01
Lu Xun said: "I have never been afraid to speculate on Chinese with the worst malice."
This sentence sounds harsh at first, but on the movie I want to talk about today, it is extremely accurate.
In this movie, human lives can be clearly marked: 30,000 yuan per person.
Regardless of whether it is for the rich and unkind, or the poor for money, their indifference to human life is heinous.
This movie is "Blind Well".
"Blind Well" is directed by Li Yang, starring Wang Baoqiang, Wang Shuangbao, and Li Yixiang.
At that time, this was still a combination of an unknown director and an unknown actor.
After the film turned out, their destiny also changed.
"Blind Well" is director Li Yang's debut work. Douban score 8.8.
In 2003, at the Berlin International Film Festival, "Blind Well" competed with Zhang Yimou's "Hero" for the Golden Bear Award. In the end, Zhang Yimou had nothing to gain, and "Blind Well" won the Silver Bear Award for Outstanding The Art Achievement Award made the fledgling Li Yang a blockbuster.
The chairman of the Berlin Film Festival commented on the film: "This is a good film. It shows Chinese movies in three dimensions. Apart from Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, it provides another aspect."
BBC commented on it: "This is a Modern fables about greed, murder and innocence."
But for some reason, the film was not released in mainland China.
At the Golden Horse Awards in the same year, Wang Baoqiang, one of the leading actors, won the Golden Horse Award for Best New Actor for the film, which made him begin to receive attention. After
, he was selected by Feng Xiaogang and starred in "A World Without Thieves" and started his road to popularity.
"Blind Well" tells the story of two ordinary people who tricked the honest workers to go down to work as miners with themselves in order to make money, then killed each other and pretended to be relatives of the deceased to seek out the mine owner to blackmail the money.
The film is adapted from Liu Qingbang’s novel "Sacred Tree". The theme of the novel originates from the three large mine fraud and murder gangs in China in 1998: Zheng Jikuan gang (110 people killed),Pan Shenbao group (28 people killed), Yu Guiyin group (38 people killed).
The folks call this criminal method "killing piglets", as the name suggests: "piggy" is the abducted miner; "killing piglets" is to kill the "piggy" in the mine, disguised as a mining disaster, and then Pretend to be relatives to claim compensation from the miners.
"Killing piglets" is a crime phenomenon that has arisen with the compensation of mining disasters, and has grown with the improvement of the compensation standards for mining disasters, and once formed an industry with a clear division of labor and gangs committing crimes.
Why do such tragedies happen frequently? It is closely related to the social reality at that time.
First of all, coal mine management was not sound at that time, and mine disasters occurred from time to time, which provided natural conditions for crime.
Secondly, coal mine owners know that there are loopholes in management, and they dare not disclose it after the accident in the coal mine. In order to make major and trivial matters, they will choose to use money to settle things and allow criminals to take advantage of them.
Furthermore, in some places, this type of crime has formed a social ethos, which has been repeatedly banned.
Source: "Southern Weekend", 2011
The film "Blind Well" shows the characteristics of this criminal phenomenon.
Through this video, you will see that when the weaker violence against the weaker, the evil of human nature is undoubtedly exposed.
02
The movie begins with a shocking crime.
Under the dark mines, three men who were brothers were chatting at home. Two of them suddenly attacked the other person and "resulted" the other person's life.
At the beginning, you may be inexplicable: Why did your brother suddenly harm your brother?
As the story unfolds, the evil of human nature exposed in it makes the back chill.
It turns out that they are not related. The two people who did it didn't even know the name of the victim. The person who passed away in confusion was just the prey of the other two people getting rich.
When the "brother" died, the "brother" began to cry to the mine owner and demand compensation.
The other person acted as a "middleman" to mediate between "brother" and the mine owner, and get a kickback by the way.
And what is their final profit?
Compensation plus rebate, a total of 30,000 yuan. On average, everyone earns no more than 10,000.
30,000 lives per person! How humble! How sad!
After getting the money, they didn't have any guilt for the people who were killed. In China, which pays attention to the peace of land, they even threw the victim's ashes into the garbage at will.
What is even more suffocating is that from the dialogue between the two criminals, we can capture terrifying information: this kind of operation, they have long been familiar with the road, and even can't remember how many people they have killed.
