In the summer of 1998, Gu Xiaoyang's school came with a new intern teacher, his father may have to rise from primary school director to vice principal, and his mother was busy competing for the Plum Blossom Award. Good things are near, and double happiness is at the door. Gu Xiaoyang is also looking forward to this summer, his favorite football player Piero will participate in the World Cup, and he also has a football dream, but when the teacher's father disciplines his son strictly and refuses to sign the football team selection application form, he can only hide a passion under the bed. When he and his friend had some disagreements, Gu Xiaoyang suddenly became lonely. Coincidentally, grandpa Zheng, who lives opposite his house, is also lonely, and the grandfather and grandson of the fans who have no blood relationship have met from football and become each other's playmates.
But this summer, it was still disrupted by a heavy rain.
On the rainy night when Xiaoyang's father kissed the intern teacher, the hint of heavy rain was narrow but meaningful, including Xiaoyang's father's embarrassment, his mother's vigilance and Xiaoyang's hesitation, after the rainy night, all errors will be corrected. Other times, the movie is sunny, full of daylight, and the big branches of the river are leafy, full of leisure and youthfulness. Why summer? Summer is good for leisure, suitable for travel, suitable for going on an adventure; summer is followed by autumn, and there is no fruit without light and heat, just as growing up will inevitably bring new harvests. But with the summer of hope, growth becomes much gentler.
The summer of 1998 was more leisurely than now, the road home from school at the beginning of the film was a narrow sidewalk, and the West Creek with water connected the taimen on both sides, "small bridges and flowing water people's homes"; everywhere were bluestone paths, white walls and black tiles, low houses with deep courtyards; closed-circuit television in the house, mosquito nets on the edge of the bed, the dining room was only enough to set a dining table, when Gu Xiaoyang stood on the patio of the taimen and talked to Grandpa Zheng, the daylight was stretched long, and it brought people back to the screen 20 years ago.
Director Zhou Quan is a "post-85" newcomer, grasping nostalgic details but very sophisticated, he knows how to shoot a special summer. "Summer in Nishiokawa" has the innocence of "Kikujiro's Summer", and the theme can be compared to "August" that won the Golden Horse Award the previous year, which is the same as the adult world from the perspective of children, and the same is the helplessness and anxiety of people who have changed in society at the end of the 1990s. But the rusty feeling of the northern industrial city in "August" foreshadows a heavier topic of the times, and "Summer in the West Creek" is a nostalgic journey of a post-85 director. As an only child born after family planning, Zhou Quan's creative inspiration originated from the strong sense of loneliness in the growth of the only child: the love and pressure given by the parents of the only child, the suppression of the patriarchal power, all made Xiaoyang lose the object of talk, creating a deeper loneliness in Xiaoyang. Only Grandpa Zheng, who is also obsessed with football, not only has a playmate, a football coach, and a good friend, but also helps him open the outlet for catharsis.
The story lines are not complicated, and even some clichéd plots: the main clues in the film are the relaxation and understanding of the relationship between two pairs of fathers and sons - one is Gu Teacher and Gu Xiaoyang, and the other is Grandpa Zheng and his son. In addition, the clues of the story also include midlife crisis, spiritual derailment, state-owned reshuffle that heralds the arrival of a new era, and relocation of the land. These are all strung together by the characters, almost neatly and methodically advanced, neatly like the small house of Shaoxing Taimen. Zhou Quan said that he lived in Taimen before he was eleven or twelve years old, and the patio of Taimen surrounded four or five households, which was very different from the social living conditions of modern cities. So in the summer of Xiaoyang, there is their family of three, Grandpa Zheng and his family, and Teacher Shen, an intern teacher in the outer world.
"Summer of the West Creek" does not have a general sense of growth movies to give people a sense of pain, as if growth has to experience some psychological tearing, the meaning of "summer" alone is very sunny. What happened to Gu Xiaoyang's family was too lifelike, and it was a little trouble that every family would have. The meaning of summer is that in the tail of summer, let everything disappear, small troubles will always pass, and life will remain the same. Therefore, "West Creek" is like a summer vacation diary that was accidentally opened, recording all the daily small things.
And the "growth" in the story is not just a child. Xiaoyang, Dad, and Grandpa Zheng all underwent a great psychological transformation after this summer. This summer has indeed not been so smooth, Piero's World Cup has broken, and Ronaldo has also played abnormally due to strange diseases. Xiaoyang's father's spirit of "Xiang Wang has a dream, the goddess has no heart" is derailed, just like an evil wind blowing from nowhere, after a second of mess, after rectification, the heart is fixed, the biggest regret left is that he did not really become the vice principal. After this battle, he "grew"; the Xiaoyang family could understand each other better than before, and their lives were more harmonious than before. Xiaoyang is also accompanied by Grandpa Zheng, and after experiencing the "change" of the family, he is more willing to communicate with his father.
If the line of Xiaoyang family represents the projection of innocent eyes to the adult world, the line of Grandpa Zheng is more full of the nostalgia of the director. Grandpa Zheng's loneliness is not because he lacks the understanding and care of others like Xiaoyang, but because he is too nostalgic, the death of his grandson, the closure of the old factory, the layoff of his old friends, everything is the reason why he refuses to step into the new era and the future. Therefore, Grandpa Zheng always refused to move to Shenzhen with his son and voluntarily chose to stay in Taimen. Of course, in the end, Grandpa Zheng still moved away. Summer is finally over.
Grandpa Zheng's departure is very similar to Xiaoyang's mother's wish - to move into a big house. But who knows, in fact, the most important thing to lose is not that Xiaoyang's father did not become a vice principal, not piero's World Cup defeat, but one day, the neighbors of Taimen will move away, forgetting the summer of 1998.
If there is anything worth watching in "Summer of the West Creek", it is that it is better than the fresh and elegant, full of childlike fun and innocence, without complex entanglements of peach-colored events, and in its close to the blandness of life. It is suitable for viewing with children, which has no strong didactic significance, but can also bring the family closer, and the flat and straightforward narrative children are easy to understand. But the shortcoming of the film is that the narrative is too neat and lacks the expression of emotions - perhaps this is easier for children to understand, but the film also loses the place worth revisiting. The film expresses the life in the taimen in great detail, and the narrative also pays attention to the context and preparation, but the emotional expression is very restrained. Xiaoyang's father's spiritual derailment and midlife crisis, lost and hungry inner world lacked bright spots; his sullenness, fornication, and even could not produce many sparks of evil thoughts. Grandpa Zheng's line landing point is even more lacking in strength, and Xiaoyang's friendship is probably his biggest highlight, as for his nostalgia and helpless mood, it probably depends on the audience to make up for it according to the direction of the plot.