"The Fallen Man": Affectionate, stop at etiquette

The Hong Kong film "The Fallen Man" received 8 nominations at the 38th Hong Kong Film Awards, and finally won 3 awards for Best Actor, Best New Actor and New Director, and won the Best New Director Award at the 13th Asian Film Awards. This is a great honor for the debut of a young female director who is not from a science class. "The Fallen Man" deserves to be included in the list of the best Hong Kong films in recent years, it continues the tradition of Hong Kong films such as "The Day and Night of Tin Shui Wai" and "The Thief of Years" to portray the daily life of the low-level citizens, the film neither goes to a helpless sadness, nor does it fall into a sensational routine, everything is just right, "affectionate, stop the courtesy", yes and also.

The same is the fallen man of the end of the world

"Fallen Man" tells the story of two "fallen people at the end of the world" who meet and know each other. Middle-aged construction worker Rong Chang was paralyzed after an accident and unable to take care of himself, and the young Evelyn came from the Philippines as a newly hired servant of Chang Rong. The two do not speak the same language, one old and one young, although based on the employment relationship, but with the hidden process of wit and courage continues to progress, the relationship between the two has changed. At first, the employer ChangRong was undoubtedly in a strong position, spending money to hire evelyn to take care of himself and having the right to give orders. A Filipino friend told Evelyn that learning to pretend to be stupid would reduce her work, but unfortunately her little cleverness was instantly recognized by Chang Rong. Chang Rong accidentally put the English video tape into pornography, and just when he was glad that he was not discovered, Evelyn said that he did not expect Chang Rong to still learn Japanese, and the embarrassment was resolved by wit. Later, Chang Rong was frightened by the cockroach in the bedroom, evelyn came to help, and the power relationship really took a turn - it turned out that the usually strong middle-aged man would also be afraid of small insects, and the relationship between the two had overturned the unequal relationship between the master and the servant, more and more like a friend.

The most dramatic and best-handled scene in the film is why Chang Rong discovers evelyn's sale of cameras. After he learned of Evelyn's dream, he secretly paid for a camera as a birthday present. When he discovers that the camera has disappeared for no reason, he naturally suspects that Evelyn has sent the money from the sale of the camera back home. After a search, he discovers the truth: Evelyn sold the camera to cover the huge divorce expenses. Chang Rong did not directly question Evelyn, but chose to buy a new one and put it in the frame of the coat, so that Evelyn happened to find out. This design not only resolves evelyn's embarrassment after being exposed, but also repairs the previously broken relationship between the two. Chang Rong told Evelyn: I already know about you, it doesn't matter, I will buy you another camera, you have to stick to your dreams. Later, Chang Rong regained the voice for Evelyn in front of her mother. At the same time, he was also active in helping Evelyn apply for admission: finding someone to help write a statement. Through these actions, Changrong regained the meaning of life.

Mutual comfort and inspiration

"The Fallen Man" raises the question: Why do we speak coldly to our loved ones and treat strangers with no blood ties? Why do we always deal with intimacy, but we are always comfortable with friendship? Chang Rong's friend seemed to point out the truth behind it when he spoke to Evelyn, saying, "Family members are more like strangers than we are." For family members, we will always add our will to each other, and once the other party's choice is not in line with our own wishes, we will vent our anger. On the contrary, for friendship, we hope that the other party can develop herself better, just like ChangRong helped Evelyn realize her dream without asking for anything.

The relationship between Chang Rong and Evelyn goes beyond the stranger's acquaintance: since they are master-servant relationships (ordinary Low-class Hong Kong citizens and Filipino maids), there is a distinct class divide in the context of Hong Kong society (as can be seen from Evelyn's going to the market to buy vegetables). At the same time, it is also a "father and daughter", Changrong helps Evelyn realize her life dreams, and the film clips the process of Evelyn's realization of her dreams with Changrong's son getting his graduation certificate, which seems to illustrate this point. Towards the end of the movie, Chang Rong "lectures" Evelyn's mother on the phone, threatening to break off the mother-daughter relationship. In a way, Chang Rong has become evelyn's spiritual father, and Chang Rong treats evelyn as a daughter, thus filling in the emotional lack of his son's foreign education. Changrong and Evelyn are actually a process of mutual influence and mutual growth.

Is there any love between Chang Rong and Evelyn? There are many intimate moments between Chang Rong and Evelyn in the movie, such as the two riding a wheelchair on the road together. However, the director cleverly eliminated any representation of sex and left it in a purely emotional relationship. It is this ambiguous and pure expression that adds a lot of color to the film. This is an expression of emotion that belongs exclusively to the East, what the ancients called "pleasure without obscenity, sorrow without hurt". Yasujiro Ozu can see similar situations in many movies. For example, in "Late Spring", the ambiguous feelings between fathers and daughters seem to go beyond the simple father-daughter relationship and have an element of love. But this feeling was optimally maintained within the limits of the number of gifts and was not crossed. In the same way, we can also leave this emotional relationship aside from the title of love, which is a relationship between two people with a very different status who comforts, relies on, and grows up. Fellini's masterpiece "The Great Road" tells the complex emotional relationship between the wandering entertainer Zambano and the mentally handicapped girl Jessomina, which is somewhat similar to "The Fallen Man". Another important character in "The Great Road", "Stone", once asked Jessomina why she did not leave Zambano, and Jessomina said, "If I leave him, who else will love him?" In "The Fallen Man", when Evelyn's Filipino companion asks her why she didn't leave Changrong since changrong was so bad for her? Evelyn said: If I go, who will take care of him?

The four seasons are reincarnated, and the dream moves forward

"The Fallen Man" begins in the summer and ends in the spring, and the four seasons are the characteristics of the film's incidental expression. To live requires dreams, which is also an important theme expressed in "The Fallen Man". It is dreams that give life a new meaning. Even a Filipino maid at the bottom of Hong Kong society, with the help of Chang Rong, evelyn not only realized her dream of being a photographer, but also grew in this relationship. She ended the entangled marriage and realized that "without a loving relationship, a lot of terrible things will happen". Similarly, in the process of getting along with Evelyn, Changrong's discord with his sister was resolved, and he and his son could get along better, his heart was open, and his life suddenly met spring.

"The Fallen Man" is a warm movie, often dotted with funny points that make people laugh. Director Chen Xiaojuan not only knows how to capture the dramatic points that occur in daily life, but also knows how to add fun to them. Chang Rong fell to the ground because of Evelyn's dereliction of duty and was taken to the hospital, evelyn went home and secretly hid in the kitchen bucket to increase his arm strength, not wanting to be bumped into by Chang Rong who happened to pass by. Chang Rong smiled at this, which made him feel that evelyn was not a stereotypical servant who naturally liked to lie and was lazy, and that this "teachable child" situation, as well as the capture of the details of daily life, reflected the delicacy of the director's observation and ability to write it into the script.

The script for The Fallen Man is quite well written. Chen Xiaojuan knows how to plan the layout, design the discord again and again, dissolve it again and again, and gradually push the plot to the climax. At the end, the parting emotion without any sadness is expressed, still maintained within the limits of "moderation". This is a rare ability for a new director born in 1987. This may be related to the director's personal experience, she grew up in a public housing estate, familiar with the life of Hong Kong's low-class citizens, and the family has also undergone a separation, these experiences have made her pay more attention to the lower social groups, but also let her write this gentle and delicate emotional story.