Compared with the many Korean film directors who win with crime types and social themes, Lee Cangdong is a relatively special existence. His films do not show off or show off their skills. He is good at describing the psychological state of the characters. He likes to use imagery and metaphors. He is good at telling the life story of the characters. He is unique in Korean and global movies with his special lens language and artistic aesthetics. altar. This shows the uniqueness of his film style and why his works can become master models. Domestic audiences are more familiar with his "Burning" that sensationalized Cannes last year. This time I will introduce another classic "Miyang".
The story of "Miyang" describes a widow taking her son to settle in "Miyang", the hometown of her deceased husband. Faced with the unfamiliar environment when he first arrived, Li Xin Ae (played by Jeon Do Yeon) tried his best to mingle with local women to open a piano classroom for a living, and give his son Jun unlimited love and care. Unexpectedly, one day's inadvertent negligence caused Jun to be kidnapped and torn apart, and the murderer was the amiable Anqin class teacher.
After that, the desperate faith and love came into contact with Christianity by chance, shared their life experiences with the local church members, and maintained close contact. On a certain birthday, she decided to visit the prison, wanting to influence and forgive her enemies with the love of Christ. However, after the meeting with the suspect, he suffered a great mental shock and fell into an extremely unstable state, and he fought himself with a knife in a trance. At the end of the film, Jin Zongcan (Song Kanghao), a bachelor who has long been infatuated with unrequited love, accompanied her out of the mental hospital and cut off the long hair she had left during this period.
character shaping and its action details
first noticed the character shaping. In just a few minutes, the opening set the tone for an important role in the film: the innocent and innocent boy Jun, who only knows that his father is "absent", apart from a slight feeling of loneliness, there is not much sadness in him. There is only a childish and mischievous heart; Li Xinai, who lost her husband, took his son Jun to the hometown of his deceased husband to start a new life, and several scenes of interacting with his son are full of affection, except for the skill of director Li Cangdong In addition, Jeon Do-yeon, who won the Cannes movie in this film, showed her superb acting skills and successfully interpreted the mother; and Kim Jong-chan, who guided the mother and son to the new house, fell in love with Shinai at first sight. I wrote down my preferences, and then took a serial port of chewing gum to win Jun's favor, and helped Shinai take care of the piano classroom he just opened. His infatuation is evident. The feeling of missing the mother and son
is even more moving. How can Jun's miss for his father come out? It turned out that his father had the habit of snoring, and Jun often imitated his father's snoring to relieve his missing feelings; after Jun passed away, Xin Ai followed to imitate Jun's snoring, in addition to the miss of his late husband, more of his nostalgia and grief . Coupled with that drop of teardrops, it is really disappointing. Using a tape recorder to repeat Jun's impassioned speech at the Anqing class, and then go to the church to tap the table, it even more shows the heartache of bereavement and the silent accusation against God. In the above passages, Li Cangdong expresses the emotions in the character's heart through the full of action details, which is really unique.
There is only a line between innocence and madness.
"Too innocent people are equivalent to weird lunatics in the eyes of mortals." Such themes are vividly illustrated in many works of Lars Von Trier. , And last year Alice Rohrwacher (Alice Rohrwacher) new work "Happy Lazzaro" also expressed a similar concept. The heroine Li Xinai in "Miyang" is such an overly innocent person. When
first arrived in Miryang, Li Xinai showed extreme affinity. She visits her neighbors diligently, trying to make good relations with neighboring women. Seeing that the neighbor’s store was a little gloomy, she suggested changing to lighter-colored decor. This kind of behavior was completely well-intentioned, but in the eyes of some aunts in the city, it was inspected by colored glasses; originally, he came to the beautiful hometown in the mouth of her husband with hope, and wanted to start a new life in the network of strangers, but the pure idea Being interpreted as a weird motive, she thus became a "good looking woman, but actually very weird woman" in the eyes of her neighbors. What's more embarrassing is that when the two happened to hit the barber shop, the hurtful words that the neighbor's aunt blurted casually, Li Xin'ai couldn't even listen.
Decoration and haircut are naturally beyond words. When I come to "Miyang", I always look forward to the warm sunshine to illuminate my heart. Therefore, I suggest that neighbors change to bright decorations.It's completely out of my heart's desires, and it is also extremely reasonable; in a new environment, you have to give people a good impression. As the saying goes, cutting off the "three thousand trouble threads", I originally wanted to put aside everything in the past and live again, but I was rewarded heavily. a slap. The film seems to have been foreshadowed in the early part, and Li Xinai's road to rebirth is destined to be bumpy. And her excessive innocence, after suffering a huge blow later, regrettably turned into a real madness: Li Xinai's mental state will completely collapse.
