In these images, there are 20-year-old prostitutes who leave their hometown and send money to their seriously ill father for a long time; there are stingy madams who beat gangsters with sticks; there are disabled fortune-tellers who go to small hotels to find ladies; there are fools who have been kept by their brothers and sisters for many years and abused in pigpens...
These people are abandoned by mainstream society, and are vagrants who wander in the world and live a life of blood licking at the tip of a knife.
He tore off the last fig leaf of civilized society, and the so-called dirty, unstoppable and scoffing reality was presented in the work bloodily.
He is Xu Tong , the king of underground forbidden films.
(right is Xu Tong)
Xu Tong was born in Beijing in 1965. His father Xu Zhen is the best among the first generation of science and education film screenwriters and directors in New China, specializing in documentaries on animal themes.
The infection of the family atmosphere has also led Xu Tong to his father's path and graduated from the Department of Television, Communication University of China to major in journalism and photography.
(Pictures are from @Southern People Weekly. Xu Tong was when he was young, Xu Tong's father was Xu Zhen on the right)
was born in Beijing, was born in a director's family, and was born in a professional class...
Such Xu Tong could have made a big punch in the mainstream film market, waiting for both fame and fortune. He never thought that he would go deep into the underground and wander at the bottom of society.
This stems from a incident in college .
Xu Tong in the university is also a top student in the class. He often shoots movies outside in his professional courses. It can be said that both theory and practice are outstanding, so he was naturally selected by Beijing TV station .
But the incident happened on the eve of graduation. An anonymous letter of report involved Xu Tong in an exam-related incident. Due to the age of time, many facts cannot be verified. I only know that Xu Tong was punished and the school refused to graduate.
From then on, Xu Tong missed the work within the system and lived underground.
(Pictures are from @Southern People Weekly)
In order to make a living, Xu Tong filmed advertisements, printed, and graphic design... In those twenty years, he kept ups and downs.
Because he had no money, he lived in the urban-rural fringe area in the eastern suburbs of Beijing at that time.
The mermaids and dragons live there are all beggars, thieves, prostitutes, and homeless people. Xu Tong drank and chatted with them to pass the boring life. Over time, this seemingly out of place top Chinese students also integrated into the "vagrants".
"Looking from a distance, looking at the close is a homeless man."
Xu Tong said this.
What is a vagrant?
Scholar Wang Xuetai defines "wanderers" as:
Wanderers are different from grassroots. They are out of order and are disorganized, and are more marginalized than grassroots.
The grassroots living at the bottom are not called vagrants, but the fringe people who live at the bottom are called vagrants.
After becoming a member of the homeless group, Xu Tong has been writing his novel "Treasure Island", which carries what he saw and heard in the lower society over the past 20 years.
can text does not satisfy Xu Tong's desire to express himself. In 2008, he picked up the camera again and filmed his first documentary " wheat harvest ".
"Wheat Harvest" tells the story of a prostitute who was in a massage room in Beijing and her hometown.
The protagonist Miaomiao just turned 20 years old. In Beijing, she is not afraid of smoking and drinking, and comments on customers like discussing crops. Her customers are all at the construction site, driving forklifts, and train drivers...
Have midnight snacks with customers, and sometimes they even find ducks to have fun and fall in love.
When she returned to her hometown, she returned to the simple rural girl, with her father who was ill in bed, her mother who was busy and her young brother.
She supports her family by doing flesh and blood business, and switches roles back and forth between her living place and her hometown.
This is no different from anyone who leaves his hometown and is running around.
"This is a very hard-working girl. She has been running around to support her family. This kind of running around comes at the cost of selling her body. I thought at that time that I must shoot Miaomiao's story." Xu Tong said.
It is precisely because Xu Tong looks at Miaomiao without prejudice, and treats the prostitutes who work with Miaomiao as human beings, so that they can rest assured about him and restore the truth when facing the camera without any scruples.
The screening of "Wheat Harvest" has made people truly understand the prostitute group and began to change their views on this group.
Xu Tong also entered the underground film industry because of "Wheat Harvest" and won major awards.
is also inevitable. Some people say that "Wheat Harvest" is a stain on Xu Tong's life.
The point of criticizing Xu Tong did not code and process it without the consent of the parties involved in the film, and even exposed the family information of the parties involved. Some people believe that Xu Tong exchanged the unbearable and suffering of these prostitutes for the success of his career.
similar to this attack hit Xu Tong like a rain of bullets. He couldn't argue. In the end, "Wheat Harvest" was no longer open to the public and deleted all the film sources that could be found on the Internet.
But this condemnation did not end, and even at the screening of Xu Tong's films, there would be organizations coming to protest.
Xu Tong didn't say much about the movie "Wheat Harvest". Perhaps he realized that he did something wrong back then, or perhaps he realized that no matter how he said it, he would be grabbed by others, so he simply didn't mention it.
The ending of this farce is that Miaomiao gets married and has children, while Xu Tong continues to move forward on the road of shooting vagrants.
In 2009, Xu Tong filmed "Fortune Telling".
This film is the second part in Xu Tong's "Battler Trilogy" series and the most responsive one.
Douban score is as high as 9.2 points, better than 99% of documentaries.
"Fortune Telling" adopts a narrative structure in the chapter, mainly shooting disabled fortune teller Li Baicheng, and her mentally retarded wife, as well as other homeless people they met in the process.
Li Baicheng had both legs, his parents died at a young age, and was abused by his brother, so he left home early.
