In the days when cinemas around the world are not open, there are only a few new films, and there are few waves in the desert.
Among the most watched high-scoring movies in the first half of the year, the queer youth film "True Heart Half Solution" must have a name.
There is no tragic romance common to same-sex movies, but in the typical American campus youth narrative, there is a spark of love, friendship, sexual orientation, minority, and family relations.
True Half-Solution is widely acclaimed thanks to its director and screenwriter, Alice Wu.
As a Chinese-American female director, she has only shot two feature films in her 16-year film career.
Today, we will talk about another, once a blockbuster debut -
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Director: Siwei Wu
Screenwriter: Wu Siwei
Starring: Yang Yahui / Chen Chong / Chen Ling / Wang Jin / Yang Mingshen
Release Date: 2004-09-12 (Toronto Film Festival)
Runtime: 91 min / 96 min (US)
Douban score 8.7, a well-deserved same-sex masterpiece.
Even in the high praise short comment, there are still people who question -
Whether it is "True Heart Half Solution" or "Face", behind it is the personal experience of director Wu Siwei.
Wu Siwei became a film director, which was a bit of a mistake.
In 1998, she received her Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University and got a great job at Microsoft.
But she preferred to become a writer and began writing novels, inspired by her personal experiences with female gay men and her mother's troubles as she reached middle age.
This is also the prototype of the core framework of "Face".
Director Wu Siwei
During a film script writing class at Seattle University by chance, she spent three nights writing the first draft of the script for "Face" and made up her mind to direct it herself.
To direct the film, she quit her high-paying job at Microsoft and set herself a plan for success within 5 years.
In the fall of 2003, she received an investment from Overbrook Entertainment, and "Face" was successfully filmed in Brooklyn and Flushing, New York, USA.
On the 12th anniversary of the release of "Face", the creators reunited at ClexaCon in California
The core conflict of "Face" revolves around a chinese mother and daughter living in the United States.
The young daughter Xiaowei (Yang Yahui) is a capable surgeon, slightly stooped on her back, combing a single ponytail, and likes to wear a neutral casual dress.
Xiao Wei's forty-eight-year-old mother (Chen Chong) has lived in the Chinese community in New York for more than twenty years, and has been widowed, living a decent and lonely life.
His daily hobby is to pull his daughter to various blind dates and let her meet different Chinese youths.
But Xiaowei is a female comrade, and for the face of her mother and the people around her, she barely copes with it every time.
Until a social meeting, she met a beautiful and tall New York ballet actress Vivian.
A casual glance in the crowd completed a confirmation of each other.
Xiao Wei is shy and passive, and she chooses to keep her comradehood secretive.
Vivian is enthusiastic and encourages Xiaowei to open her heart and pursue what she wants.
Back and forth, the relationship between the two gradually became close, but Xiao Wei's heart always had a hurdle.
She is willing to be each other's underground lovers with Vivian, but walking down the street, she is still afraid of the outside world's eyes, afraid of being seen as an "outlier".
When Vivian asked her for a kiss, one second she was still smiling at the corner of her mouth, and the next second it seemed to subconsciously release her clenched hand.
In addition to Xiao Wei's repressed homosexual love, there is another main line in "Face" -
That is the mother played by Chen Chong, who is inexplicably and unexpectedly pregnant.
Her father followed the principle of "no family ugliness should be publicized", swept her out of the house, and had to move in with Xiaowei.
Xiao Wei was greatly surprised when she learned about it, but her mother was still reluctant to say who the child's father's surname was.
In order to help her mother return to normal life as soon as possible, Xiaowei began to help her mother find a blind date, and also collided with various comedy plots.
Chen Chong, 43, showed superb acting skills in "Face", contributing several natural and traceless performances, conveying the subtle emotions of a Chinese mother.
After becoming pregnant, she hid in her daughter's house, not daring to face the haste of family and love.
When Vivian came to Xiaowei's house as a friend and asked about the child in her belly, her heart trembled but she looked at him.
Hearing Vivian's phone message to her daughter confirmed their unusual relationship.
On the surface, I watch a soap opera quietly, but inside I have mixed feelings.
"Face" is not a simple same-sex film.
Gay daughter, mother with unexpected pregnancy in middle age.
Together, they are confronted with an old-fashioned Chinese family and a vain and noisy Chinese society.
Everywhere someone chews the root of the tongue behind them, talking about other people's parents short, as the biggest daily talk.
On the one hand, it is the elders who exert pressure in the name of authority;
On the other hand, there are the idle eyes and words of others.
Everyone caught between the two faces the problem of "face".
The mother played by Chen Chong married someone she did not love 29 years ago because of her father's unbreakable life.
29 years later, in order to save her father's face, she repeated the same mistakes and married herself and the child in her belly again.
Happiness seems to be unimportant, what is important is to live for face.
And Xiaowei, as a gay community, is living under the eyes of others.
When Vivian was going to Paris, Xiaowei went to the airport to make a final stay.
At the last moment of separation, Vivian suddenly said, kiss me, unless you are here to kiss me in front of everyone.
But Xiao Wei hesitated for a few seconds, still like being nailed to the ground, and did not bravely go forward.
A mother and daughter, so different on the surface, but follow a similar behavioral logic -
Escape the emotions you face, escape from the truth of the heart.
I can't say a word of "love" or "no love" from the heart, and more often than not, my mouth is not right.
Xiao Wei chose to be honest first——
"Mom, I love you, and so do I, gay."
"How can you say these two things in one breath, saying that you love me, and at the same time breaking my heart like this?"
It was a helpless sigh, but finally reached the sincerity of each other.
Stepping out of the siege of the face, although it is difficult and stinging, you can finally remove the heavy armor and live more easily.
Xiao Wei finally understood that her mother could no longer miss the true love in this life.
And the mother finally realized at her wedding that the tragedy of "face" could not be repeated.
So there is this wonderful dialogue, perhaps the most intensive moment of the word "love":
"She doesn't love him!" "She loves him!"
"You don't love me!" "I don't love you!"
"She loves him!" "No, not me!"
"It's me!"
The child's father finally stepped forward.
A 29-year-old handsome young man, behind which is a secret and unannounced love affair.
The time to escape from a wedding is a moment of repressed emotional release.
Her mother began to imagine a future she had never imagined, and encouraged Xiaowei to bravely pursue what she loved.
"Face" gives us a Chinese ending, unloading the veil, and everyone is happy.
Because of the family, the two are silent and cowering about love, but because of love, the two are brave and decisive.
The mother removed the armor on her body, no longer forced herself to marry the person she did not love, and boldly pursued the true feelings.
Daughter Xiaowei also reunited with Vivian at the fraternity party and plucked up the courage to kiss in the crowd.
But how can the real Chinese society so simply pass the emotions and lighten the wind?
Chinese elders are saddled with social recognition and public opinion pressure.
Ask your children to succeed under universal values and run on a normal trajectory to maintain the happiness they appear to be.
Chinese children are burdened with kinship pressures and moral codes.
Most people choose to give up and be silent, and the result of their inability to communicate with each other can only be the inability to truly understand and be close.
The love of loved ones has become the greatest source of burden and pressure.
This is a face-loving Chinese problem that cannot be escaped.
When "Face" was released in Taiwan that year, there was a sentence on the poster like this :
"Sometimes, you have to lose a lifetime of face in exchange for a lifetime of happiness."
I don't know when we can face the sideways eyes of others and say from the bottom of our hearts:
"Go to theirs!"
*Author: Soy milk