Friday's words: If the chaos in David Lynch's "Inland Empire" is surrealism and internal psychological chaos, then the chaos of Lou Ye's "Lyceum Theatre" is realism, which is precisely about the chaos under the external society. Of course, the so-called "chaos" here is deliberately done by the creator, and it is also completely (from the use of mirrors, to editing, to the plot and other aspects of shaping), which may bring great obstacles to the audience and even resist disgust, but you must know that behind the chaos must be the meticulous logic of the choreographer, even if this logic is subjective.
Following this "chaotic" entry point, let's talk about this movie that should have been released in 2019, but was once again stopped and reduced to a "banned film".
Text: Savage Five Edit: mr. Friday Images: Web, video screenshots
First, the chaos created in the plot
"Lyceum Theatre" is an authentic spy film about a series of intelligence battles that took place in the Anglo-French Concession in Shanghai on the eve of the Pacific War. This kind of theme itself determines the kind of confusion, obscurity and "blackness" that the film should have (acting clearly, black and white is not called spy war), but the elements that cause chaos in this film are far more than these, and the director integrates into a "play within a play" on the basis of spy war - the characters in the play rehearse a play called "Saturday Novel".
This story line occupies a considerable length of the film, almost juxtaposed with the spy story line, in these two story lines, the characters have to complete their political tasks on the one hand, on the other hand, they have to complete the current artistic tasks, and even more in between the two, they have their own daily life to play.
▲ "Lyceum Theatre" film stills, 2019
These several lines are red-woven together to bring great interference to the audience's perception and plot understanding, and the director has adopted the method of "zero transition" (no stacking, no color contrast, no fading out) when dealing with the transition between the scene and the outside of the play, which causes the audience to almost be unable to distinguish which is the real bar and which is the bar built on the stage. Unless the viewer is particularly careful or looks back at the movie again and finds the subtle changes in the accompaniment music and the shift in the focus of the camera, it will be found that the original play-within-a-play on the stage is 1:1 in line with the story that happens in reality. (Why is this so, we will say later)
In short, this kind of plot treatment can be described as extremely confusing.
Second, the chaos created by the tone, the lens, and the editing
Usually, when a director is faced with a complex book, his task is to make the text as visually simplified as possible, so that the film paragraphs are as clear and tonal as possible.
Note: Regarding the two lines going hand in hand, there are not a few genre films in the play, and "Friday Literature and Art" has made a recommendation (for details, click: Move the stage play into the movie, these 10 plays are unique!). It is not difficult for everyone to see these films that most of the scenes in the movie are clear and clearly divided, and they play a complementary and prompting role between them.
But how did our director Lou Da do it, obviously, he is doing the opposite! This can be well proved in the shooting methods he uses, to see—
★ The first is the hue:
The film takes black and white + darkness throughout. Therefore, it is impossible to divide the layers between the story lines of the film with color, and it is not easy for us to see the characters and props clearly!
★ The second is the use of mirrors:
One of the major shots of Lou Ye's film is "shaking", which is caused by the shoulder resistance and panning lens. And his scenes are very large, the camera is basically in the medium and close-up or even close-up distance movement (like "Wind and Rain Clouds" aerial shooting and large panorama is very rare), this subjective shot is not easy for the public to understand the plot, but also makes people distracted and even dizzy.
★ Again the clip:
The editing of "Lyceum Theatre" is not only relatively fast, but also uses a lot of "jumping" techniques, for example, when Bai Yunsheng (Huang Xiangli) chases Yu Yan (Gong Li) and asks the latter to take him to watch the rehearsal, one second Huang Xiangli just turned around to get on the car, and the next second after the editing, the two opened the door and got off the car and arrived at the destination.
Similar to this kind of mirror and editing techniques abound in his films, "Friday Literature and Art" has a concentrated classification and narration in the article "Talking about the Avant-garde and Flaws of Lou Ye's Films", which can be clicked to read, and there is not much to say here.
Looking at these anti-film methods, of course, this has the director's personal style in it, but this is by no means a simple novelty, obviously, the director did not put the story first, he turned to the kung fu on the "chaotic atmosphere".
With this in mind, let's look at the identity of the characters in the movie.
Third, the confusion of character identity and character motivation
As mentioned earlier, in the two story lines, almost every character has multiple identities of politics (implicit), social (explicit), and personal life (neutral), and they each represent the political faction behind them. This is also what constitutes the framework of the character, that is, the personality is determined according to several political forces at that time, such as the Anglo-French group behind Yu Wei, such as the Chongqing National Government behind Bai Yuncao, and the Wang puppet regime represented by Mo Zhi prison...
These dual-role identity audiences will not be chaotic if they look carefully, and there are clear explanations in the movie, the problem is that the motivation of the characters under the dual identity is not clear enough, which is one of the reasons for the confusion, for example:
The Japanese officer, Saburo Furutani (Played by Oda Chejō), who was supposed to be a high-ranking secret service leader, came to Shanghai on a very clear mission, that is, to pass on the mission code code.
However, when we look at him as a person (rather than a political label), many of his actions appear vague and ambiguous—he is on a mission, he is also worried about finding his missing wife, and even he confuses those mission codes with his personal life;
Not to mention the heroine Yu Yan, you can't tell whether she came to Shanghai to perform a mission, or to shoot a scene with her old lover, you can't even tell whether she performed the task for self-interest or revenge, the motive is extremely vague;
There is also Bai Yunsheng, whether she is a spy sent from Chongqing or a literary and artistic youth pursuing the dream of drama, it is really impossible to say;
Finally, there was the hotel manager, who was an agent who specialized in gathering intelligence, but he was also interested in the first edition of Goethe's "The Troubles of Young Werther" in the 18th century, which became a weight for him to carry out his mission.
It is undeniable that the confusion in the motivations of these characters will make the public who are accustomed to watching black-and-white films more and more confused and more nerve-wracking. At the same time, it also reduces the cohesion of the story and does not have an axis of purpose.
So, what is the intention of the director and screenwriter in this setting, let's finally look at a character who is easy to be ignored: Tan Na (Zhao Youting)
Fourth, chaos and integration
It is not difficult for careful viewers to find that this Tan Na director is one of the few characters in the film who does not have a political identity. He seemed simple and stupid, living only for ideals and love, even in that special age of war.
He did not hesitate to restore the real scene on the stage 1:1 for the sake of his own people (which is also one of the reasons for the confusion of the plot mentioned in the first paragraph), you can say that these artists (including Yu Yan) have mental problems in special circumstances, and cannot distinguish between reality and acting, however, this "confusion" of actors and artists is the "chaos" shown in the film.
It can be seen that the creators finally aim at "people" in the theme of the film, which is precisely the story of a group of people who are destroyed and distorted by a special social environment.
Instead, that historical event (the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor) became a foil, or an artistic node, under this theme, and together with the subtitles on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, it became a table of chapters in the story of the film, and that was it.
Looking at this "Lyceum Theatre", leaving aside all the film interpretations, just the "taste" of Shanghai in the Republic of China is enough to make us call it, from the hazy Bund outside the window, to the nostalgic stage play posters on the street, to the retro jazz bands in the bar... It felt like a dream.
Lou Ye's films, although flawed, always give people a sense of power. So the film is marginalized, I don't know whether it is sad or congratulatory.
Fortunately, there are still people shooting, and they are glad!
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