After holding on for nearly ten minutes, Chen Kaige’s talent finally burst out when he was about to climax...
The title "Deep Flowers" can easily make people think of Chen Sheng. The song "One Night in Beijing": "Outside Di'anmen... deep among the flowers... the old man with a serene face is waiting for the returnee from the expedition." "Time" is also the same theme in the two works. The difference is that Chen Kaige's "Deep Flowers", as always, transcends personal emotions and examines the international proposition of the desperate conflict between modernization and tradition from a bird's-eye perspective.
Chen Kaige has always been a director I respect. When Zhang Yimou, also an iconic figure of the "fifth generation", completed his struggle from rebellion, indifference to recruitment; when a group of new directors were obsessed with personal experience and were unable to extricate themselves, Chen Kaige, who was over fifty years old, did not give up his sense of social responsibility and continued to work hard. A reflective and critical eye looks at this seemingly ever-changing era.
The film tells a story: Geng Le, the head of a moving company, had just moved a customer's house. Mr. Feng came to Geng Le and said that he also wanted to move, so he took Geng Le and his group to find Baihua. But when we finally found Baihua Hutong, we found it was in ruins and only an old locust tree remained there. Geng Le and the others shouted that they had been deceived and turned around to leave. At this time, they received a call from the company. The caller said that in the past few days, there was a madman looking for people to move for him. He told Geng Le not to be deceived by him. If he was deceived, don't forget to ask for help. money.
In order to ask for money, Geng Le and the others went back to help Mr. Feng move. So Mr. Feng told them: This is a large standing cabinet, this is a fish tank, and that is a vase. So Geng Le and the others moved to a home without any real objects. When moving a former Qing Dynasty porcelain vase, some people wanted to smoke and borrow fire. When Gong let go, the porcelain bottle broke and Mr. Feng cried.
After moving the things and driving forward, Mr. Feng told Geng Le that there was a ditch in front of the alley, but the car really got stuck in it. A copper bell was dug out where the car was stuck. Mr. Feng picked up the copper bell and ran happily towards the sunset. Geng Le and the others suddenly looked back, and an ink-wash courtyard appeared in the afterglow of the setting sun.
What are the consequences of modernization’s conquest of tradition? "Deep Flowers" depicts such a scene: when the material home of traditional culture is destroyed, the spiritual home of mankind will also be without branches. "Mr. Feng" symbolically demonstrated this serious consequence by going crazy. And those movers, like most of us, showed tragic indifference and numbness in the face of disaster.
Compared to the brilliant creativity, the film's cinematography is mediocre or mediocre. As the car drives into the ruins, the camera captures the scene from inside the window of a broken room, with the window frame in the foreground. This shot only lasts 3 seconds, but my feeling is that it is too much like a subjective shot, which affects the audience's immersion in the plot. Abbas handles this much more skillfully in "The Taste of Cherry".
The sound effects of the film are quite outstanding. The virtual moving sounds are interesting and fit the perspective of a madman. When the non-existent "Qingqing vase" was accidentally smashed, the absurd drum beat turned into a long and sad sound, which matched the camera slowly moving forward until a close-up of Mr. Feng's sad face appeared, adding to the film's The tone shifts from absurd to serious. When Mr. Feng rang the bell and ran towards his "new home", an animated courtyard appeared, accompanied by the sound of wind chimes, hawking sounds and traditional instrumental music. These sound effects brought the audience back to the "good old days". It effectively highlights the theme of the film and pushes the film to a climax.
At this moment, the director, the God of this story, showed his inability to do what he wanted.
It should be said that before the advent of animation, the storytelling was excellent and every detail was carefully designed. Although I think the moving company’s call is unreasonable - asking them to get wages from a madman, it is the first plot point of the story. Without this plot point, the story cannot develop in an absurd direction. For a ten-year-old man, Minutes of the video, Veuve Clicquot tried its best. The second plot point is much more natural. Although the discovery of the lost bell is coincidental, it is not too abrupt. This plot point successfully leads the story to the climax.
Overall, the progressive suspense is still attractive to watch. There is a reason why Chen Kaige's name is listed on the cover of this DVD together with international film masters.
But the next minute proved that it is an extremely difficult task to truly stand shoulder to shoulder with the masters.
Borges favored short stories because they were a perfect circle. But in practice it is very difficult to accomplish. Long stories require the author's super stability and endurance, while short stories require the author to have a high degree of control. Both are extremely challenging for creators.
Obviously, for such a short story, Chen Kaige knew very well that he had to give the audience a complete and perfect experience in ten minutes. In order to create a sufficiently exciting climax, after nearly ten minutes of stealth fighting, this "god" couldn't wait to take action and animated a courtyard in Mr. Feng's mind using the pale artistic conception of white flowers and snowflakes to make up for the audience's imagination. force, artificially forcing the story and every viewer to reach a climax. Unfortunately, this final rush betrays the director's rawness and timidity in navigating the experience. Realizing the courtyard house in my mind is undoubtedly superfluous, and using modern computer animation to express it is even more incredible. Imagining this change from the perspective of a moving worker reveals an obvious didactic meaning, which greatly dilutes the originally very heavy theme. As a result, an art film instantly turns into a mediocre public service announcement. Therefore, what we see is not the perfect creation of a master, but the panic of a young man who is first introduced to human affairs.
Like many wonderful life experiences, artistic creation is never one-way, but is completed simultaneously by the author and the audience. For artists, whether they have enough respect for their audience seriously affects the quality of their work. World-class masters have considerable respect for the intelligence of their audiences, but Chinese artists, especially film creators, often lack this virtue.
Since the 1980s, Chinese films have continued to win international awards. Perhaps the most pessimistic person would feel that the highest level of Chinese films is only a window away from international masters. But that courtyard told everyone how tough that ancient and obsolete window paper was, so tough that it made people feel a little dejected and desperate...