"Ketu Autumn Hate" is a Hong Kong film released in 1990, directed by Hui Anhua and screenwriter Wu Nianzhen, which is slightly less well-known than other films starring Maggie Cheung, but it is full of more meaning.
The film tells the story of the separation from the estrangement to the final reconciliation between mother and daughter in a foreign land. The sense of alienation between different cultures in the film, the loyalty of divisions, and the emotions between generations can all resonate with people. When the end of the film sounded Bai Jurong's singing of "Ketu Autumn Hate": the cool breeze has a letter, the autumn moon is boundless----- this scene, it makes people cry.
The film material is derived from the true story of Hong Kong female director Hui Anhua herself. The relationship between mother and daughter is like the plot of the film.
By interspersing the story of XiaoEn played by Maggie Cheung and Xiao En's mother played by Lu Xiaofen, the film integrates flashback techniques, in the tone of nostalgia and sadness, while telling the audience, while leaving the audience with more imagination space and deepening the audience's emotional identity.
I will analyze the mother-child relationship and hometown feelings embodied in this classic film from three aspects: narrative technique, soundtrack art, and theme presentation.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, narrative technique: reminiscence narrative interspersed with it, looking at the twists and turns of mother-daughter feelings</h1>
The film is shot from the first perspective of Xiao En's characters, interspersed with fragments of memories, there is a virtual in the real, and the virtual and the real are combined, so that people can immerse themselves in it and at the same time jump out and reflect on reality.
The narrative of the film is based on time: Xiao En completed his studies in the United Kingdom, returned to Hong Kong to attend his sister's wedding, accompanied his mother to Japan to explore his hometown, and returned to Guangdong to visit his sick grandfather.
While following the narrative of time, the film is interspersed with the narrative of Xiao En and his mother, which is conjugated by narrative fragments that disrupt time and space, and each fragment has an inseparable connection with the theme. Express deep emotions with small scenes, which are intriguing and evocative.
Xiao En's recollection narrative of the mother's incomprehension is divided into three stages:
The first stage of childhood, at the home of the grandparents in Macau.
The former mother was silent and serious, rejected by her in-laws and despised by her neighbors. All this also led to Xiao'en's estrangement from her mother.
In the second stage, he returned to Hong Kong from his grandparents' home.
My mother just played mahjong every day and didn't care about anything else. Xiao En has all kinds of dislikes for his mother.
The third stage of youth, from the United Kingdom back to Hong Kong.
The mother has an eccentric temperament, speaks cynically and is controlling. Xiao En was even more dissatisfied with his mother's change.
These incomprehensions include the mother-daughter conflict of cutting hair twice, and the attachment of the window of 5 stares. Feel the sensitivity of mother-daughter emotions in the twists and turns.
First, recall the climax of the narrative, where two haircuts trigger a mother-daughter conflict.
Xiao En lived very freely in England, riding a bicycle through the streets, and showing his personality in a crop top. After being influenced by Western culture, back at home in Hong Kong, her mother took out a red vulgar dress for Xiao En to wear, and said that the next day we would do hair together, all permed into the same hairstyle. Xiao En came back this time to find that her mother had not changed except playing mahjong, and her personality had changed a lot.
Xiao En sat in a barber chair and silently accepted his mother's request to cut his long hair while recalling a haircut as a child. Xiao En's childhood memories are very beautiful, with the aroma of bread in the afternoon hanging basket, sweet stewed papaya, and grandfather's soft belly. But the memory of her mother made her shudder. The silent, unsmiling mother, the cold meal, and the mother's certain stubbornness all became the reason why Xiao En alienated her mother.
When Xiao En reached the age of elementary school, her mother chased Xiao En to give Xiao En a haircut. Xiao En cried and cried and ignored it. The two chased around the table, and the mother pulled Xiao En over, threw her down on the bed, and punched her hard on the ass. Then he pulled her up and put an old newspaper with a hole in the middle to her neck, ignoring her cries. The mother cut a short hair for Xiao En according to her own intentions. My grandfather and grandmother heard the cries and rushed to her, and my mother had already cut it for her.
The two haircut scenes are dominated by the will of the mother, who loves Xiao En in her heart, but cannot forgive Xiao En, who should be closest to her, for always avoiding herself. Far and near, want to be close and far, it is the mother and daughter two saw-like emotions.
