Poster of "A Vast North"
The film "A Vast North" directed by Cai Chengjie will be released in theaters of the National Arts Alliance on July 20. The film, which won best director and best picture at first youth film festival last year, won the Golden Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival this year. The 37-year-old Cai Chengjie, who made his film directorial debut, reconciled a vivid depth and innocence in the film. The precise grasp of the atmosphere of the film, the absurd humor and heaviness of magic realism, make the film always exude a different temperament.
The film has long been a legend among "literary youth", and last year, at the First Film Festival, which was regarded as the touchstone of the new generation of directors, a movie called "The Little Widow Becomes a Fairy" made a stunning appearance. And one of the focal points that has aroused controversy is that this movie actually carries the "superstition" of committing great taboos. Widows can become immortals, ghosts are visible to the naked eye, compared with the definition of "magic realism", "feudal superstition" is more curious, and it is closer to the film's concern and expression of the countryside.
"A Vast North" tells the story of a rural widow who has died three times, who is recognized by everyone as a living god who can see a doctor and drive away evil spirits under a yin and yang mistake, and the kind little widow sincerely helps others, and finally finds that she is cured of illness, but she cannot save the greedy and indifferent people's hearts.
Through a series of absurd experiences of the little widow, the problems of the current countryside are connected, leaving the elderly behind, favoring sons over daughters... In the countryside at the junction of Liaoning, Inner Mongolia and Hebei, mixed with the chatter of the northeast duo, Cai Chengjie said that his life was varied, and the heavy facts were sometimes unbearable.
Director Cai Chengjie. Visual China Information
The goodness of human nature is close to the divine nature, which is the meaning of "becoming immortal"
The surging news: The little widow in the film has an experience beyond ordinary people's experience, being shot in the stomach without dying, can change the gender of the fetus in the pregnant woman's belly, and can see the soul of the deceased... Why is there such an idea?
Cai Chengjie: When I wrote it, I was also very clear that all these means were in the service of my story. In fact, the meaning of this story is not to talk about such backward and ignorant feudal things in the countryside, or to study them to explore their truth and falsehood, I think this story is actually a story about human nature itself, about the kindness and indifference of human nature, using the warmth and brilliance of human nature to fight against the darkness of human nature, from a female perspective, to help all the people around. This kind of emotion is actually universal, not only in the northern countryside, I think this can be established in any crowd environment, so it is not like many people say that you are talking about ignorance and backwardness in this thing? I think that in fact, this really did not focus on this direction, when I looked at it, it was actually a woman's experience, after entering such a dilemma, encountering a variety of people exposed some problems.
The Paper: There is also some discussion about "feudal superstition" in the irrational part, what do you think?
Cai Chengjie: In fact, it is okay, everything that the character itself does is actually out of his own pure kindness, and this story has encountered a lot of this kind of unreal things, you can also explain that she will have some spiritual trance in this kind of icy and snowy place, in fact, it depends on personal understanding, although we called "Little Widow Chengxian" before, but in fact, there is no real talk about saying that she is in Chengxian'er, I personally think it is said that it is such an ordinary woman, some of her very ordinary emotions, This kind of kindness makes one's fate more difficult, and such kindness is even more precious. Maybe this kind of goodness can be close to the divine nature, beyond some human nature itself, maybe this is the meaning of the so-called "immortality".
Stills from "A Vast North"
The Paper: This is actually a very cold story, but it seems that the Northeast dialect has a very lively attribute, and sometimes there are some creaky places. Is this your deliberate design, or is it the reaction of our audience to watching too many Northeast sketches?
Cai Chengjie: In fact, it was intentionally created, but it is not an authentic Northeastern dialect. This place is Pingquan in Hebei, it is a place where three provinces meet, and there is a little bit of a mixture of such a language. I especially know these people in our hometown, these people have a personality that seems to be born as an actor, and when he encounters problems, he always uses humor to say a few words, always like this. Before I wrote the script, I had the impression of each of these characters in my mind. You said that there are places of laughter and bitterness, and I think this is what I hope to use a more absurd way to dissolve some of the painful things in reality.
The Paper: Basically using fixed camera length lenses, the performance challenge for professional actors is also quite large, right? Do you feel sorry for the fact that there are some obvious lines stuck in the movie now?