Implied meaning of "Miyang"
"Miyang" as the title of the film is also a city name that actually exists in Korea, and it has very important meaning in this film. On the way Zongcan was carrying his mother and daughter to the new house, he was once asked by Xinai, "What kind of place is Miyang?" Zongcan replied, "The economy is not good...the population is declining... "Xin'ai then asked, "Do you know why it is called "Miyang"?" She replied: "The secret sunshine is very good!" In the eyes of the locals, it is a declining city, but the innocent Xin'ai thinks It is a sunny place, which shows that Faith is still full of hope for life at this time, and she does not feel that she is an unfortunate person. The two chats between Faith and the pharmacist who is a devout Christian in the pharmacy debated the existence of God.
learns that the pharmacist who believes in the bereaved husband intends to preach the gospel to her, thinking that unfortunate people like Faith in love just need to know God, and even said that "not knowing God is equivalent to not seeing the other half of the world." However, Xin Ai does not think that he is unfortunate, and the situation is similar to playing the piano. At this moment, Xin Ai found that Jun was missing, and when he returned home, he saw Jun and hid in the corner of the courtyard. The mother and son started playing hide and seek. However, Jun who disappeared again did not have such a sweet and complete ending. When Xin Ai went to the pharmacy again, the pharmacist responded to Jun's tragedy like this: "Everything in the world has the will of God, and even a trace of sunlight has the will of God." "Miyang" is obviously related to "God's will."
According to the Bible, when God created the world, he said: "Let there be light", so there is light in the world. Therefore, in the literary metaphor system, sunlight is equivalent to God. But for faith and love who "doesn't even believe everything in front of you", such a dialogue seems nonsense. Facing a ray of light on the medicine tank cabinet, Xin Ai probed it with her hand and said, "There is nothing here!"
Li Cangdong seemed to deliberately put Jun's fate in line with what the pharmacist said through the arrangement before and after the plot: It is God's arrangement. Of course, we know that things are not so simple, but the master's skillful hands perform magic without a trace, which is amazing!
Later, the faith and love of the bereaved husband and son also knew God by accidental coincidence, and thus also came to know another world "full of joy and gratitude" that the pharmacist said. However, who defines luck or misfortune? And can mortals speculate about God's will?
imagined the "other world"
after losing Jun, Shin-ai accidentally saw what the pharmacist said, a prayer meeting for the wounded souls. Shin-ai was comforted by the prayers of the pastor. Redemption started the Christian life, and established a close relationship with the pharmacist couple and other church members, and organized regular group meetings. On Xinai’s birthday, she made a major decision: go to prison to visit the teacher Anqinban who killed Jun, hoping to use God’s love to influence him and forgive him. The process of the
meeting went very smoothly. Even Zongcan, who accompanied the visit to the prison, did not notice the sudden change in Xinai's mental state. It turned out that the teacher also believed in the Lord after being imprisoned, was influenced by God, and claimed that God had forgiven his sin, and his soul felt extremely peaceful. Afterwards, Xin Ai fainted on the spot before getting in the car. She suffered a great mental shock. The brothers and sisters of the group were worried about her and even went to visit their homes specially. As a result, Xinai said something amazing: God has forgiven him, how can I forgive him again... He hasn't forgiven yet, how can God forgive him? How can a complex psychological change like
be as simple as the pastor’s saying, “It’s really hard to practice God’s word (forgive the enemy)”? Believing in love once explained to neighbors that believing in the Lord is like falling in love with God. It is a feeling. At this moment, Xin Ai feels that the previous love with God, everything is false! So I went to the record shop and stole the CD and played it at the prayer meeting. The lyrics read: "It's all fake, it's all fake... Love is fake, smiles are also fake, they're all fake..."Such an exaggerated behavior is different from the previous pious believer in Christ and full of joy.
Li Cangdong did not deny the existence of God here. He even affirmed the power of religion to influence people’s hearts, but he raised a very powerful question: When a simple person finds that the scene before him gradually collapses, he will How devastating disaster is coming? Who will execute forgiveness? How can I forgive? It turns out that a happy world is actually constructed in the world imagined by others and oneself! God does not speak, but people speak to themselves: The God in my heart has not spoken yet, how can you speak for him? The pious pharmacist comforts Faith: Since God has forgiven him, you should forgive him! How can the inexhaustible thread of sin and forgiveness be so simple to end? Facing the false mind and society, the spirit of faith and love collapsed completely.