At the wedding, the hairstyle is permed into the same, and the mother's selfish intention is to let others see it as a family at a glance, and it is more pompous. But her actions touched Xiao En's scars again, and the family's feelings were harmonious, not the appearance of the appearance, but the feelings of the heart. The mother and daughter rarely communicate, and when they meet, they are each other's needles against Mai Mang, as if the deeper they hurt each other, the more they can't let go of each other.
Second, the window becomes the medium through which the mother and daughter express their feelings.
In many places in the film, the mother and daughter are seen watching each other at the window. Sometimes the mother is upstairs, looking at the daughter downstairs, and sometimes it's the daughter upstairs, looking at the mother downstairs. Through the gaze of the window, it is conveyed that although the two are dissatisfied with each other, the blood relationship is still unclear and unclear, and there are always wisps of concern for each other.
The mother stood in front of the window and watched her grandmother take Xiao En to school, Xiao En was not wearing a school uniform, wearing a pink dress, carrying a large straw hat, and the grandmother's hand was on Xiao En's shoulder.
As a child, Xiao En watched the back of her mother leaving at the window, and later her mother also watched the stubborn Xiao En go to the school with her suitcase.
When her mother came back from the phone, Xiao En had been upstairs watching her mother, just like when she was a child, her mother wanted to take Xiao En back to Hong Kong, but Xiao En did not agree and ran downstairs crying.
The director's narrative echoes many times back and forth, and the similar personalities of the mother and daughter jump on the screen, afraid of revealing their true feelings, behind the window is full of secrets of deep meaning, allowing the audience to savor the taste.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, soundtrack art: "Ketu Autumn Hate" Cantonese music appears twice, rendering the unchanged hometown feeling</h1>
The art of soundtrack is an effective means for films to express emotions. Playing specific music in specific scenes plays a very important role in promoting the development of the plot, expressing the emotions of the theme, and filling in the blanks of the picture.
The most important melody of this film is the Cantonese soundtrack of "Ketu Autumn Hate", which was very popular in Hong Kong at that time, and could be heard in the streets and alleys and tea houses. Appears twice in the film. The soundtrack cooperates with the language of the camera to properly express the character's personality, portray the character psychology, explain the background of the era in which the story takes place, and also render the atmosphere, push the emotion to a height, and enhance the appeal of the film.
First of all, in the ten minutes of the film, the picture is a hot summer day, outside the window is an endless turquoise lotus pond, when the song appears, the grandfather lies on the recliner, fanning the fan, Xiao En recites the poem in front of the grandfather. "Wild grass flowers by the Suzaku Bridge, the sunset at the mouth of Wuyi Lane. In the old days, Wang Xie Tang Qianyan flew into the homes of ordinary people. ”
After memorizing the poem, Xiao En lay on his grandfather's stomach, and his grandfather shook the fan. The childish voice fell and transformed into Cantonese opera. Liu Yuxi's ancient poems and nanyin rise and fall one after another, seemingly completing the handover and inheritance of a certain cultural tradition.
Xiao En was still young at that time, and he was still unclear about the meaning of the poems that his grandfather let himself memorize, but the color and atmosphere revealed in the poems were all pathos and sorrows, and his grandfather experienced the vicissitudes of the world from the prosperity and decline of the period, rich and poor.
Today and the past, like many encounters and afterglows, are disconnected. "Cool breeze has faith", inherited from Song Yu's "tragic autumn", which is a kind of decadent and powerless death, and also transformed into the imaginary power of searching for roots and asking ancestors. Although my grandfather was in Macao, he thought of returning to the roots of the fallen leaves, homesick every day, and wanted to return to Guangzhou. My grandfather had an obsession with traditional culture and his hometown.
The second "Ketu Autumn Hate" song appears at the end of the film.
My grandfather finally returned to his beloved hometown, but he could only be a passer-by to his hometown. Although the background of the times is only a few strokes, it also sees the clues. Because my grandfather wanted to send Xiao En a copy of Song Ci, he was censored, and he was attacked by blood and heart, and he suffered a stroke. Feel the old man's enthusiasm, no support, the wind and candles are dead, still adrift. The dilapidated and cramped house is far from the imagination of the hometown.
Xiao En looked at his bedridden grandfather in a daze, feeling inexplicably sad in his heart, remembering the things that happened to his grandfather after memorizing ancient poems when he was a child. The song slowly sounded.
