The car hovered over the mountain road, and the cold wind rolled up smoke. There are several fields with vitality between wormwood. The mountains are always so gray and bare, and the clear buses are dotted with agricultural tricycles. They clattered along the road. This is a scene in the movie Blind Well, and it is also the first time I saw my hometown in the image. That mountain, that road and the smoke are more like the north. . . . . .
The lens followed Song's eyes and landed on the messy station in Beizhen, where many young people's brilliant dreams flashed. Our hero's dream begins here. Compared with many great dreams, our hero's dream is not far away, and the most urgent thing is the dream of going to school again. Song's eyes are more like a hunter. His prey is our hero, the little "idea" in the crowd. Concept is a creepy term in Liu Qingbang's novel Shenmu. Whoever becomes an "idea" will be "destroyed" in a few days. This time, the "idea" fell on our hero, Yuan, who was only sixteen or seventeen years old and became an "idea" carelessly. In the words of film critics, this "idea" reveals the "blind well" in human nature. Of course, I can't say that this understanding is biased. I just want to know how dark and deep the "blind well" of people's hearts is. We should know more after this accident. Just like the moral of a piece of music, my eyes want to omit the noisy scene and return to the "thriving" small coal mines in the barren hills in the north. We don't know how many such small coal mines exist in China. This is an incalculable number, as mysterious and terrible as how many miners' lives are swallowed up by black wellhead. But I know that these small coal mines are always growing tenaciously. I know that in my hometown, there are many Yuan who squander their youth in these shady small coal mines.
"Youth" is a resounding and smooth term! He asked me to keep an eye on Yuan in the blind well, a country boy of 16 years old, and his youth began here-between the dark mines in the north. ...
Lens 1: shaving
The children of the poor are in charge early. When Yuan met his father's fate of not coming home for half a year and having no money to go to school, this boy of 16 years old took a difficult step and left his hometown for the first time. But after all, he is only a teenager, as can be seen from his timid eyes. At this point, Li Yang is sensitive after all. He skillfully brought the changes of Yuan into his "body". When Song and Tang Hongdai Yuan were about to start working in the well, Song Rangyuan shaved off the beard that accompanied him at the age of sixteen. This ceremony, which seems to us to have faded, still indicates a certain meaning. In any case, in Song's view, it is really inappropriate to take a "wet behind the ears" kid into the well and then "dry". The director tried to show us a youth story from the perspective of Song. "Hair on your mouth is not practical", which is a native northern proverb, but it is just right here. After shaving, a boy began to transition into a man. This change is of course mysterious and budding. However, Yuan's mysterious germination began in the mine. This of course shows its uniqueness; What is more special is that his budding youth was completed under the impetus of Song Dynasty.
Link 1: One afternoon in the winter vacation in 2004, in my uncle's cramped office (my uncle is the director in charge of the enterprise), my uncle told me that in this township where I grew up, there are three coal mines, each with 10 classes, with 25 to 40 students in each class, adding up to more than 1000 migrant workers, the total population of this administrative township.
My uncle said that coal prices have been high recently, from 70 yuan/ton to 400 yuan/ton. High coal prices have stimulated small coal miners to blindly pursue high profits. Generally speaking, a set of safety equipment costs nearly one million yuan, and small mine owners are definitely unwilling to invest this money. Farmers in these poor areas have neither skills nor culture, and they have to or are so eager to become miners. The safety factor of these small coal mines is low, but it is increasing. And the supervision of the coal system, especially the supervision of the underlying system, is like a windy day. When the wind stops, these small mines will grow like mushrooms after rain. What's more, local governments encourage the development of small coal mines in order to pursue fiscal revenue unilaterally.
On the second day of New Year's Day in 2005, my uncle's son Xin Feng came to visit my relatives. 18 years old, working for two years. In those small mines, he can earn 25-40 yuan per shift, which is much higher than the income from farming, and there are more and more miners of his age in the past two years. -These more and more children who have just shaved or haven't shaved put down their schoolbags and walked into the ranks of miners, becoming a veritable "Yuan".
