Watching Lou Ye's film was on Friday evening, and the film schedule was very small, only in the school studio outside the north gate of Sichuan. I arrived twenty minutes late, and no one cared from changing tickets to entering. I found the screening hall and pushed the door and went in. The movie is playing until the drama actor Yu Yan, played by Gong Li, walks from the stage into the backstage, wearing a white shirt, black suspender pants, heroic posture, and with the demeanor of King's Landing. The real scenes and fake scenes on and off the stage were mixed together, the actors and passers-by with different identities were also mixed together, and the vocal music whistled by, and for a while, I felt like I had pushed the door and walked into the theater scene.
The film takes place in Shanghai in 1941. Since 1937, Shanghai has become a occupied area occupied by the Japanese army, and only within the concession is a place where the Japanese power has not extended and is controlled by Britain, France and other countries. Historically known as the "Island" period. At that time, Shanghai was at the center of the storm of the most complicated international situation, and it was a wrestling field in which the entrants representing various revolutionary forces were fighting openly and secretly. The Chinese people, who have been oppressed by many parties, have accumulated unprecedented humiliation and resistance demands. Such a historical background, and its dramatic tension, has naturally become the favorite material of many literary and film creators.
For this type of film made by a famous director, I think the audience should pay more attention to its artistry, rather than investigating whether it is in line with historical facts at a glance. There are many film and television masterpieces with World War II as the historical background, like Quentin Tarantillo's "Shameless Bastard", which directly let the spontaneous vengeful forces of the people kill Hitler. Jiang Wen's "Evil Does Not Pressure the Righteous" also allows a contemporary chivalrous guest who carries a mission of revenge and has a beautiful kung fu to avenge the country between the cornices and the wall. Such a narrative is also a kind.
I also put Lou Ye's "Lyceum Theatre" into this genre. The film is based on Hongying's novel The Death of Shanghai and Toshiichi Yokomitsu's novel Shanghai. For me, the tactics adopted in the spy war in the film involve historical causal lines, as long as the logic is self-consistent and not absurd to the extent that the anti-Japanese god drama tears the devils. At this point, the plot of "Lyceum Theatre" may be controversial in two places, one is hypnosis interception of intelligence, and the other is that Yu Yan's choice directly involves the cause and effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The former is based on the reasons mentioned earlier, and because of the self-consistency, it seems to me that it is true. The latter needs to explore the motives of a Chinese female spy to hide information from the French line.
During World War II, the United States mainly pursued isolationism, and the anti-war sentiment of the domestic people was extremely high. In July 1941, when the Japanese army occupied French Indochina, the United States announced economic sanctions against Japan, freezing all Japanese property in the United States. The complex trade-offs behind this decision are no longer unfolding here. Japan's arrogant plan to attack the United States eventually prompted then-US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to formally declare war on Japan, kicking off the Pacific War. Shanghai also ended the "isolated island" period on December 8, when it was fully invaded by the Japanese army.
Some film critics on the Internet believe that Yu Yan concealed the intelligence of the Japanese army's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor in order to promote the success of the sneak attack plan and let the United States also get involved in the war, and the war could see a turnaround. Personally, I agree with this interpretation. In this film, Yu is born in an orphanage, adopted by the Frenchman Hubert, and raised as a female spy. She apparently returned to Shanghai in 1941 to participate in a play directed by her former lover Tan Na, The Saturday Novel. In fact, in order to complete the "double-sided mirror operation" to decipher the Japanese secret telegram. In this process, in addition to completing the spy mission at the emotional level, she also wants to fulfill her promise to fly away with her old love Tan Na. Struggle to maintain a balance between the roles of "spy" and "woman".
In the movie, Tan Na, after seeing Yu Yan's true purpose, said indignantly: "I'm just a pawn." "In fact, in this strange war situation, every individual is a pawn. But it is also a butterfly that can contribute to the meteorological effect of storms. There are countless accidental factors. As shown in the movie, when Hubert obtained intelligence, he did not hear the password representing the location of the Japanese sneak attack, and when he confirmed with Yu Yan again, Yu Yan was shaken to give the wrong information. And the reasons that made her waver, the film is also fully displayed. Because as a Chinese, she saw the Japanese army wantonly plundering and invading Chinese soil, creating heinous crimes, and her heart was angry and hateful.
It is worth mentioning that in the real history, China did intercept the intelligence of the Japanese army on the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and Chi Buzhou, a wizard who had a background in Japan and did not have cryptography expertise, with his excellent logical reasoning and research ability, deciphered the secret report sent by the Japanese army through the radio, and the intelligence was submitted to Chiang Kai-shek, and Chiang Kai-shek forwarded it to the United States through the US envoy in Chongqing, but the US side did not take any action, and was regarded as dismissive of this information. On December 7, the Japanese finally attacked Pearl Harbor. For such a result, Chi Buzhou can only regret that he "fulfilled his responsibility".
Whether it is the historical facts that have already happened, or the fictional plot in the movie, under the understanding of the general climate that has taken shape, to look back at the small diversion that converges into the river, the true and false are not so great. It is nothing more than a share of possibilities in parallel universes.
Back to the movie.
Watching the actor's interview, Gong Li is working with Lou Ye for the first time. I can't help but say that Yu Yan is really the only one who deserves the role of Gong Huang in the past ten years. The beauty with the breath of a scarf, gentle and deep and introverted. A scene of meeting the Japanese army in a hotel, the feeling of crushing anger hidden between the eyebrows, is too impressive. Several other supporting roles are also rare actors with strong literary temperament in today's film and television circles, as well as well-known actors from France and Japan, who are very colorful and enjoyable. Each scene is like drinking whiskey, the cup noodles are refreshing, and the taste is strong.
I've always liked Lou Ye. After his films were released over the years, I insisted on going to the cinema and waiting long enough to watch them online. Even if you are not finished, you will not go to the theater to brush twice. Because I love to relive his films based on impressions. Watching "Lyceum Theatre" this time, this Impressionist method is more emotional in taste, only to find that every scene in the movie is deeply reflected in the mind, as if a projector in the dark room is also installed in the mind. Black and white tones of the image, the character makeup is not on foundation, soft skin texture, eyes, limbs, hand-held close-up presentation. Watching Lou Ye's films has always been like reading the holographic memory of a person involved, the sense of personal experience with emotional ups and downs, the sense of continuity as a point in three-dimensional time and space, and the originality that overflows from each scene, as if it is felt through the physical body of the characters. Whether it is a female Wenqing in the 1980s, a resentful woman who was betrayed and conspired to kill her husband Xiaosan by her husband, a crazy woman who indulged in the trap of power and money towards evil and schizophrenia, or a female spy who mediated in a complex and dangerous situation.
This is Lou Ye. His films tell you a story, no matter what the times and society behind it are. He always adheres to a soft and lyrical individual perspective. The flow of emotion, ambiguity and lust, has always been an indispensable element. I thought that this was Lou Ye's background color, a romantic background color. Under the torrent of grand pale objective reality, this background color makes his films always seem to carry a little precious truth and irreplaceable beauty.