The mystery drama "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" (hereinafter referred to as "Octagonal Pavilion"), which has just ended, is directed by Wang Xiaoshuai and Hua Qing.

The good reputation of "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" of the Fog Theater in the past made the audience have special expectations for this powerful cast.

After the show was broadcast, the evaluation of the show was polarized. On the one hand, as an original show, there is no original work to provide the audience with the conclusion of "who is the murderer", which aroused the audience's curiosity, and various speculative and reasoning posts became hot posts. ; On the other hand, because the family ethics narrative has become an important content in the whole play, many reasoning fans are dissatisfied with the audience.

  So, what is so special about "The Octagonal Pavilion"?

Unusual genre film: Put the emotion and heart of the characters on the narrative focus

  The theme of "The Octagonal Pavilion" is similar to that of the movie "Long Days and Long" directed by Wang Xiaoshuai: a family that has been hit hard for many years has not solved the knots, and finally let go, and the emotions return.

I have read a report on the family members of a real domestic homicide victim, which is similar to the status of the characters in the play: in the torture of accidental loss of relatives, long-term search for the murderer and fruitless, originally harmonious family members attacked each other and attacked themselves. It makes them deviate from daily life and live in a painful unbalanced state for a long time.

  A complicated family line is set up throughout the play, and most of the key characters' relationships are framed in a family.

At the beginning of the story, almost every core member is in an abnormal state of stress: the aggressive father of the Xuan family, the neurotic aunt, the aunt who has not returned home for 15 years, is at the core of the family’s protection but is still young The daughter of the rebellious period, as well as the uncle who was a criminal policeman, the slightly eccentric middle school male teacher, the missing classmate, the head of the Kun Opera troupe and his wife.

  Each key figure is a narrative line, which together form a superposition of eight or nine narrative clues, using a scattered narrative method instead of focusing on the detective or discoverer as in traditional crime movies and TV dramas. Body.

The numerous characters render the story confusing: Will the murderer be among the family members?

The hidden account of the nineteen-year case and the new cases that appeared in the first episode constitute a circular situation: what big secrets are hidden between the Xuan Family and these characters?

  Traditional suspense dramas of genre pay more attention to the advancement of the plot and the reversal of the reasoning content, but "The Octagonal Pavilion" adopts many anti-type processing methods, and the inner "mystery fog" is more prominent.

Correspondingly, the series showed some characteristics: multi-character narrative and almost everyone's personality is flawed, which is more in line with round characters rather than flat characters that are typical and symbolized in traditional genre dramas; there are many foreshadowings, The first few episodes were slow in pace, and the narrative and rhythm gradually improved in the second half. It is a typical slow suspense, paying more attention to the overall atmosphere and the texture construction of the story; more clearly, the traditional genre drama focuses on the duality of good and evil. , And "The Octagonal Pavilion" set up complex emotions and human factors in the puzzle-solving link, removing the modular setting of the opposition between good and evil.

  Even, "The Octagonal Pavilion" strives to break the family's plights beyond the boundaries of internal family discussion, and explores how a family can actively face the PTSD problem after a catastrophic event on a larger scale.

The warmest ending is that everyone is reflecting and sincerely apologizing to his family.

"Tolerance" and "acceptance" are also implicit themes of the whole play.

  It can be said that, compared with the traditional genre drama which emphasizes the plot and neglects the characters, "Octagonal Pavilion" has made a different choice.

This is an active exploration, because only breakthroughs will promote the development of the type.

The loss of "slow suspense": How to find new identity after giving up the traditional type model

  But at the same time, after abandoning the traditional genre model, "Octagonal Pavilion" has not constructed a creative new model of reasoning drama, which makes its reputation generally inferior to the two dramas launched by the Fog Theater last year.

  First, the first half of the narrative is biased towards contradictions within the family, and the advancement of clues to the case is slow, making it impossible for the audience to lock on the typographical indicators of the suspense drama.

The suspense drama narrative with multiple clues and perspectives causes the audience's viewpoint to be scattered, and it is difficult to focus on solving the case.

  Second, most suspense drama viewers like to be able to project themselves, to some extent participate in the suspense drama that solves the case together.

The three most important characters in the crime drama in "The Octagonal Pavilion": the criminal, the victim, and the detective, have not been able to gain the absolute approval of the audience.

If the offender is in the clouds, although he is not a high IQ, he has committed crimes for many years; the two generations of victims or prospective victims have eccentric and unpopular personalities; the criminal police captain Yuan Fei has not solved the case in 19 years and was accused by his family. The new policeman, Liu Xinli Although he is actively solving the case, he is only a secondary character. His personal temperament and state are more like from another story called "Small Town Police Solving Case Record" outside of "Octagonal Pavilion".