The weather has entered the late autumn with a coolness, and this song is even more sad and gentle. With Cantonese opera, war, China, Japan, Hong Kong, history, family affection, all these heavy things fell on Xiao En, who had mixed feelings and shed two lines of tears.
The Cantonese opera that appears twice gives the whole film a sad and desolate hue, and after the desolation, it is the rendering of a large piece of turquoise lotus leaves, which makes people feel hopeful.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, the theme presentation: hometown feelings and home conditions in the context of the times</h1>
If you savor it, the director injects too much emotion into this film. There is a sense of the times that the country hates and the family hates, there is the upheaval and displacement of personal destiny, and there is a strong nostalgia for wandering in a foreign land.
First of all, the estrangement between mother and daughter stems from the feelings of home and country in the context of the times.
Xiao En accompanied her mother to Japan to find her roots and worship her ancestors. In her mother's memories, Xiao En learned the story of her mother and father knowing each other. Her mother's family was a large family in Japan, and she and her brother came to Manchuria, China, under the blow of lost love. Because of the defeat of Japan, his brother's son fell ill and met Xiao En's father by chance. With the help of the father, the child's illness has been cured. When they were about to return to Japan, her father begged her to stay. She said yes. Xiao En's name also came from this, and her mother only left her to repay the favor because her father saved her relatives.
While in Japan, Xiao En was embarrassed because he couldn't understand Japanese. She slowly got to know her mother, couldn't understand it, and couldn't say how painful it was to be in a foreign land. Mother, a Japanese living in China, was even more difficult. Because of that environment, the mother was silent, and the grandparents were loyal to the motherland, and they also had resentment in their hearts that their sons had married a Japanese daughter-in-law without their consent. For the mother, the husband works outside the home for many years, the in-laws are cold-eyed, and the daughter does not understand herself. I am like a lonely boat on the sea, alone and helpless.
My mother thought that Japan was her hometown, but found that Japan had also become alienated, and she had become a person who was struggling in the cracks, Chinese regarded herself as an enemy, and the Japanese brother regarded himself as a disgrace to betray the motherland. After her mother and brother met, they pounced on Xiao En and cried bitterly, and the grievances in her heart seemed to find an outlet to vent, and it turned out that everything could not go back.
After decades in Hong Kong, my mother has become an authentic Hong Konger. I am no longer used to the Japanese diet. The family's old house was also sold, and the mother had no home.
Xiao En's previous incomprehension of his mother has found the answer in Japan. It turned out that when I was a child, I let myself get a haircut and wear a school uniform because in Japan, there are strict rules in school. Xiao En and his mother finally let go of the mustard and learned about their mother's difficulties and care for themselves.
Secondly, there are old dreams and deep emotions on the way home.
In the film, the grandfather's hometown is Guangzhou, and the guest route is Macao; the mother's hometown is Japan, and the guest route is Manchuria, Macau and Hong Kong; Xiao En's hometown is Macau, and the guest route is London and Hong Kong.
Although the grandfather returned to his hometown, but the hometown has been estranged; the mother returned to her hometown and found that she could no longer adapt to Japan; Xiao En wanted to stay in England to work, but the British also refused Xiao En.
People who have migrated many times are in prison everywhere, and they can't stop. Memories that have not been deserted have become old dreams. For her mother, Japan was an old dream, and to Xiao En, her grandparents' home was an old dream. No matter how good the old dream is, it can't go back, and the detention trip is fate.
Hometown and other places, home country and the world, Xu Anhua's performance method fully shows this pattern.
Hong Kong's "guest route" eventually became a common "way home" for mother and daughter, and the two also tolerated each other emotionally. The mother also forgave the in-laws. The psychological reconciliation of three generations was completed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" ends >:</h1>
Xu Anhua is good at creating a far-reaching mood in her films, and many of her films present a bland and far-reaching, poetic aesthetic beauty, forming its unique poetic style.
Maggie Cheung tearfully and the right soundtrack blends perfectly with the whole story. The audience is constantly trapped in the emotional atmosphere in the film, and the emotions cannot be dissipated for a long time.
"The autumn wind, just like this blows a lifetime, the taste of sadness tastes until now, life is a wayward river, rapid and slow, sweet and sour. Autumn hate, hiding in the hem of her skirt, the sad eyes hidden until now, fate is a grain of the dust of the road -----"
The theme song "Ketu Autumn Hate" is again a point. In this song contains director Xu Anhua's interpretation of his own destiny.