The inextricable threads of sin and forgiveness
When members of the Bible reading group went to visit Xinai, Xinai saw an earthworm in the kitchen and was shocked. The earthworm is an abrupt existence here, but if you think of it as a "snake" deformation, everything will be solved. "Snake" in Christian faith is the chief culprit who lured Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and therefore is also a symbol of evil and sin. Xin Ai, who was on the verge of collapse, began to behave out of order, dreaming (or fantasizing) the gangster calling again during the sleep, so he picked up the microphone and muttered to himself. Not only did she steal, she even seduced the church elders in the pharmacy, and later found Zongcan, who was uninterested (sexual) from beginning to end.
The audience may feel that Xinai's behavior is demeaning himself, but Li Cangdong wants to convey: This is the distress signal sent by Xinai. During these behaviors, Xinai kept nauseating, which reflected a special state in psychology. Obviously she had more things to say, and she was full of thoughts to vent! But we didn't understand this until the end! She was peeling the apple with a knife, cut her wrist in a daze, walking on the road and kept shouting: Help me! help me! Xin Ai hopes that what everyone will save is not her who is losing blood on her wrist, but her who is bleeding from her heart. And the apple plays a role here. Faith in love is the Eve who ate the forbidden fruit. Her biggest sin is that she knows what she shouldn’t know: everything is false! She is no longer the innocent Li Xin'ai from the beginning, she knows how to distinguish between good and evil, and she intends to expose the fake!
During this period, the camera repeatedly shone Xinai's face from an elevation angle, and Xinai shouted: "Can you see it?" Can you see this wicked world? This snake emerged from a world where beliefs and hobbies are not easy to build, and now it keeps running away in this world. However, from the perspective of Xin Ai, just like the scene of constantly beating the tabletop in the church, Xin Ai is making a silent protest: Can you see the tragedy of Jun's tragic killing? Can you see all the sins in this world?
She must expose the virtual image of this world! In a meeting to pray for faith and love at the elders' home, the French windows were suddenly hit and cracked. Since the previous scene was the scene of Xin-ai with a nervous breakdown wandering outside and looking inside the house, we can reasonably suspect that Xin-ai deliberately threw objects and broke the glass. The glass floor-to-ceiling windows here obviously metaphors the imaginary image of the world, especially the imaginary image of the faithful who presumptuously speak for God. When responding to how the world faced the tragedy of World War II, the
philosopher De Xida once asked a question like this: If a person deserves our forgiveness, do we still need to forgive him? This sounded a little mysterious, but he pointed out the most subtle depths of human nature, and also the most treacherous situation. Forgiveness, or forgiveness, is the kind of grace we give when this person is of good nature; the question is, if a person is of good nature, why would he commit such a heinous crime? Forgiveness, how easy is it? This issue is deeply entangled with complex human nature. In any case, it is by no means the simple aspect of "practicing God's word" as the pastor said.
But for faith and love, perhaps the most important and crucial point is not whether to forgive or not, but who forgives, that is, does one have the dominant power to forgive?
Between heaven and earth, have you seen it? If
said the first foreshadowing buried in this film, it is in the first scene of the opening: the camera looks at the sky from the car from the perspective of Jun. Such a simple lens has a strong generalization ability. The same scene occurred when the police carried Xin'ai to the scene of the abandonment of the corpse, and Xin'ai also looked to the sky from the car. The clear blue sky is floating with white clouds, how clean and bright. But the mood of the mother and son are the same: speechless to ask the sky. This strong contrast is like stabbing the audience, Our heart is bleeding like a heart that believes in love. With such a ruthlessly beautiful lens, Li Cangdong makes us feel sympathy and empathy for the mother and son.
Xin Ai is accompanied by Zongcan. After being discharged from the mental hospital, the first thing is to go to the Lirong Hospital to cut her hair. Perhaps it's a coincidence that only appears in the movie. I met the daughter of the Anqin class teacher who came out of the Juvenile Reformation Institute and learned the skill of haircutting. Xin Ai angrily walked out of Li Rong Yuan and returned to her backyard. With Zong Can's assistance in holding a mirror, she started to cut her hair alone. The last scene of
is completely opposite to the first scene. What the lens captures is the wind-blown hair on the ground in the backyard, as well as the weeds and spent plastic buckets. Has God seen the mess and evil in this world? Li Cangdong used two head and tail shots to sum up everything in the sky and the earth, and everything in this world.
finally believed in love to have a haircut alone, which was obviously out of line. This time, she insisted that her image should be determined by herself, just as she had to decide whether to forgive others. Who owns the decision to forgive? The answer given by Li Cangdong is ready to come out. At the end of the film, the soundtrack from when she first arrived in Miryang, everything seemed to be business as usual... but it was obviously different.