Cai Chengjie: There are professional actors and non-professional actors in this movie. Playing the second good Tian Tian, she can be very accurate in the performance, one over. But she lacks the texture of life, so we need to shape her and let her live a month in advance. Non-professional actors, their advantage is that his image and life texture is very strong, he almost does not need us to go back to the back to shape, but the difference is actually to perform this part, including lines, this is their first task, the whole Spring Festival they have been memorizing, we read the script in the hotel in the early stage, every scene is rehearsed. I think I did all this homework, but when I got to the scene, I personally still think that the atmosphere of each scene is more important, these actors, if you go to shout "card" because of his few bumps, it will be worse and worse behind it, it is not like professional actors can repeat hundreds of times. So I think that maintaining the overall environmental atmosphere and its sense of wholeness is more important than a certain wrong sentence of his line, if I shout stop, it is not worth the loss, and I think it is right, some people will say that this line is not so precise, but it is also a manifestation of life itself.
The Paper: How did these non-professional actors get them?
Cai Chengjie: I myself am from there, so I mobilized friends to find boilers in local industrial and commercial offices, supermarket owners, and small restaurant owners. There was a particularly great experience, but we stayed in the town hotel hostess, the person was very good, heard that we were filming, and then recommended to us a local organizer in charge of the square dance and song team, she ten miles and eight villages people know well, the big sister is particularly good, especially enthusiastic, directly called us a lot of people, the hotel hall is full. And these folks who come here each have a very good personality, everyone says that I am not for money, I will watch you act in movies and love to be lively, I will come to participate in a hilarity.
Older newcomer directors make movies to find freedom
The Paper: There are many formal ways of expressing the film, what is the consideration of the black and white tone?
Cai Chengjie: Black and white and color are actually a distinction between reality and non-reality. The beginning of the color to black and white transition, it is between life and death in such a situation. When she woke up, the world was black and white. In fact, the tone of the whole story is very cold, in this kind of icy snow scene, the cold story that happens, which also places the indifferent level of human nature, then I think black and white is more conducive to highlighting such a tone.
The Paper: Snow scenes are actually very difficult to shoot, because it is easy to overexposure, is such a large narrative in the snow, is there also a very big challenge at the technical level?
Cai Chengjie: Yes, because its reflection is very strong, basically using some light sheets or blackout panels, there are some times when we want to achieve some relatively high exposure, we will wait for the sky to be dark for about 15 minutes after the sun sets, but the sky is not completely black when the time to grab some scenes, and then the snow is a piece of silver, silver with a little blue, the sky is also a silver, a little bit of blue, in the color is not pulled black and white is particularly good, black and white after the silver sense may be worse , but there is still a sense of layering, in fact, it is quite difficult to shoot a sense of layering in black and white.
The Paper: Snow scenes are difficult to shoot, but in order to fit the theme of "the north is a vast expanse", so we must face the difficulties, right?
Cai Chengjie: Personally, I think that as a director, the first priority is actually to grasp the tone of the film. I think when telling such a story, the first lesson is not to tell the actors, or to talk about some creative work to various departments, I think the first thing I think of is to choose what kind of overall atmosphere and tone. Photography is the most intuitive from the visual language, we talked a lot, he also gave some programs, including black and white at that time, including composition, in fact, with doubts to the scene, while watching the scene while taking a box of lenses to the scene to try to shoot. After doing some experimental comparisons, I finally felt that it was more appropriate to choose such a tone as it is now. Personally, I think it's purely because of the narrative itself that sets the tone, not to say how it has to be, but I just think he does it as long as it's particularly suitable.
The Paper: You started with First, and you can see that the directors who make movies now are really getting younger, do you feel pressured as an "older player"?
Cai Chengjie: Actually, I have anxiety, but not because of age, I have been looking for opportunities to make movies before, when I was shooting some dramas on CCTV, I was very anxious about when I would have the opportunity to do more free expression, to shoot something that can be called a "real work", this anxiety is the anxiety that I have been suffering from no chance. Now the greater anxiety actually comes from the creative level, how to find your own film language to tell a story you want to tell, how to break through yourself, I think this is also a problem of anxiety.
The Paper: I have been shooting TV dramas before, in fact, I should be very good at narrative and close to the public, but when you choose a more distant personal expression when you make a movie, when did this authorship tendency begin?
Cai Chengjie: Because I came from a painting background, I still have some personal pursuits of aesthetics. After graduation, advertising and television, in the tourism satellite TV and CCTV for many years, although doing TV series, but during this period, in fact, a lot of foreign movies are watched, including some new films under the three major film festivals every year are watching, the amount of watching films is very large, this process is actually a process of accumulating and cultivating aesthetics, can have horizontal and vertical contrast, can see the influence of some masters and directors on themselves. At that time, of course, when CCTV wanted to make this kind of drama, because we had a very obvious audience to consider for them, when shooting this kind of program, we had fewer opportunities to use this particularly exploratory language. Therefore, I want to be in my own film works, not to have so many constraints, we must use the aesthetic things that I have thought of or felt for so many years and learned in the movie. As long as you can find an expression suitable for a scene, use it, but find it quite easy.