Lens 2: Beauty Calendar
The bare breasts and breasts on the western beauty calendar on the bed wall were discovered by Yuan by accident. At that time, Yuan was reading a history book to relive his dream of returning to school. In his view, reading history textbooks is much more interesting than those monotonous manual labor. It was only when he accidentally caught a glimpse of the beauty's calendar (behind the newly pasted newspaper) that he was in high spirits. He would secretly open the shabby newspaper in the middle of the night, have a look, and then fall asleep slowly. More interestingly, when Yuan came back from the body of the lost boy, he first thought of this calendar. He tore the calendar to pieces. Obviously, Feng Ming Jr. thinks this painting is the chief culprit that affects the realization of his dream of reading.
Link 2: Song said to Yuan: "Textbooks, you can't go back when you leave the school gate ... My teacher also told me, but is the school run by your family?" Like Yuan, there are many children in my hometown who can't afford to go to school. There are four children in my uncle's family. Xin Feng said that he would finish junior high school, because there was no money at home, so he stopped studying. Xin Feng also said that it was not all family reasons. Many children in his mine dropped out of school because of poor English learning. Most of the teachers in No.1 Middle School in our village graduated from normal schools, but there is no formal teacher who graduated from normal schools in my primary school. By the way, during my winter vacation, I became an English teacher for seven children. Most of the English teachers of these junior high school children are composed of teams that have never learned English after graduating from junior high school. -weak education and backward economy have made these children join the ranks of migrant workers early, continuing the adolescence that should have been completed at school in the vast mines!
Scene 3: bar mitzvah
Yuan's "rite of passage" is so simple and clear. With the help of Song, Yuan reluctantly crossed the dark corridor, and with the help of prostitute Ma, he completed the transition from teenager to adult. Song gave Yuan countless rich life experiences in a short time, so in Song's view, he died without regret! Yuan's shyness and introversion not only make this very serious film alive, but also show the complexity and backwardness of China.
Link 3: Compared with his peers who are rooted in mines, Yuan is much luckier. His adult transformation was promoted by others. Real farmers and miners are unwilling or unable to bear the money. They scrimped and saved 10 thousand yuan a year just to go home to build a house and get married. The expensive bride price forced them to plunge into the vast mine. And once you miss the opportunity to become an older youth, you may have to be a bachelor for life-the transition from teenager to adult may be in the foreseeable future!
New Year's Eve in 2005 is different. Many old people gathered around the telephone, listening to the voice of their children coming from a distance. Children in the village gradually became dissatisfied with the backwardness and poverty in their hometown, and went out to work one after another, and began to change from "Yuan" to "Stupid Root". This is especially true for girls, many of whom work ten hours a day in workshops, and those who can't afford to suffer and look good will naturally enter hotels, nightclubs and teahouses and eventually become "horses" and prostitutes.
Scene 4: At the end of the film, Yuan looks at the chimney of the cremation factory, watching the bodies of Song and Tang instantly turn to ashes, floating in the muddy sky of the mine, and these two people were still alive by his side a day ago. After the test of blood and fire, Yuan left the mine. He sat on the coal car with a bright eye and pulled our eyes to the farther and higher sky.
Link 4: Daping, Henan, Jixi, Shaanxi, Fuxin, Liaoning ... The mine disaster together makes us feel indifferent to life. The location of Daping mine disaster is in the foothills not far from my home. The blood and life of the miners did not make the sky in the mining area cleaner and more transparent. Liu Qingbang talks about "ideas" with the cunning of farmers, and Li Yang reveals "blind wells" with the compassion of "humanity". But in my opinion, these are not enough. This seems to be a "development" proposition. The dream of modernity has been fully displayed here. Our development not only touches the interests of the weak, but also costs their health and even their lives! However, our eyes always slide over Yuan's body and focus on the sinister nature of human nature. Miners have become synonymous with roughness and barbarism in our eyes, which makes it easy for us to forget the rough reality. At the end of the film, Yuan's eyes looked so confused in the face of the high and far sky, which reminded me of the words of the forerunner: "Save the children!" ..... help the miners!