One of the offenders in the film is named Tang Chaoyang (played by Wang Shuangbao) and the other is named Song Jinming (played by Li Yixiang). They spoke in an authentic dialect, and they seemed to be ordinary people.
After getting the money, they deal with the money in the same way as ordinary workers, just sending it home to their wives and children.
Spend a little on weekdays, and they will also reflect: With such a lot of money, it is not good to buy something for the child, and it should be spent on it.
They hope that their income can alleviate the financial difficulties of the family and give their children money to go to college.
However, they completely forgot when discussing their wishes. Those who were killed by them also had the same simple wishes.
are the unlucky people living at the bottom, how can they bear to compare them with those who are honest and can endure more hardship?
02
After finishing the last vote, they started looking for new targets.
At the station, a childish child entered their field of vision.
He is Yuan Fengming played by Wang Baoqiang.
Wang Baoqiang was only 19 years old at the time.He was excavated by director Li Yang from more than 1,000 northern drifters.
When meeting the director, Wang Baoqiang timidly said to Li Yang: "I don't look good, and there are a lot of freckles on my face."
Li Yang listened to joy, patted his shoulder and said, "I like it. This is the original ecological taste."
Sure enough, Wang Baoqiang relied on this original ecology to make the whole movie more convincing.
Yuan Fengming is a 16-year-old child. He was originally going to school, but because his father had not returned from working for half a year, the family could not pay for the tuition, so he had to drop out of school and work for his sister to study.
He just came out of the countryside without any awareness of the evils of the society, naive, honest and deceptive, and decisively became the target of Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming.
Tang Chaoyang promised to take him to work to earn money, and temptation to threaten him to recognize Song Jinming as his uncle. Yuan Fengming, who has not been involved in the world, established an uncle-nephew relationship with Song Jinming confusedly.
Establishing kinship is an important step in their crimes, so that they can claim compensation as relatives after an "incident". This step is called "pig raising" by the people.
On the choice of Yuan Fengming, Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang had a conflict.
Song Jinming couldn't bear to attack the children, but Tang Chaoyang had long been stunned and thought that he could make money. This paved the way for the subsequent outbreak of the conflict between the two.
In Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang, we can see the impact of interests on human nature.
Song Jinming always regrets that he has embarked on a criminal path. He once stated that if his family had money for children to go to school, he would not do such a thing.
Moreover, his child has good academic performance, and it is possible to get rid of poverty and backwardness in the future. Therefore, he will use the price of breaking the law to fight for a different path for his children.
In him, there is the pitifulness of the low-level people and the hatefulness of the low-level people.
Tang Chaoyang is different,His child's grades are poor, and he is likely to become someone similar to him in the future. He doesn't have so much vision for the future, and he is even more desperate when doing things.
Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang brought Yuan Fengming to the mine, and things were developing step by step according to their plan.
During the implementation process, Song Jinming was moved by Yuan Fengming's innocence and kindness, and moved his compassion.
More importantly, Song Jinming discovered that Yuan Fengming turned out to be the son of the man they had "killed" last time.
The father of the family has died. If the child is "run" again, the family will be extinct.
Song Jinming couldn't bear it and began to find all kinds of excuses to postpone the action, but Tang Chaoyang had no humanity to act according to the original plan, and the contradiction between the two continued to increase.
The final result is that because Song Jinming repeatedly obstructed, Tang Chaoyang injured Song Jinming with his hands before Yuan Fengming was "doing" Yuan Fengming, and Song Jinming struggled to "do it" when he started with Tang Chaoyang. Tang Chaoyang.
Yuan Fengming, who was frightened by the sight in front of him, got a chance to survive. He ran out of the well desperately. Just after he got outside, the mine started to explode and Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming were buried. Under the mine.
Yuan Fengming and Song Jinming have always been known as uncles and nephews, so after the mine disaster, Yuan Fengming was forced to sign the agreement and received 30,000 yuan in compensation.
This number was obtained by Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang from Yuan Fengming's father.
The so-called good and evil will eventually be rewarded. The story in the film follows this principle.
The dramatic ending of the movie gave Yuan Fengming a chance to live and get compensation, but how many of the calculated people outside the movie can be as lucky as him? Think carefully!
03
The author of the original work, Liu Qingbang, has 9 years of experience in mining areas and is the standard bearer of Chinese coal mine literature.
