"This article was reproduced from the non-profit online media "Reporter" (www.twreporter.org)"
Sitting in the alley of Minsheng East Road Studio, Zhong Menghong talked about Taiwanese movies. There is a kind of wax torch that turns into gray and tears begin to dry. Resolute and affectionate.
"The biggest impact of new Taiwanese movies on me is that it made me unemployed. I came back from the United States in 1994, and Taiwanese movies were flat. I couldn't work in the Taiwanese film industry." The influence of film aesthetics.
ā"China's problem is the happiest place in Taiwan"
For Zhong Menghong, film is not only the director's personal humanistic feelings, but also the accumulation and display of a country's cultural power.
"Film is definitely not a single director, it depends on the whole energy. China has China's problems, and their problem is our happiest place. Movies have to have a kinetic energy. That kinetic energy does not mean that you can make one or two in a year Itās a pretty good movie. The movie wants you to enter the cinema and clap your hands unconsciously and applaud it, ah, itās so beautiful! Look at Korea, 20 years later, there is something called a Korean movie. Is it possible in Taiwan 40 years later, the audience When you see it, you know that this is a Taiwanese movie. Even though we are no longer there at that time," Zhong Menghong was rarely excited when he talked about Taiwanese movies.
The day after the "Reporter" interview, he has made an appointment with Huang Xinyao, the film director of "Big Buddha Plus", to talk about the next film. "I don't know if I have a chance, but I just want to try it," he said. The potential of a movie comes from human emotions, and universal emotions are enough to cross the world and cross races.
is like his fifth film "Sunshine", the focus is on the family parent-child, and the depth of field is still a question of life.
If life has gone through some changes and youth has suffered some blows, watching Zhong Menghong's movies will inevitably leave a deep or shallow mark in the heart of such people.
In the early spring of 2018, Zhong Menghong, who was born in Changlong, Pingtung, took a detour to Meinong, Kaohsiung when he returned home to visit his family. When he returned to his hometown, he often asked his friend Lin Shengxiang to eat a bowl of Vietnamese pho, and his mother for dinner. Sometimes, he would drink and chat with Lin Shengxiang until two or three in the middle of the night. This time, Zhong Menghong was enthusiastic about his new film project and performed a scene in front of Lin Shengxiang: On a stormy night, two young men in raincoats, riding on a stalled motorcycle, hiding in newspapers Going for revenge with two sharp knives, I found the enemy in the hot pot restaurant. Without a word, he chopped it down with a knife and blood was splashed on the spot. This scene of
is the origin of Zhong Menghong's fifth film "Sunshine".
ā"We are too normal to understand too little"
's bloody story is staged every day. But through Zhong Menghong's sharp lens, the audience can penetrate the reality before them, faintly feeling that the seemingly dark and cruel life, there is still life at the bottom; no matter how embarrassed life is, there is a glimmer of gold.
"I heard my friend cut off his hand when he was young. I was shocked. I spent a lot of time thinking about what is going on with him? Slowly explore, and I think, shit, we really Itās normal! We often use our understanding to understand everything in the world. In fact, what we can understand is probably the square and the circle in front of us. Beyond this, we are unfamiliar and unknown. ," Zhong Menghong said.
"The world is so vast and so wide. I sometimes see my daughter on the table, and suddenly, the pen stops. When she looks at a place, I think: What is she thinking?" He asked himself, is it true To understand the next generation? Could it be that the closest daughter will eventually grow into a stranger she doesn't know?
One day, before Zhong Menghong's 18-year-old daughter went to study in the United States, she wanted to watch her father's documentary "Doctor".
Zhong Menghong, who has never watched his own movies, made an exception and sat next to his daughter and watched this documentary that astounded the Taiwanese film industry 13 years ago. The daughter is also like the audience back then, asking inexplicably: Why did the caring, intelligent and lively 12-year-old doctor's son in the film hang himself in his closet?
"Actually, I still don't understand, I don't know," Zhong Menghong admitted.
