"Dear Tenant" is undoubtedly a popular Chinese-language movie that has been launched recently.
After the popular awards before "Solitude", "Silent" and "Class Mainas" successively "showed their faces", "Dear Tenant" naturally aroused the curiosity of many movie fans early on due to the taboos of the subject matter, and it also won the Best Actor Award at the award ceremony.
I have to say that several recent Baodao movies have allowed us to see the kind attention of local film and television producers to the general public and marginalized people. "Silent" is adapted from real events, focusing on campus violence and social integration issues of hearing-impaired students;
"Solitude" uses family changes to express the conflict and reconciliation between tradition and modern women's concepts;
"Class Mainas" continues to direct Huang Xinyao's black humor, but changes to the macro perspective and down-to-earth expression of the friendship and beliefs of several ordinary young people.
"Dear Tenant" focuses on sexual minorities. The story and characters are as delicate as Ang Lee. It is quite localized and attempts to reshape the family and love relationship in a "degenerative" way. The taboo level is not inferior to "Silent" in the cruel story of youth. At the same time, because of Chen Shufang's superb acting skills, she has abundant emotions in expressing family relationships, which is more restrained and refined than her in "The Same Taste".
In fact, "Dear Tenant" has partially overlapped with "Silent", "Single Taste" and "Class Mainas". Because they also focus on ordinary people, even minorities, they have loneliness and show the emotional depression of the characters in a prejudiced society. Although they can hear and speak, because of their special identity, they choose to pretend to be deaf and dumb in many discriminatory situations and use silence to resist rumors.
In the current situation where mainland film and television dramas constantly appear "hanging" characters and stories, the sincerity and compassion of Baodao movies are undoubtedly touching. "Dear Tenant" is more bold. It not only eliminates prejudice, but also strives to change the structure of modern families and reshape various relationships between people.
Tenant and Heartmen
The film begins with a dense jungle mountain "shaking" from a humble room on the beach. A gentle man Lin Jianyi (played by Mo Ziyi) is busy in the kitchen. He teaches the little boy Wang Youyu to be closer to his uncle and uncle Wang Ligang who came to his home, and deceives him to get closer by asking for red envelopes.
The old mother Zhou Xiuyu (Chen Shufang), who is unable to move due to illness, was discussing the situation with her younger son Wang Ligang, asking him to pay homage to his dead brother as soon as possible and not worry about the property at home. Lin Jianyi prepared a table of food, and the family quickly served it to the table, but Jianyi was unwilling to serve it. Although Zhou Xiuyu looked unhappy and tried to keep it, Jianyi still chose to hide on the balcony for dinner, because he seemed to take care of the whole family, but he was actually just a tenant of this family.
They are a family, Jianichi is just an outsider, the murderer who "killed my son" in Zhou Xiuyu's heart, and the outsider who "wanted to occupy our family's things" in Wang Ligang's heart. No matter how hard Jianyi works, he is just an annoying "tenant" in the eyes of these people.
In the critical moment of Zhou Xiuyu's son and Wang Youyu's father Wang Liwei, he chose to move in as a tenant to take care of Wang Youyu who lost his mother, and Wang Liwei who was in a financial crisis, he should be considered a "benefactor".
But because of gender reasons, outsiders always convict him in advance for prejudice. The two important scenes at the opening of the film, a mountain and a small house, both mean the relationship between loneliness and the inability to see the light. Moreover, the story begins with Lin Jianyi being "crime", which makes him bear the charge of suspected murderer.
Then the story unfolds in flashbacks, revealing the experience of "murder", how this family became incomplete, and Lin Jianyi's self-salvation, and how he opened the heart of the little boy Wang Youyu and the old man Zhou Xiuyu.
Relatives and Blood Relationship
"Dear Tenant" tells the ethical topic of whether ordinary people can become relatives.Love can transcend blood ties, so is family affection possible? The old man kept mentioning the past, "Do you think your efforts now can make me forget that you are the murderer who killed my son?"
Story pulls back and forth between death and rebirth. The old man was about to lose his mind because of diabetes and suffered from skin ulceration. She was resentful of her son Wang Liwei's death and was extremely worried about her grandson Wang Youyu's future.
She loves and hates Lin Jianyi, and she can see his efforts, but because of her longing for her son and her poor physical condition, she has nowhere to vent her feelings and treats Lin Jianyi as her only object of congratulation. The pain and depression of longing are all poured towards him, regardless of it, heartless.
The approaching of death is suffocating, and the rebellion of a new life is equally angstful. Wang Youyu, who is "old and mature", said to Lin Jianyi who has been taking care of him, "You will be very relaxed without me." Lin Jian once replied, "It will be happier only if you are there."
Wang Youyu is not only inseparable from him in life, but also his musical talent is given by Jianichi. In Wang Youyu's heart, the other party was "Dad No. 2", but he was also a stranger with a secret.
This strange thing also comes from gender reasons. Just like Lin Jianyi faced the aggressiveness of the police and asked, "If I were a girl, these questions would become reasonable."
Indeed, if Lin Jianyi was a girl who took care of her dead boyfriend, his relationship with the elderly and children would not have been criticized for this, and it would have become more normal.
Even if he is an intervener in family relations and a mistress who is scolded, he may not encounter such a big prejudice and dilemma. The heavy past with the breath of death and the depression of deception are vaguely revealed. Now, because the old man chooses to transfer the house to his grandson, he makes the "tenant" Lin Jianyi adopt his grandson, which becomes complicated and cruel.
In the eyes of family members Wang Ligang and the police, his motives are impure and he is the most suspected murderer; and in the eyes of outsiders, he is an "abnormal" troublemaker. He can give gifts to please him at the beginning, or change his teacher immediately after knowing his identity as a minority group.
All relationships become fragile due to gender issues. "Dear Tenant" hopes to use kindness and persistence to break prejudice and reshape relationships. Since love can transcend blood ties, family affection can be too.
So, the child recognized "Dad No. 2", and the old man recognized his relationship with his son, "He is very happy to be with you", and Lin Jianyi also called "Mom" after the old man left. In front of the court, the group photo of the three people with smiles is the gentlest scene in the whole film. This moment is the best proof of transcending blood ties and establishing a new family structure.
The law recognizes their relationship. What qualifications do others who don’t understand the truth have to point fingers! The two most important scenes in the film are the two most important scenes in the whole film. The mountains are metaphor for loneliness, but at the same time they retain the most intense moments of love and family affection between several people. Lin Jianyi and Wang Liwei like to climb mountains together the most, and they also experienced life and death separation in the mountains together.
Lin Jianyi also chose to say his final farewell to Wang Youyu by camping in the mountains. Mountains are private places like homes. They are secret places in jungle society and gray corners where some people connect with each other. Whether
can enter the home from the mountains is a representation of the further deepening of the relationship. Lin Jian entered the house, but was only a tenant due to gender reasons. He chose to take Wang Youyu from his home into the mountains to say goodbye, to tell him that the dangers of adult society and the unsatisfactory life are most likely to be.
Although the two were separated after the end of the film, the music became their new communication bridge. Wang Youyu also filled in the second half of Lin Jianyi's song. Wings and home are the lyrics of the song, meaning flying away from pain and bringing happiness home.
"Dear Tenant" chooses to use the elderly and children as an extension of the relationship, which is obviously more ambitious than most similar films. It not only attaches importance to the relationship between the two, but also tries to explore a brand new social and family relationship. This forward-looking and open topic exploration is indeed impressive.
