Bi Gan's "Roadside Picnic" is stunning, mysterious and poetic. In addition to the dreamy 42-minute long shot that everyone talks about, there are many opinions about what "Roadside Picnic" is about. Some say that it is a dream of the protagonist Chen Sheng, and some say that it is a parallel world in which the past, present and future coincide.
I don't think so. In my opinion, to understand this movie, at least need to find such three keys.
The first is the Diamond Sutra.
Needless to say, at the beginning of the film, a passage from the Diamond Sutra is quoted to point out the main theme of the film. Before Bi Gan filmed "Roadside Picnic", there was a small black-and-white short film called "Diamond Sutra".
Taken together, we don't talk about empty things, but in a superficial way, we look at cause and effect, and repentance. Chen Sheng's mother is ashamed of Chen Sheng. She has two "kids"/"shoes". In Sichuanese, "shoe" is pronounced the same as "child".
One day nine years after his mother's death, Chen Sheng took a nap and dreamed of a pair of embroidered shoes of his mother, drifting in a river. One shoe sank to the bottom of the water, and one didn't. That "child"/"shoe" is Chen Sheng. Apparently Mom couldn't let go of him.
My mother didn't let go, and nine years after Chen Sheng was released from prison, he still hadn't been released.
So there is such a journey from Kaili to the countryside to zhenyuan. In the end, we found that the river in Chen Sheng's dream was the Dangmai River. After completing the journey of Dangmai, Chen Sheng was relieved. The sign is that before he left by boat on the Dangmai River, he lost the demon of the savage' saying.
In the middle of the Dangmai River, the mother's pair of embroidered shoes drifted again, and the remaining "child" (representing Chen Sheng) finally sank to the bottom of the water. His mother put it down, and Chen Sheng was also relieved.
If this movie has any mysterious color, then one of them can be seen as, in the nine years of his mother's death, the deceased mother, in the darkness, arranged a journey of liberation for him, and it is also his own journey of repentance.
Throughout the movie, after running through, we only see Chen Sheng's past unbearable, his friendship with his ex-wife, and his guilt for his mother. If you only see here, it is a shallow taste.
The second key: "The Tale of Peach Blossom Origin".
Don't forget, Bi Gan is a great poet. Since he is a poet, there is no one who does not know Tao Yuanming. In this film, the most core part is from Kaili City to Zhenyuan Town, which mistakenly breaks into the section of Dangmai.
Dangmai is a small village with green mountains and waters. Seems to exist, and seems to not exist. Many people interpret that this is a dream made by Chen Sheng. I don't think so. If the opening care and the end of the film are far from the truth, then the telescope and the extra buttons at the end of the film tell us that he has experienced the swing.
So what exactly is Dangmai?
I think it is borrowed from Tao Yuanming's "peach blossom garden". Chen Sheng was the "Wuling man".
The train was supposed to stop temporarily on the way from Kairi to town. Chen Sheng got out of the car, where there was a fork in the road, and entered a tunnel. This tunnel is Taohuayuan's "Mountain has small openings, as if there is light." Ditch the boat and enter through the mouth. The beginning is very narrow, and it is only through people. Repeat dozens of steps, suddenly enlightened. ”
Outside the tunnel, this train station, with or without, is unknown. After leaving the tunnel, he met David Wei, who said that they did not have a train station, and continued to walk forward, to the banks of the Dangmai River, and took a boat to the town.
Therefore, from the time he got off the train station in this remote place, Chen Sheng was a "Wuling person".
When he left Dangmai, Chen Sheng was on a boat. You hear the sound of rowing, and there is a black dog running along the shore. The river he dreamed of drifting in the embroidered shoes was obviously this river.
This is also very similar to the "Wuling people" entering and leaving Taohuayuan by boat.
It wasn't until the town was far away from the town, that it was realistic again, and it seemed to return to the real reality. Immediately, I heard the sound of playing mahjong and cards.
It is estimated that if Chen Sheng were to talk about swinging wheat to the people here, it is estimated that no one would know. It's like, "And the county, The Taishou, say so." To be too conservative is to send people to follow them, to find what they want, to be lost, and not to find the way back. ”
Chen Sheng went to Zhenyuan to find his little nephew Wei Wei. Chen Sheng grew up in Zhenyuan, and now that he has reformed and become middle-aged, he feels empathy, regards Wei Wei as his own self at that time, is afraid that his future life will go astray, and wants to give him more care.
Dangmai is the "peach blossom source". But instead of talking about a natural and beautiful ideal society of "Autumn Ripening King Tax", As Tao Yuanming wrote, Bi Gan just borrowed the idea that the Wuling people mistakenly broke into Taohuayuan, and in his movie, Chen Sheng mistakenly broke into Dangmai, and it was there that he paradoxically met some people who were closely related to his life:
Driving a motorcycle to carry him, it seems to be his nephew Wei Wei; the hair washer sister in the barber shop looks exactly like his ex-wife, but not his ex-wife; David Wei likes the village flower Yangyang, just like the old doctor in Chen Sheng's clinic, when he was young.