āRefuse to do "things that already have answers"
"To make movies, or any form of creation, I think I want to understand and explore something you don't know.oo. That is the most valuable and the most time-consuming. I don't want to do something that already has an answer. What do I do with that kind of thing? Give you an answer? Then I know the answer? Am I lying to you? "He said straightforwardly.
Wen Tianxiang, chairman of the executive committee of the Golden Horse Club, once wrote an article that Zhong Menghong's rebelliousness is a trait worth cherishing in Taiwanese films.
Each of his films reveals new possibilities for Taiwanese films.
Wen Tianxiang commented, 2013's "Lost Soul" was placed in a group of friendly, joyous and inspirational movies at the time. It was a decisive anomaly, forcibly pulling a fuzzy zone between normal and crazy. In 2016's "Good Trip", the narrative break loosened the comfort of genre movies and brought the director's personal logo to life.
"He is one of the few Taiwanese directors who can produce genre films with artistic forms, and he is very gentle and delicate to produce works like "Sunshine"," said film producer Ye Rufen.
Ye Rufen also served as the producer of this film. She said that the last two lines in the script have been burned in her mind, lingering:
Ah He is riding a bicycle with her mother, and the sun shines into the fallen leaves one by one, brilliant and dazzling.
āThe process of a home slowly falling apart
This movie focuses on a home, focusing on the drifting under one roof.
Husband and wife are estranged and share the same bed with different quilts. Father and son are unfamiliar. Father always goes to cram school specially and sends notebooks to the eldest son who is preparing for the medical department. After years of thick stacks of notebooks, it was only later discovered that the eldest son had not written a page. It turns out that for the elder son, who always obeys his father's expectations, the father's remarks about "grasp time and direction" are unspeakable absurdity.
Chen Yiwen, who played the role of Dad, described fatherly love as sunshine and shadow, two sides of one.
"To some extent, the Awen in the movie thinks that this family is maintained by him. But ironically, he also makes everyone in the family uncomfortable. This duality is like sunlight and shadow. It is difficult to have only one direction. This father thinks that he is the most painstakingly supporting this family, but all his personality, thoughts and behaviors have also caused this family to slowly collapse. This exists in many families," Chen Yiwen Reading the script several times, I found out the contradictions and turning points of the role of father.
all say that the love of parents for their children is like sunshine, which illuminates the world without asking for anything in return. But "The Sunshine" turned around and asked: What if your love is a kind of harm to me? Should I still?
āLove is too far from understanding and too close to expectations
"The so-called filial fathers and sons, those are bastards, they are all deceiving," Zhong Menghong said.
"We often say that parentsā love for their children is unconditional. In fact, children donāt care about whether you have conditions. Children will think that I donāt care about your love. What I want is understanding. Love is too far away from understanding. Far away. We often hear the mothers of the previous generation say: I have worked so hard for you, why can't you understand? Why can't you be considerate? I don't know. What do I think I want to be considerate of? I want you to do this Is it?" He asked endlessly: Does love without understanding make children happy? The Chen family in
is the epitome of many traditional families. Looking up to the previous generation from the next generation is full of heavy helplessness. Looking down on the next generation from the previous generation, the toxin of excessive expectations is radiated.
Chen Yiwen realized that in the play, his father always thought of himself as the pillar of the family and kept expecting him. However, due to changes, he finally started to listen to his family and returned home passively. The beauty of this role is that, in the end, in order to protect the family, Dad did a logical and unexpected thing. In the
movie, there is a scene in which Chen Yiwen and Liu Guanting, who plays Cai Tou, have an opponent on the rooftop. Dad took the money to find the underworld Cai Tou who was constantly harassing his young son. He didn't say the subtext, hoping that Cai Tou would not come to the Chen family again. Caitou with orange hair exuded introverted evil and resentment. He hid a knife in his smile and refused his father.
is the rival drama on this rooftop, which buried the end of the movie.
"Don't look at his uncle Chen and Uncle Chen shouting very cordially, but every word embarrassed me. This is a very important turning point for my father. He took the initiative to find Cai Tou to solve it, but he found that he had no chips, and the other party wanted He couldnāt imagine and he didnāt know how to give it. He knew that this family had been rotten from the root. At this moment,He has no other way, he can only use the way he knows to protect this family," Chen Yiwen explained.
