Beijing for several months, recording their daily lives with the most realistic lens.
That documentary refreshed my perception.
My original impression of prostitutes was that of the young, slender, good-looking girls in the hotel, and after watching the documentary, I knew that there was a word called "secret door".
They generally live in urban villages, and their service targets include construction site cranes, taxi drivers, newsstand owners, migrant workers...
Their figure and appearance are relatively ordinary, most of them are from the countryside, their education is relatively low, they also talk about love, they also have crushes, they will go to KTV to sing during breaks, and they will also go to the night market to eat kebabs and drink beer, in short, they are no different from any girl of the same age - except for their special nature of work.
Chen Guo's "Durian Fluttering" tells the story of a northeastern girl who went to Hong Kong to earn quick money in order to make a living and did a 3-month dark prostitution.
The story takes place at the turn of the century, the protagonist is called Ah Yan (Qin Hailu), she studied Peking Opera for 9 years but could not find a way out in the mainland, so she did a 3-month two-way permit to Hong Kong, planning to make money as a dust girl.
She serves all kinds of small hotels, waiting for the boss to call in the dormitory during the day, shuttling on the way to various small hotels, and even eating a few bites of food every day.
She has no friends and doesn't need them.
Occasionally, when I happen to meet other sisters who are also waiting in the dormitory, I will ask innocuous questions such as "Where are you from", "How long have you been here", "How many guests a day you serve", "Who serves the most guests a day", and so on.
A small is responsible for leading Ah Yan to and from various small hotels, the two are always separated by a distance of several meters, one after the other, there is no love for me, I love you, the hero saves the wind and dust, the two have never even chatted.
The only time the two talked was when the little borrowed Ah Yan's bathroom, saw the paper used in the toilet, and asked Ah Yan, why not put it in the toilet and wash it away together? How can I eat a box lunch in a paper basket?
The plot is so real that it is disgusting, closer to reality than the documentary.
Where are so many encounters, where are so many stories, where are so many "you are here too"?
Some adults are just endlessly tired of running for a living, and they are constantly choked by chai rice oil and salt.
In the alleys she passes through every day, Ah Yan meets Ah Fen (Ma Huifen), who illegally enters the restaurant to wash dishes, she is only a teenager, and lives with her parents and sister, and the family lives in a small nest of less than 10 square meters.
Originally, their family had a large house in rural Shenzhen, but in order to follow their father who was "doing business" in Hong Kong, the family entered Hong Kong illegally.
What "business" did Affen's dad do? Every day he limped to work with a large box and went out into the street to open it—his "business" was setting up a stall.
Ah Yan and Ah Fen met because they avoided the police together, and the friendship they formed at the low point was always more pure, and Ah Yan occasionally went to help Ah Fen brush the dishes when he was free.
This friendship is not like ordinary friendship, closely connected, laughing and joking. The sea of people meets in the vast sea of pingshui, the same is the end of the world, the same for the bottom of the life, meet a plain smile, it is enough.
Three months passed, Ah Yan's two-way permit was about to expire, and on the last day, Ah Yan made 38 guests, breaking the highest record in half a year in the nearby neighborhood.
Due to excessive fatigue, Ah Yan slept from day to night, and when she woke up, she had one more hour to leave. The owner called and asked if she wanted to pick up another guest, and she hesitated for a moment to take the last guest.
Ah Yan did not want to take the time to go to Hong Kong Ocean Park to see before leaving, in her impression of Hong Kong is only "Hong Kong people are very picky, tip less" and the broken alley behind the high-rise buildings, and because of the rubbing too many times a day to take a bath and skin fingers.
When she returned to the small northeast town, her family saw that she had made money, so they feasted on relatives and friends, set up a lot of tables, and spent the money that Ah Yan earned in dozens of showers a day.
She cheerfully greeted various relatives, skillfully took over the words of various relatives, and her aunt let her cousin Xiaoli, who was learning to dance, follow Ah Yan south to run around. Ah Yan looked embarrassed and didn't know how to prevaricate.
The South, as an imagination, became a land of hope, full of gold. In fact, this also reflects the impact of the wave of layoffs in the northeast on people's lives at that time.
The most touching thing is that Ah Yan and a group of old classmates returned to the school where they were studying Peking Opera, and several people looked in the window, and one of them said: "Is that mirror the same one we used to practice?" Ah Yan said, "It's been so long, why mention what it does!" ”
There was no sentiment of sadness or remorse, just a "Mention what it does!" "A simple and pragmatic outlook on life.
Ah Yan went to the KTV with her old classmates to sing and sang a very rock song:
"Why do you go to school, why do you want to go to work, why do you want to eat, why do you want to sleep, don't ask me why, that's why I don't want to say;
Why should I drink, why should I sing, why should I laugh, why should I do - love, don't ask me why, I am so unqualified..."
This song not only sings the voice of the director, but also arouses the empathy of the audience: why have we not asked these "whys", who can answer these "whys", and how can we change these answers?
As the great revolutionary teacher said: "Capital comes to earth, and from head to toe, every pore is dripping with blood and dirty things." "But in the material world, who can not be tempted by money?
Ah Yan received a call from the boss in Hong Kong asking her to go to Hong Kong to do it for a while, and Ah Yan wanted to do business in the northeast town, but after an inspection, she did not know what project to do.
In the confusion about the road ahead, Ah Yan put on a costume, smeared oil paint, and sang Peking Opera at the street party in the small city. The reality is so tight, the left and right can't find an exit, so let's sing a piece of the dream of youth.
How to live this life well? No one has the best solution, we can only face our own loneliness and life, hovering between giving up and struggling.
In this film, there are no pure prostitutes- and women, only ordinary people who work tirelessly to make a living for their livelihood, no criticism of the flesh and skin career, and some are only concerned about the low-level public.
Sometimes, what you think is what you think? Beneath the surface of life, the girl rolling over the guest bed, the black dishwasher in Hong Kong, are all side faces of life that you have never seen.