This Yangyang, bent on leaving the countryside, one day went to the big city of Kaili. Her solution is to be a tour guide. The yearning for the city, even when I hear the sound of the train to Kaili, is fascinated. David Wei, who drives a rotten motorcycle, is bent on pursuing yangyang, doomed to ask for it and will be abandoned.
Here it is a bit like a plot of Zhou Xingchi's "Journey to the West", Sun Wukong shuttles back and sees why Tang Monk committed suicide to save Sun Wukong in the first place. The story of David Wei and Yang Yang is actually like Chen Sheng's former when she saw her mother or the old doctor, why she chose to leave the countryside, abandon her lover, and go to the "big city" Kaili.
At the same time, Chen Sheng was imprisoned for nine years, and a year before he was released from prison, his wife died of illness, and he learned a little jasmine song in prison and wanted to sing it to his wife. For nine years, I have never forgotten my wife. On the trip, he met the hair-washing sister who resembled his ex-wife, let her see "dolphins", sang to her, left a tape called "Farewell", and made a final farewell to his emotions.
Therefore, Chen Sheng, who left Dangmai, was relieved.
All this seems to have been accomplished by the deceased mother through the guidance of dreams and similar dreams. The pair of embroidered shoes drifting in the Dangmai River is a dream, but the Dangmai journey, although it looks like a dream, is not a dream. But what you say is true, it is not necessarily true.
Just like "Peach Blossom Garden", Chen Sheng went to look for it again, and he might not be able to find it. It can be simply understood that it was the mother who died, arranged.
The third key: Zhiqing.
Obviously, if we put aside the Buddhist principles of the Diamond Sutra and the truth and illusion of the Diamond Sutra, and we go to explore the truth, then Chen Sheng's encounters and experiences are only the surface, what is the inside?
Chen Sheng's mother, as well as the old doctor of the clinic's generation, suffered.
Why is Chen Sheng and Lao Wei half-brothers, why chen Sheng was left in the countryside when he was a child, why is his mother very guilty about him, why does the old doctor have an old lover of the Miao ethnic group in the countryside, why does this woman also run back to the city to marry and have children, why does she know Chen Sheng's mother, the relationship is still quite close?
Obviously, Chen Sheng's mother and this old doctor were both female intellectuals who went to the countryside to Miaozhai. During the construction of the third line, I went to zhibian and went to the remote town of Kaili in Guizhou. It is estimated that in the far away part of the town, it is often necessary to go to the countryside. Because "if necessary, go into the cave", you have to "back the mountain, scatter, hide".
At that time, it was the age of youth love, and the old doctor fell in love with the Hmong youth who played the reeds. Chen Sheng's mother must have local suitors, just like David Wei who pursued Yangyang on the journey of Dangmai. People are so sincere, you are not moved, it is impossible. But you know that person is not your future, and your future will have to go back to town sooner or later.
Therefore, my mother gave birth to Chen Sheng in the countryside, and it is estimated that in order to return to the city, she ruthlessly left Chen Sheng in the countryside. After returning to the city, he remarried and gave birth to an old crooked. The old doctor and Chen Sheng's mother met. Chen Sheng's mother will do batik, presumably when she went to the countryside, and Chen Sheng's father learned it. The old doctor's son, riding a bicycle to Chen Sheng's mother to get batik, was killed by a drunk driver.
In the end, we saw the result that Chen Sheng grew up and mixed with the underworld, and the old crooked did not learn well. Chen Sheng went to prison and spent nine years in prison, and before he was released, his mother died and his wife died of illness. Chen Sheng's nephew was not well taken care of, just like When Chen Sheng was a child. The old doctor's son died, and he was alone, lonely and old.
The flower monk's son died, and the son always dreamed of asking for watches, so he went to the countryside to open a watch shop. The old doctor opened this clinic because of the death of his son and The death of Chen Sheng because of his wife's illness. Their reasons are all the same.
The experience of these families is the epitome of that generation.
Why did the young Bi Gan have these feelings? Playing Chen Sheng, his uncle Chen Yongzhong, born in 1968, has also mixed with society and been imprisoned. Chen Sheng's story has the shadow of his uncle. Born in 1968, isn't it the people of that era, the children born in the countryside?
Bi Gan was born in 1989, and he is the little Wei Wei in the movie. In a remote area like Kaili, Guizhou, the misfortune of that generation affected not only his uncle's generation, but also the third generation of Bi Gan.
That's it.
If you get the third key, it is not a shallow taste.