Last Friday, the movie " Wuhai " was officially released. This is the second feature film by young director Zhou Ziyang. Four years ago, he was born in nowhere with his debut work " Old Beast " and won the special award of the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival Asia Future Unit. This time, in addition to Tu's cameo, he also invited two male and female protagonists, Huang Xuan and and Yang Zishan and . However, five days after its release, the cumulative box office of "Wuhai" was less than 9 million yuan, and the proportion of screening has dropped to less than 5%, far less than the previous market expectations. Even on Douban, which is relatively more tolerant of art films, netizens only scored 6.1 points, which was barely passing.
It can be said that "Wuhai" has fallen into a "Wuhai" in terms of reputation and box office, which is frustrating. But why is this? As its name suggests, the protagonist Yang Hua (played by Huang Xuan) faces a dark and deep sea of desires. In the movie, this married man who was once proud and had a happy love seemed to fall into an endless fall. He failed to invest, was burdened by his friends, misunderstood by his wife, disliked by his father-in-law, and was forced into a desperate situation step by step. Especially, whenever there seems to be a turning point, I find that a new round of misfortune is coming, which is suffocating.
The night before yesterday, the director posted a long article on social media to express his heart. He said that after filming "Old Beast", although he won some awards for the film, he had no income for several years, and his survival pressure was quite high. "I remember that I borrowed more than 20 online loans at that time, and every day I opened my eyes, I had to pay back the debt. I was bombarded by countless repayment information every day, but I could only tear down the east wall and repair the west wall. Life became very difficult and painful. The only support and happiness were the in-depth script creation. The cruel life experience was accompanied by the ultimate creative state. , including the unexpected departure of friends around me, and I also put all the most real feelings into the role of Yang Hua. "So, Yang Hua in "Wuhai" has a hard and depressing life, debts, loans, cheating, quarrels, setting fires, car accidents, and fierce conflicts. Under the intensive plot, the audience will not be sleepy and are not willing to go to the toilet. However, there are too many contradictions, conflicts, setbacks and misfortunes, on the one hand, there is a suspicion of being rigidly piled up, and on the other hand, it seems that the audience will be pushed into the darkness that is difficult to breathe, but forgot to pull it out. The director did reflect and question the endless desires and distorted values, but he did not give any solution, which made it difficult for the audience to accept.
Image metaphor slightly mixed
If "Wuhai" continues the reflection on social problems in the director's debut work "Old Beast", then its creative techniques further continues the expression of surrealism in the previous work, and the symbolic technique of the image metaphor and surreal absurd scene narrative have become increasingly iconic techniques of Zhou Ziyang's movies.
As soon as "Wuhai" was opening, Yang Hua was watching African lungfish through his mobile video. This is a creature with extremely powerful vitality. After the river drys up, they will hide deep in the mud and wrap themselves with the spitted saliva. "It can survive for up to four or five years until it rains before drilling out of the soil." Zhou Ziyang did not hide his intention of making such arrangements. "In order to survive, life can mutate, which is very similar to the theme of the movie." However, many such short videos appear in the film, including the scene of giving birth to multiple babies, etc. You can feel that the director wants to think about the medium itself and use short videos as a record of the times, but this invisibly caused some damage to the narrative rhythm of the movie. What is even more fatal is that the contrast and conflict between reality and surreal created by the director often seems too deliberate and lack of necessity. For example, old men and women who can do yoga on the golden bells on the upside down will have no explanation after the beginning; for example, those folk musicians, whose tents are on fire, can still play calmly and easefully; for example, Yang Hua crawled into the mouth of a dinosaur sculpture and hid in its body for the night, in addition to the aesthetic and metaphor in the sense of image, it also makes people wonder how the dinosaur's neck passes through the body of an adult man, which is very out of the way.There are also those desert moons, those yurts in the desert that seem to be mirage , as well as Yang Hua, who is quite satisfied with the director, and the state of desire struggle formed in the wrapped and entangled movements... In just 102 minutes of the movie, the director stuffed many magical realism, which greatly affected the rationality and smoothness of the real story.
Learn to find a balance between form and content, and learn not to "want everything" all at once. Perhaps it is more urgent and necessary for a young director than establishing a so-called personal style.
text/Xinmin Evening News reporter Sun Jiayin
edited by Cui Wei
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