How it should exist
- Tears at the bottom of the heart of "The Old Beast"
Author: Bian Jing
"Old Beast" really pays attention to reality and tells the survival story of Chinese himself at the moment. The film is based on the real-life kidnapping of a father by a child. This is a noisy criminal case in court, a dog blood drama with enough gossip in the middle of the room, and in the movie lens, it is given a poetic character and reveals its cold social core. Although the language and narrative are not very novel, it records the soul, condenses the emotions, opens up contemplation, and is a sincere and valuable gift from the domestic film at the end of 2017.
Old Yang Old Beast
In the early years, Lao Yang, who was rich and failed in business, took care of his paralyzed wife for six or seven years. After he embezzled the money for his wife's surgery, the long-accumulated family conflicts erupted in a concentrated manner, and the children violently coerced him to sign a pledge and detain him as a punishment. Old Yang was furious and took his son and son-in-law to court. In the end, Lao Yang compromised with the responsibility of being a father and a husband.
The fullness of the character design, coupled with the exquisite interpretation of Tu, Lao Yang, this old man from a small northern city, is like standing in front of him. Vicissitudes, hollowness, and in the twilight of life, unwilling but powerless to break free, Lao Yang is like a hairless and ugly old beast, dangling on the edge of the city and life. His personality is distinct: ● Love face. In front of many years of old friends, there is no money for guests, mortgage the electric car, and do not let the other party pay money, afraid of losing the face of friends. In front of their children, they obviously have no money, no place to live or eat, and they must pretend that everything can be taken care of by themselves, for fear of losing the face of the elderly. In front of the lover, obviously the hand is tight, but also to buy things to make the lover happy, afraid of falling off the man's face. ● Lecture gas. Misappropriating the operation fee to buy a cow for an old friend is more of a reminder of his old friend's kindness many years ago. ● Stubborn and impulsive, do not accept defeat. Stubborn enough to have difficulty communicating with children, he often quarrels. Without a word, he fought with the real estate salesman, gambled with the bus staff, and opened the window to jump out of the car. ●It is also not a gentle and kind category. He opened his mouth to curse, opened his mouth to lie, gambled and drank to find women, and occasionally hurt others. In short, just like he scolded others, he himself was an "egg loader".
Lao Yang's heart echoed with his outside: ● Empty. He gambled, drank, found a lover, and embezzled his wife's operating expenses, which were his malicious rebellion or self-exoneration against his children and grandchildren, the darkness of life. The way is simple, even crude. ● Unwilling and hopeless. He ridiculed the current restaurant business routine is far from being comparable to his then, but he can only make up a knife for himself: "A good man does not mention the courage of that year." ●Tie-in. He loved his grandson and silently bought a toy to send it; he turned back and silently accepted his daughter-in-law's contempt. He wanted to make amends for his mistakes and had to pull down his old face to borrow money from his younger daughter. After being beaten up, he learned that his wife's surgery fee had been solved, and his old face, which still had nosebleed marks, finally had a smile. When the children were really going to be sentenced, he asked for help to exonerate them. The children came out of the court gate and got into the car, Lao Yang could only watch from a distance, there was no greeting to each other, and the cold wind left Lao Yang with bitter sobs. It was an obnoxious old man, but he was still a father. This, his children are not so clear, which dooms Lao Yang's sorrow.
Family and society City with people
In this story of family relationships, the film well constructs the social framework of the story and incorporates rich humanistic observations. The sword-rattling on the mahjong table about debt collection and debt repayment, the large area of rotten real estate in the city, the occasional conversation between the second son-in-law and the leader about the promotion of the position, the blank eyes of the old man in the commissary because of lack of money when Old Yang played public talks, the rough treatment on the bus, the beating by the real estate salesman, the son and daughter-in-law who paid for the operation... In the economic downturn, people's economic relations, social relations, and family relations have become tense.
The city and its crazy footsteps, if Lao Yang's children feel that the small county town is stuck in traffic, Lao Yang feels that he will be crushed or abandoned. The relationship between people and the city in the film is deeply outlined through the calm and gray picture. The city's high-rise real estate either frames Lao Yang and his old friend Lubsen, or stands on a distant background, and Lao Yang is in a wasteland, indicating that Lao Yang, whose business has stopped, debt collection has been fruitless, his wife is paralyzed, and his family is fragile, is stepping into a wasteland of life. Standing in the middle of the wasteland, he wears a leather coat and sunglasses to cover his eyes, and he has a face and concept that he does not want to let go. And where is the way out? Only hardship. As for his old friend Lubsen, who has a difficult livelihood but refuses to give up his pastures and cattle and sheep, he is a lonely person who wants to keep traditions and habits and maintain a sense of separation from the city.
The slaughter of the camel in Lubsen, the last male camel to be bred in the pastoral area, means the decline of some power or concept, such as the old mode of production, the traditional conception and its mode of communication. Lao Yang was the unconscious executor who decided to sell the camel to the slaughterhouse. In the old Yang family, in the fists and feet torn by family affection, it is impossible to avoid the "fault of the son not the godfather". When Lao Yang was proud in the past, he wanted to come and go, spend days and nights, and achieve his wealth, dignity, values, and problems. Now, with regard to the life and virtues that he is not accustomed to and cannot keep up with, it has to be said that he is not a bystander, he is also a shaper. This also doomed Lao Yang's sadness.
Blackbirds, horses and ghosts
The works of young directors like symbols, metaphors, and imagery, and "Old Beast" is no exception; but director Zhou Ziyang handles the relationship between virtual and real more appropriately, presenting a meaningful aesthetic feeling. The black bird sealed in the wall appears at the beginning of the film. Old Yang rescued it and let it fly out of the window. This peculiar treatment is reminiscent of the gratuitous pigeon that flew in the Oscar-winning film Love (directed by Michael Haneke). However, this blackbird is a clearer metaphor for the spiritual world of the male protagonist than the pigeon. Lao Yang's situation was like this black bird, waiting for a release or rescue. The symbolism of Blackbird and the dominance of the whole film are handled strangely and naturally. The white horse and brown horse that appear in Lao Yang's dream can be understood as Lao Yang and his wife, two old horses, and hanging hanging bottles next to them, hinting at Lao Yang's inner worries. In court mediation, Lao Yang left in anger and rode home on an electric car. The director filmed the moment when Lao Yang's body and mind were separated, and the soul was like a white ghost floating behind Lao Yang's body shell, dissipating in the yellow winter forest. There are also images of roosters and camels in the film, and these artistic treatments with metaphorical symbolism have a playful interpretation space.
Warmth and respect
The tone of the film is cold, but it feels the warmth and respect of the creators when they care about reality. In the cold wind of the north, the director set up a camera and aimed at Lao Yang who was walking with pity, so that we could see the pain and hardship of a person and a family, and also let us see the changes of the times in the city and life, so as to better understand others and ourselves, understand society and reality.
At the end of the film, backlit shooting, Lao Yang feeds his wife and children to take medicine, in the dark, lying down, waiting. Maybe it's the calm after the hustle and bustle, maybe the heart is still struggling in the silence, and the viewer just needs to savor the long darkness and silence as he wishes. After experiencing this uproar, he chose what he chose for the treatment of his hopeless old wife and himself who "couldn't fly out of the window".