  For viewers who are accustomed to watching genre dramas, they do not want to put too much emotion in watching suspense dramas.

At the beginning of the story, the entanglement and pain of each character in the past unsolved cases are conveyed, and the character's complex personality will also prevent some audiences from entering the plot.

  For all these reasons, in the first few episodes of "The Octagonal Pavilion", a part of the audience who came to the suspense drama was lost.

  "The Octagonal Pavilion" can be regarded as a kind of "slow suspense" attempt.

Because it is original, and there is no literary reasoning work as the basis for adaptation, the plot is not promoted by one crisis after another, and more attention is paid to the excavation of the characters' inner motives.

The reasoning story is, to a certain extent, a logical game, analyzing, discovering, and reanalyzing the case.

But "Octagonal Pavilion" abandons these traditional reasoning links. The unsolved mystery of 19 years is like rain in the rainy season, which never ends.

Cases are resolved slowly, people's hearts come back slowly, the murderer is exposed slowly, everything is slow, just like the pace of life in a small water town in the south.

  Classic mystery novels, Chang Chucai is able to create suspense and crime models creatively, such as the secret room model in traditional mystery novels, the collective crime model in "Murder on the Orient Express", and the "stand-in" model in "The Devotion of Suspect X" , Suspense film and television series adapted from literature, you can find from the original without creating a crime model.

Because "Octagonal Pavilion" is original, it needs to create a crime model by itself, and the play does not do enough at this point. In addition to the enhanced rendering of emotions and characters, the basic creativity of reasoning suspense has not been deeply explored, even to a certain extent. It deviates from the structural framework of traditional suspense dramas.

  Rejecting the symbolization and patternization of genre dramas, and working hard to explore the personality and emotional factors that are lacking in genre dramas, there is no problem in doing so, but suspense drama is a special genre mode, the crime part is the core link, and the reasoning part is also The key point in the puzzle-solving link, and the play uses related crimes or detection methods such as "after locking the object, pretending to induce crime", "psychotic inner distortion leading to manslaughter" and other related crimes or detection methods to complete the setting of the crime plot, and the structural completion of the crime plot. The completion of the plot is not enough.

  For example, for the viewers of the suspense film, whether the crime method that appeared in the first episode is novel, whether the crime process is accidental or not, determines whether they want to continue watching the attraction.

The same is the suspense drama "The Hidden Corner" launched by the Mist Theater. The plot of the gentle son-in-law pushing his parents-in-law down the mountain in the first episode is more unexpected, and it is difficult for the audience to ignore it.

In contrast, the crime plot of the second-generation punks who harassed the girl in "The Octagonal Pavilion" was murdered, not so unexpected.

The Influence of Film Director's Personal Aesthetics on Net Drama

  From a personal perspective, the point that I admire "Octagonal Pavilion" is the sense of space and southern texture of the play.

The whole play is mainly set in Shaoxing, and the background of the southern bridge and flowing water rarely appears in stories with suspense themes.

  Therefore, in terms of image quality, "Octagonal Pavilion" can score high: the always wet atmosphere of Jiangnan Water Town, Kunqu opera elements, awning boats, small bridges, stone roads, old streets, and old houses all visually constitute The southern background of the story and the atmosphere of the mystery form a special southern suspense story.

At the same time, the space element is also involved in the development of the plot-the connection between the special structure of the waterways and the air-raid shelters and the connection of the river.

  The second is the outstanding performance.

The two directors, Wang Xiaoshuai and Hua Qing, did not let go of even the temperament of a supporting role, the fit of the performance and the state of the role.

Not only do the main actors choose the talented acting actors, but even some supporting actors who only have one scene.

Especially in the last two episodes, the acting skills and requirements of the actors in the play are very high.

Wu Yue and Xing Minshan grasped these two extremely difficult roles.

Especially Wu Yue, played Zhou Yamei, a character who was extremely painful and entangled under the pressure of family and troupe.

  It can be said that "Octagonal Pavilion" is well-made, with outstanding visual and performance advantages.

As a long-term art director like Wang Xiaoshuai, it is indeed impossible to make web dramas in accordance with the traditional production method of genre dramas.

Emotional suspense dramas will undoubtedly give audiences who are accustomed to watching suspense dramas a new perspective.

If "Octagonal Pavilion" pays attention to the logical evolution of reasoning and finds a creative reasoning model that fits the emotional tone of the story while making the emotional line, it should have better audience acceptance.

From the perspective of the film and television creation ecology in the past two years, more film directors will join the creation of web dramas in the future, so that the current web drama creation has more diversified creative directions and forms, which is undoubtedly worth looking forward to.

  (The author Cui Chen is an associate professor at the School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University)