At the end of the movie, the mother played by Ke Shuqin and Chen Yiwen climbed the mountain together, traversing the sun and shadow, and the unspoken injuries of the four members of this family were only seen by the audience.
āEvery shot that follows the character tells of loneliness
In the past, under the lens of Zhong Menghong, the ordinary scenery of Taiwan has become a bizarre scene, a metaphor for the character's life in the drama. This time, "Sunshine" more perfectly combines the performance of the lens language and the performance of the actors, and this film has also been shortlisted for this yearās Golden Horse 5 actor awards: 2 best actor, best actress, and best actor Supporting role, best supporting actress.
In "Sunshine", every scene that follows the character has a loneliness.
For example, my father is walking alone in the alley at night, thinking of his eldest son Ahao. Or, the youngest son, Ah He, ran through the forest trails on a stormy night. Even the female classmates played by A Hao and Wen Zhenling hold hands and walk in the sun-drenched zoo with sweet sadness. The inner scenery of
characters and the outer geographical scenery can be combined with the tenon and tenon. It is because Zhong Menghong's screenwriter, photographer (Nagao Nakajima), and director are all in one, which makes him a director who can enter the role and be close to the actors in Taiwan.
"You will be very happy and relieved to perform in front of his camera. He is the director sitting next to the camera, and sometimes he speaks softly, with his head lowered, which is the same as sitting in the director chair in front of the monitor. The directors are very different," Chen Yiwen said.
Zhong Menghong, who claims to hate reading books, said that to make a movie is to go to the scene, donāt spend too much time thinking about things, āAs long as the light color is right, the atmosphere will pop out as soon as the actors step in. I donāt want to grind actors, I think An actor is right or wrong, not whether he can act, but whether the director has caught what you want.ā He likes to quote the French director FranƧois Roland Truffaut: There are no good movies or bad movies. There are only good directors and bad directors.
āCameras and music must be absolutely on-site.
Zhong Menghong is on the set and is notoriously hot and paranoid.
Wu Jianhe, who plays Ahe, and Liu Guanting, who plays Caitou, will never forget August 1st last year. On the night of typhoon
, Zhong Menghong shouted: Go out! He asked Wu Jianhe and Liu Guanting to prepare the first scene of this movie. They rode their motorcycles against the wind and rain for 6 or 7 hours. When they turned into the restaurant, there was a sudden strong wind. This strong wind made Zhong Menghong very satisfied. But appearing in the movie is a short 2-second shot.
"On a typhoon day, classes and classes are suspended, and the camera hasn't started yet, you will be out of work...I just read the film producer Azhong, which is dangerous..." Ye Rufen recalled.
Even music, Zhong Menghong also asked for "live".
Lin Shengxiang, who created the soundtrack for the film this time, smiled and said that he did not expect that his dream of an actor with a big screen would be broken. One evening after the filming of
started, Lin Shengxiang received a call from Zhong Menghong, telling him that the reference music used in the farewell ceremony should not be used in the previous discussion. The filming of this scene was to be made after 3 days. Lin Shengxiang was asked to write the farewell soundtrack. Come out, find a few people to be the farewell musicians, directly play live, and film them in the movie.
"I feel crazy. If my music is not written well, this scene will not be over? I handed in a version that night. This music was written before the movie started, and the demo was recorded. Go over to him. I handed in another version the next day. On the third day, I immediately went north to find bass player Toru Hayakawa and harmonica player Toshimitsu Fujii, rented a training room in Taipei, and compiled 4 versions for him to choose. We gathered at Ding Tai Fung in Taipei at 6 o'clock the next morning and went to the funeral home to film. We recorded the music directly on the spot.ā
But when the movie was edited, the funeral home was completely cut out, and only the music was left. "I originally wanted to be an extra," Lin Shengxiang said jokingly.
āWarmth is like morphine, a little bit is enough
This is also the first time that Lin Shengxiang has created music that is not so Lin Shengxiang.