And his wife Shi Zhenzhu was mentally disabled and could not take care of herself. Before meeting Li Baicheng, she was kept in a pigpen by her brother and sister-in-law.
is such a pair of hard-working people who support each other and barely live.
You originally thought this was another touching " Hidden in the Dust Smoke ", but the reality is not that much Romantic .
asked Li Baicheng why he married Shi Zhenzhu. He said these words:
"Poverty does not choose his wife, cold does not choose clothes, panic does not choose his way, hungry does not choose food."
initially married Shi Zhenzhu just to solve his physiological needs. He was in his sixties and would still go to a small hotel to find a lady to have fun. But on the other hand, Li Baicheng did give Shi Zhenzhu a home, otherwise she would have died in the pigpen if she was abused by her brother and sister-in-law.
This is the case with the vagrants in Xu Tong's lens. Good and evil coexist, interests are the priority, and righteousness is the first.
They have a savage bloody nature that is only found in primitive society.
A madam appears in "Fortune Telling" completely interprets the barbaric bloodiness of the vagrants. Her name is Tang Xiaoyan.
At that time, she happened to tell fortunes at Li Baicheng, and was recorded by Xu Tong. Later, Xu Tong followed her to film her. The strong visual conflict with drama caused by her distinct personality made her take a large part of the shots in "Fortune Telling". Tang Xiaoyan in the camera of
is the boss lady of the massage room. To put it bluntly, she is the madam. She is as bold as a Northeastern woman, and she can chase hooligans and call to shake people whenever she disagrees.
also has the barbaric spirit and the spirit of the martial arts world, so he can match his friends with the vagrants.
He is truly integrated into the group of homeless people and observes the homeless people from the perspective of the homeless people, without prejudice and without mercy.
After the screening of "Fortune Telling", many viewers wanted to donate to Li Baicheng's family, so Xu Tong kept each account on a piece of white paper and then gave it to Li Baicheng.
Tang Xiaoyan's massage room was reported to be in the bureau. Hu fell into Pingyang and was bullied by a dog. No one was willing to help her. In the end, Xu Tong mortgaged his car and collected 70,000 yuan to catch Xiaoyan.
They only knew each other for two months.
"From that time, I felt that no matter what this person is, I must help him even if I sacrifice my life." Tang Xiaoyan said.
Since then, Xu Tong and Tang Xiaoyan have established a solid friendship. In their words, they are buddies.
And Xu Tong's third part of the "Battler Trilogy" series, " Old Tangtou " was born, and the film about the world of Tang began.
Xu Tong followed Tang Xiaoyan back to the Northeast, stayed at her house for a winter, and even became a member of the family.
"Old Tang Head" is filmed by Tang Xiaoyan's father, "Fourth Brother" is filmed by Tang Xiaoyan's fourth brother, and "Two Shovels" is filmed by Tang Xiaoyan's third brother.
Xu Tong won the trust of Tang Xiaoyan's family. Old Tang even once quarreled with his family and spoke to Xu Tong who was holding the camera and asked him to comment.
, and Tang Xiaoyan also changed her life because of Xu Tong. She followed Xu Tong to participate in various film festivals and even attended " Qiangqiang Threesomes ".
In that episode of "The Legend of Qiang Qiang Threesome", the protagonist was Xu Tong. In the end, Tang Xiaoyan became the main speaker. Xu Tong listened quietly, and he focused his eyes on this ill-fated woman.
Now Tang Xiaoyan has become Xu Tong's left and right hands. She picked up the camera and became a producer.
This is the difference between Xu Tong and other documentary directors. He is not only a bystander, but also a participant. He is also a vagrant. They are like comrades in the trenches, trusting each other and fulfilling each other. This is the friendship between vagrants.
After filming "The Fourth Brother" in 2013, Xu Tong decided not to shoot such taboo themes.
The fourth brother is a real person. He is Tang Xiaoyan's cousin, a professional thief, and has been imprisoned many times.
Xu Tong used black and white images to record the "daily world" of the fourth brother and the years he recalled in prison.
If the "Fourth Brother" is screened on a large scale, he may be imprisoned again. While this kind of theme caused Xu Tong to be criticized, he also faced moral and legal difficulties, so he stopped.
And Xu Tong, who is nearly 60 years old this year, is making a movie "Treasure Island" he wrote more than ten years ago, preparing to release it, as if everything has returned to the starting point and back to his rental house in the western suburbs of Beijing.
Now his documentary is deleted, uploaded, deleted, and uploaded on various websites. This cycle continues like a weed.
I think this is because his documentary shows the B-side of Chinese society. This group of the lowest and most marginal groups are truly discussing the complexity of human nature.
The characters in his film are cunning, lustful, and will be vengeful, but at the same time they are affectionate and loyal, and grow wildly.
In "Fortune Telling", watching the beggar sleeping in the open, Xu Tong asked in a very craftsmanly manner:
"These people are alive, there is no fun at all, why?"
When he heard this, Li Baicheng said angrily: "This is what people say, if they don't have fun, they won't live? This is so ruthless."
Yes, for some people, living is the whole meaning.
Xu Tong changed some vagrants, and vagrants also changed Xu Tong.
He once said that it was Miaomiao and Li Baicheng who saved him and pulled him out of the darkness and fear.
The meaning of Xu Tong’s documentary is to pursue the meaning of life and the meaning of life.
What is the meaning of life?
In his own words, it is:
"The meaning of life lies in the breath of fighting fate."
