Gentleness in the mediocre world——Comment on the sluggish box office "Looking for Han" and the long-lost common people comedy
"Looking for Han" was released for a week, with a box office of less than 3 million yuan. The results were dismal, almost reduced to the cannon fodder of the May 1st period.
There is no traffic starring, no handsome men and beautiful girls, no sugar, ordinary young men and women rushing to get married for the purpose of dating, this is too unfashionable.
The actor Wang Zichuan is a geek director/actor who has been active on the stage of drama for many years, and he is not a fashionable person.
As for the director Tang Danian, he is not fashionable. His legend has long disappeared in the arena.
How to introduce Tang Danian?
His highlight moment was as the screenwriter of "Beijing, You Are Early" directed by Zhang Nuanxin, which was in 1990.
When he had the best mass base, he directed the TV series "What to Move, Don't Move," starring Tao Hong. That was in 2005.
Is the moon 15 years ago or 30 years ago difficult to shine into the hearts of contemporary audiences?
The time background of "Xun Han Ji" is set in the era when children born out of wedlock cannot fully enjoy today's equal rights, so the film's narrative has a serious core: "single pregnant women" like the heroine Wang Zhao face invisibility What to do with the environment of discrimination?
The original name of the movie is more intuitive and permeated with the absurd and helpless sense of black humor. It is called "I Can't Help You."
Wang Zhao got divorced, because she was unilaterally unhappy, because she wanted to act in front of her elders, and because of various chaotic reasons, she and her ex-husband maintained an unclear and nondescript relationship, which resulted in a child.
She was 35 years old, pregnant at an advanced age, and wanted to have a child, but her ex-husband knew about it and drew a clear line and fled quickly. If she gave birth to the child, she would not be able to go to household registration or school in the future...this endless array of landmines, So, thirty-six strategies, "seeking Han" is the best.
Putting aside the big trouble of "pregnancy", Wang Zhao from "Looking for the Han" and the heroine He Jiaqi from "What to Move, Don't Move Feelings" are very similar. They are not young, the workplace is frustrated, the love scene is overturned, and the collision begins. A sister and brother love.
Liao Yu, the boy He Jiaqi met back then, was a very good-looking young man who was so spoiled by his mother and girls since he was a child.
Wang Zhao caught up with Du Wei because he was playing games. When he first met, he appeared in a car, with disheveled hair and shaggy beard, like a kiwi.
After 15 years, the love partner of the elder sister who has never had a relationship with the beauty has changed from the Tianxian brother to the underwhelmed brother. Does "Xun Han Ji" face the bleak life and more grounded?
Quite the opposite.
With the fond memories of "Morning in Beijing" and "What to Move, Don't Move Feelings" into the screening room of "Xun Han Ji", the opening scene was basically disappointing.
The study and description of the mental states of all kinds of ordinary people, which Tang Danian is good at, was replaced by exaggerated facial makeup in the prologue of "Xun Han Ji".
Wang Zhao is a flattering person with a flattering personality. Colleagues in the workplace bully her and yell at her. The only colleague who doesn't use her as a girl, plots against her; ex-husband is a fighter in the scum, cold to her The heat and violence are all on the rise; the mother gave birth to a son after remarrying, and uses her daughter as a tool for "helping the younger brother"; the younger brother eats and asks, and uses the half-sister as the cash machine...because the actors perform simple and rude performances for granted At the beginning of the movie, a "evil cartoon" was spread out. In Tang Danian's past screenwriters or directors, the muddy but life-filled breath of the market is gone.
Looking back at "Beijing, You Are Early", the precious experience it creates is that the director and screenwriter use a kind heart and mature creative ability to uncover the vague, ambiguous and rich spectrum of ordinary human nature.
The conductor girl is drifting with the crowd in the world of material and erotic desires. She changes her mind when she sees different things, but she is a simple and honest silly girl after all.
The bus driver is particularly suffering from unfairness because of his sensitivity, but he is weak and incapable of action, so he can only be at the mercy of life over and over again.
There are people who are unkind and those who have been disappointed. There are people who gain and those who have been sacrificed. There is no one’s temperament and his/her life in black and white. Everyone has a private position and their will. There are always varying degrees of rationality with actions, and it is that many ordinary people who are neither good nor evil, weave an infinitely rich life.
The soul of common people's tragicomedy is not to accuse or criticize, but to tolerate. It is to experience gentleness in the mediocre world.
This kind of vivid life flow requires a tacit understanding between the screenwriter, director, and actors. The regret of "Xun Han Ji" is roughly that its awkward and awkward beginning makes people feel that the humanity is shown with flexibility and persuasiveness. , Those performances that are as relaxed as breathing are now too rare.
It wasn't until Li Baotian, who played the grandfather, and Wang Zichuan, who played the role of grandfather, frequently appeared on the screen.
What is the scene in the movie theater where the sporadic audience burst into laughter?
It was the grandfather who leaned back, carried his hands on his back, and said in a broken voice: "It's so decided, we have to find someone who is taken advantage of." Let the characters honestly reveal reasonable selfishness, this is the moment when comedy comes.
Just like in "What to Move, Don't Move Feelings", the bad grandfather's education period: "You have to keep your hand, don't move feelings, move a little bit if you want to, so that you won't be easily hurt." There is also the classic "I." Love My Home", when Fu Ming, a veteran cadre, heard that his son's Zhiguo spirit was derailed and his love letter had leaked out, how did he teach his son: "We have meetings all day long, and what letters should we write. How can textual things fall into the hands of outsiders?"
Li Baotian's performance allows people to see that the cunning of the market experience and the kindness of time are harmoniously intertwined with an old man. Wang Zichuan's performance has contributed a rare white space and aftertaste.
The attributive "burst" describes an extremely bad performance rather than a high-quality performance.
Wang Zichuan, who doesn’t bother to write biographies, and is too lazy to rehearse on the set, puts out a highly accurate and moderately unfamiliar performance in front of the camera. The performance is the same as writing and shooting. The essence is a rhetoric, but the media used by the actors. It is one's own body. The "lifestyle" in the movie is actually a kind of "skilled construction" that is more demanding, tightly organized and does not leave any traces.
Du Wei sloppyly drove the motorcycle to McDonald's to see Wang Zhao. Seeing that she was driving in a BMW, she filed a "divorce application" in the game when she went home. Wang Zhao called to ask what was going on. He drove the speakerphone. Sitting idle in the sunshine plucking the pig's feet, answering the girl's question after another "what's going on".
In this situation, the man said what he didn’t really want to say, did what he didn’t really want to do, he said half a sentence, there was a sound outside the strings, he seemed to watch his embarrassment and pain from the sidelines, and it seemed that the actor was trying to induce the audience to go. Fill in the mood of the character's tumbling.
As Racine summarized in "Laocoon": When creating a climax, stop before the climax, and let the viewer reach the fullest emotional moment in his imagination.
Always set the aftertaste.
After "Xun Han Ji" drove low and high, the final debt was the disappearance of the "aftertaste".
Two people with a lot of problems come together because they are attracted to each other. Love can't make them perfect. Love is even less capable of turning ordinary life into a perfect world. So far it's fine.
But the screenwriter of "Looking for the Han" refused to say "unlucky girl met a hero who walked on auspicious clouds", and he became the lottery she got in the lottery, in order to defeat the devil of life.
Speaking too much, the play is too real, so it becomes the sadness of comedy.
Our reporter Liu Qing