There is a widely circulated saying that illustrates his influence: in northern Shaanxi, as long as you are in the road, someone will take care of your food; in the mining area, as long as you mention Liu Qingbang, someone will take care of your drink.
In addition to "Sacred Tree", he also has a novel called "Red Coal" reflecting the life of miners.
In the postscript of "Red Coal" he wrote this sentence: "The reality of coal mines is the reality of China."
He once saw a contract signed by a miner and a mine owner, and it said in black and white: "If it appears For accidents, one finger will pay 50 yuan."
It is because of his personal experience and feelings that he has a deeper care for the bottom people represented by miners.
In his works, he not only exposes the evil of human nature, but also pays attention to the goodness of human nature, and pays more attention to the fate of the bottom people in China's development and transformation period.
Tang Chaoyang in "The Blind Well" represents the worst and dark side of human nature. Song Jinming has the remaining kindness, and Yuan Fengming is the embodiment of kindness.
The reason why Yuan Fengming was able to escape the fate of being victimized was the good result of his own cultivation.
He dropped out of school to work in order to study for his sister with excellent grades. His actions coincided with Song Jinming’s intention to commit crimes for his children, so it was easier for him to get emotional resonance with Song Jinming.
This kind of resonance is verified by another detail in the film.
Yuan Fengming was shopping with Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming. The three met a child who claimed to be admitted to high school and had no money to pay tuition. Yuan Fengming, who had no money in his hand, borrowed a few dollars from Song Jinming. Its funding.
After Song Jinming saw it, even if he suspected that the other party was a liar, he also funded some money.
In life, the innocent Yuan Fengming often touches Song Jinming.
After the salary was paid, just when Song Jinming and Tang Chaoyang were about to "finish" Yuan Fengming as soon as possible, Yuan Fengming bought a chicken for Song Jinming with hard-earned money.
When Yuan Fengming innocently lifted the chicken to Song Jinming, the impact on Song Jinming was self-evident.
Yuan Fengming’s kindness inadvertently moved Song Jinming, who has become a habit of murder,Also won the hope of life for myself.
"Blind Well" is not just a movie about mines, but also a movie about bottom life.
Therefore, there is no lack of details of the bottom society in the film.
At the recruiting station, out-of-towners wait in groups to pick up the job, reflecting the phenomenon of a large number of migrant workers entering the city to work.
Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming were walking on the street, blocking a car behind them. Although they were murderers who did not blink, they did not dare to speak back when they were scolded by the car driver. , They immediately persuaded.
It can be seen that the widening gap between the rich and the poor in society has an impact on people's lives and psychology.
While Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming were eating in a restaurant, TV was reporting a case of officials embezzling millions of dollars.
Song Jinming was shocked by the huge number, but Tang Chaoyang said quietly: "This is the same as the secretary of the village of I".
Simple news reports and conversations reflect the corruption of money to society and people's hearts.
Before Tang Chaoyang and Song Jinming planned to do Yuan Fengming, they thought that Yuan Fengming was still a virgin, and wanted to "open meat" for him, so they found a lady for Yuan Fengming.
When Yuan Fengming finished collecting his salary and sending money, he happened to meet the lady who was also sending money. Perhaps the lady betrayed her body, just like he went out to work, just to support the family.
The biggest social conflict in the film is between coal mine owners and miners.
In order to reduce costs, the coal mine’s main safety measures are not in place, causing frequent mine disasters.
But in the eyes of the mine owner, killing people is nothing more than an ordinary thing, because some people do not do it. Since there are abundant cheap labor for consumption, there is no need to make rectifications.
This is the cruel life logic that some people at the bottom face, and this cruelty will inevitably inspire more evil.
The scenes in the underground are all shot in a small coal mine.Because there were no pillars in the small coal caves underground, the crew worked underground for more than 20 hours at a time. Two hours after coming up, the coal cave collapsed, which is terrifying!
I don't know how many people spend their lives in the dark underground in exchange for money every day, and this fear adds another sadness.
People in the world panicked, but it is just a few pieces of broken silver, but this few pieces of broken silver can solve all kinds of panic in the world.
This is the bitterness of the bottom people, and it is also the misfortune of the bottom people.
I hope someone can bring them some light when they are in darkness, instead of pushing them into a darker abyss.
(The picture comes from the Internet, invaded)
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