In order to create the soundtrack for this movie, Lin Shengxiang not only learned the more classical way of composing, he cut the stainless steel tube himself to practice slippery guitar, he also wrote the theme song for each character in the family of four. "Zoo" for brother AhaoLin Shengxiang wrote 4 versions with a French horn to blow out the warm throbbing of the beginning of love. The theme song for his younger brother Ahe, the melody is derived from the first song "County Road 184" of "Chrysanthemum Night March", re-arranged chords and rhythm. Lin Shengxiang went directly to the filming scene for the theme song "Grasp the Time, Master the Direction" for Dad Awen. Seeing Chen Yiwen's awake eyes in the middle of the night on the sofa of the driving training class, he throbbed, and quickly wrote about using Yueqin and Guitar , Three versions of organ music.
"Let the music follow the characters and appear over and over again with the story. As long as you hear the music, you can summon your feelings about this movie. That's what I want to achieve," Lin Shengxiang said. In the music of
, the warmth in the sadness, the depressive and graceful sadness, is in line with Zhong Menghong's never boring, and never sensational movie sense.
"When a movie is sentimental, it's like eating morphine. You like it. But after eating morphine for a long time, you don't know what the world will look like!" Zhong Menghong once said.
is like the scene that many people remember in "Good Trip". Xu Guanwen and Natto ate Xiaolongbao face to face. At the critical moment, neither of the two little people turned their backs on each other, bringing a glimmer of light to this world full of betrayal and violence. In the end, Xu Guanwen lowered his head and was about to cry out. Zhong Menghong still cut it off.
"A little warmth is enough," he said.
āThe temperance of emotion comes from wanting to get rid of the self-control of the past
, from the complex feelings of growth, and also from wanting to get rid of the former self.
Zhong Menghong grew up in the village of Changlong. He has a lot of memories of old things, which is very charming. "But people have to learn to say goodbye to what they like, and to say goodbye to books, records or favorite movies they once owned. Never go to see you again. Although it is painful to say goodbye to past images, the chair will get hot after sitting for a long time. As long as you sit in a chair where someone else has sat, the residual temperature on that chair is really disgusting Yes, so we must learn to say goodbye to this familiarity and try to change to a new one," he once said.
He didn't like his first feature film "Parking" very much. He felt that he put too much emotion and the burden of the director for decades.
"When the director can never get rid of yourself, whether it is your past things or experience, it is very tired for you, and also very tired for the audience. Who wants to see your things? Of course I feel that I have a passion, A kind of ambition, a kind of humanistic care or thought. But the energy of a movie is definitely not just that a director makes a short film that can satisfy his own creative desires," he said.
So, what exactly is a movie?
For Zhong Menghong, movies are stories and people, and people are bigger than stories. The movie should be very solid, easy and simple, so everyone can watch it. But those who see deeply can see very deeply.
He said that the distinction between commercial film and art film is just a joke.
"We donāt want to make money-making, hilarious, funny, and IP-based movies. No, we just want to make solid movies. After the script, actors, photography, art, and music are all done to a certain level, itās art. One Movies are like this. When all the technical energy is in place, the art form will come out. Can such a thing summon the audience? No way once, try again. No way three times, no way five times, then Iām sorry, just donāt stop me I left. Thatās it. But at least I have to try,ā Zhong Menghong said simply.
āEven if there are still scars on the wound, you can go to the sun.
"Sunshine" can take a solid picture of life's creeping life. The dialogue between love and death, like the sky and clouds on the grassland of Yangming Mountain, is intermittent.
is a rare film in Taiwan that is serious and sad. "Sunshine" fully explains the process of approaching each other in embarrassment for a family who don't know how to survive. This movie makes people feel that as long as there is light from the back to the front, the film curtain can be turned into silk, rubbing us shining brightly, rubbing us as if we never wept in the dark of the theater, rubbing us even though the wounds still remain Mark, but like a brand-new person, walks out of the theater to the sun tomorrow.
Text: Wang Xiaowen Photography: Su Weiming
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