extremely delicate lens language
There are several impressive shots in this film, which also show the extraordinary hand of the master. After learning that Jun had been killed, Xin'ai's teaching career continued, but the class location has been changed to the student's home. Don’t forget, Xin’ai’s piano classroom is named after Jun. Here is a very delicate and tactful expression of Xin Ai’s unwillingness to touch the scene. The tears left during the teaching can also show how deep she missed Jun; while Xin Ai walked out of prison and fainted. After that, the camera immediately changed to a hospital scene with heavy rain at night. Not only did it successfully bring out the dramatic psychological changes in Faith, it also indicated that Faith in Love may be difficult to see the secret sunlight in the future—that is, "God’s will." Because she was shocked: The world she imagined had been disillusioned.
And the scene in the mental hospital at the end is also the same. The lines here do not mention Shinai’s mental state, only the message of congratulations on her discharge, but through the behavior of the patients in the hospital and the reminders of the nurses to the patients, It can be seen that this is not an ordinary medical institution, it should be a specialized mental medical institution, and this also implies that it may have been some time since the last scene of self-harm. All these are the magical effects achieved by the master's delicate lens language, and many key things are self-evident. This is not an actor speaking, but a realm of speaking with the camera, very clever.
is a wonderful soundtrack that blends with the film.
There are not many soundtracks in this film. Except for karaoke, church carols, and music played on stolen CDs, it seems that there are only the opening and closing songs, and they are still the same. . The subtlety of this piece is that the tone of the melody is full of the charm of traditional Korean folk songs, but it is presented in the form of electronic mixing, giving people an unpredictable and elusive feeling. It is a musical key that cannot be easily located. Sex. But this tonality coincides with the intention of the film title "Miyang". It can be said that it is integrated, and it is naturally natural, which is truly wonderful.
mentioned that the same music is used at the beginning and the end. Of course, this has been used for a long time in many movies, but there is another meaning in "Miyang". When the opening of the film was played, Nai Jongchan took the mother and son to Miryang for the first time, and the end of the film appeared when Xin Ai was discharged from the hospital to cut his hair. There are two subtleties about this arrangement: these two times are both a fresh start for Xinai, namely, the first arrival in Miyang and the return to Miyang after the catastrophe. Although the same song symbolizes "secret The tune of "Sunshine", but Xinai's understanding of it has been different. It is no longer a simple and yearning sunshine, but the mysterious and unspeakable truth. The opening song of
matches the scenery outside the car, bringing out the slightly uneasy and dazed mental state of facing the unknown ahead; what the ending song wants to ask is: Did God really see it in the end? Li Cangdong did not give a clear answer. I believe he also wanted to give the audience the right of interpretation, just as he finally gave the right to forgive others to Faith and Love.
Conclusion
From "Miyang", we can guess that Li Cangdong's world view is closer to Taoist saying: "The world is not benevolent, and everything is a dog." (from Laozi's "Tao De Jing") and his religious view is similar to " Agnostic" attitude: it is impossible to know whether God exists,So leave it alone. But what is certain is that he has a lot of opinions about the chaos of "unjustified words" and "unused believers" in the world! If there really is God’s will, it is also secretive. Is it true that ordinary people can speak freely? However, compared to God's will, the real complexity is probably the human heart.
Don't misinterpret the purpose of this film as anti-religious. The problem is always with the person itself, not with the god. As Li Cangdong himself said in an interview, he is more concerned about believers and the relationship between religion and people than by saying that he cares more about religion (The 2nd Pingyao International Film Festival, October 15, 2018). The influence of religion on people, the complexity of human nature, and the question of forgiveness are the issues that Li Cangdong tried to raise in this film.
The original titles of Li Cangdong's films are extremely short: "Oasis", "Miyang", "Poetry", "Burning"... the image of each title is extremely strong, and it is fully in line with the meaning of the whole film. It is impossible to achieve such a high level without a strong artistic generality. His movies always have a mysterious atmosphere, which seems to be separated from the audience before, but after savoring them, he can always smell the extraordinary aesthetic charm of the master. In "Poetry" we see an old grandmother's understanding of life conditions; "Burning" fully shows the young people's desire and yearning for true freedom; and in "Miyang", Li Cangdong's ultimate concern for human nature is fully expressed. Each work is touching and contains introspective dialectics of reason and emotion.
is extremely fortunate to appreciate the classic works of this contemporary master. Watch it again! I hope you will also like the work "Miyang".
