Zhang Zifeng , Zhang Youhao 's new film "Goodbye, Youth" is a very different youth film, subverting the inherent impression of youth films.
Traditional youth films generally involve ignorant love, a lush campus and a young memory... Most of the plots are based on the love of the male and female protagonists, and they all look the same.
If only the plot is introduced, this "Goodbye, Youth" seems nothing special:
At the turn of the century, a small southern mining town in China, the parents of the generation are facing a wave of layoffs. Two very different teenagers are on the trajectory of life. Say goodbye to my boyhood. In
youth memories, there seems to be a girl who is both good in character and learning and a boy who has been inferior but suddenly started to strive for improvement. The two people who seem to be unable to reconcile magically attract each other and become friends.
Li Fei played by Zhang Zifeng is a typical "good student" in youth memories, and Zhang Chenhao, played by Zhang Youhao, is a representative of a "bad student".
"Goodbye, Youth" has created a pair of typical characters in such a typical environment and a typical era background.
However, the film is very unique from content to temperament, completely avoiding the "routines" of youth films and interpreting a youth story with a new thinking.
movies have two special features:
01 different ways of telling stories
Whether it is poetry, drama, literature or film, literary works can be divided into two categories: narrative-based and lyrical-based.
Most of the commercial films we see are dominated by narrative logic. The protagonist has a goal and the plot unfolds under the leadership of this goal. The goal of a youth film is generally the college entrance examination or a decisive competition (performance, etc.), and the story of the hero and heroine advances along the college entrance examination countdown or graduation time limit.
And "Goodbye, Youth" greatly reduced this sense of purpose. The film did not set a certain preset final event as an alarm clock to remind the audience. Everything should be at that place, at that age, and at that age. This happened.
It wants to express the emotions of the characters in the incident. It is a lyrical movie. The emotions in the film
are of course attributive. The main creator chose a typical mining town in southern China, and a very special era. Small cities like
are prosperous because of a certain industry, but also because of a certain industry's decline; in this era, some people have fallen, and some people have seized new outlets.
However, the rise and fall of a town and the era is very macro. Li Fei and Zhang Chenhao have become representatives of the two young people in this background. The emotion in their interaction was also the resonance of countless youths who were engulfed by fate at that time.
Li Fei and Zhang Chenhao are both children, facing the quiet changes in the social environment, they can only find a way out in acceptance.
In this process, the two had met each other, but gradually moved away, and finally reached the same goal due to an accidental criminal case.
This parallel, distant and encounter process is full of complex emotions, including the friendship, misunderstanding, and determination of the two, as well as the relief that belongs to Li Fei and the struggle of Zhang Chenhao. When watching
in a movie theater, the audience will have a feeling of being surrounded by emotions gradually overflowing from the screen. The reason why
has such a sense of immersion is that the main creator has an imperceptible "small action" in the filming technique of this film.
If you haven't watched this movie yet, or if you have a chance to do it twice, you can notice that the whole film actually uses a very closed lens. The
closed lens makes the composition of the whole movie very "tight". Most of the lenses do not leave enough space for the characters up, down, left, and right. Many of the heads of the characters exceed the frame of the scene a little bit and are cut off.
chose this very "tight" composition for the whole film. On the one hand, it is related to the theme. The closed town in the south and the pressure of destiny naturally use the lens to put pressure on the characters; on the other hand, the space of the characters in the lens is cramped and cramped. , The things in the screen are full, causing emotional spillover and impacting the audience outside the screen. The filming technique of
almost runs through the whole film, so the audience always feels the emotions rushing forward, and the camera is not released until the truth and relief are revealed at the end of the film.
uses a closed camera to continuously express the emotions of the characters during interaction, Is the unique storytelling method of "Goodbye, Boy".
02 The relationship between the protagonists is different. The second difference in the film is that the relationship between the hero and the heroine is not the love relationship in the vulgar youth film, but the interactive relationship in which Li Fei rescues Zhang Chenhao, and Zhang Chenhao struggles upward with the help of Li Fei. It is inevitable that
did not develop into a romantic relationship, because the theme of the film is not love, but to explore the way out of the two small town boys. The narration at the beginning of the
movie said that before the mining area was only connected by a railway. The film also started when Li Fei and Zhang Chenhao from the mining area came out to school. They looked for a way out from a closed place.
Li Fei is a small town teenager A, a typical good girl and a tester. If nothing else, her way out is to study hard and get admitted to college and get out of this small town.
Zhang Chenhao is a small town boy with a B model. His mother was paralyzed in a car accident, and his father fell fragile in the tide of being laid off. His way out was gradually blocked, and he slowly became another degenerate boy.
But Zhang Chenhao is not stupid, he has worked hard, and he also met Li Fei, and with her help, he tried to break through his fate.
He described himself as the Sisyphus who pushed the stone to the top of the mountain repeatedly, meaning that he wanted to break out of the shackles of fate, but the power of fate was too strong. Every time he was about to succeed, the stone was thrown back to the foot of the mountain. , Returned in vain. This difference in fate caused by
stems from the difference in the original families of the two. In the
movie, when the family of three Li Fei is represented, it is obviously very warm tones; and as soon as Zhang Chenhao's house is reached, the tones immediately cool down. The happy and positive atmosphere of Li Fei's family made her also full of hope, while the misfortune and depression of Zhang Chenhao's family kept pulling him down into the abyss. The
movie mentions Milan Kundera ’s "The Unbearable Lightness of Life ", Zhang Chenhao is actually "the unbearable weight of life", but fortunately he met someone willing to share with him when he was young Li Fei, a friend who bears the weight of life.
Li Fei's appearance is like a light that illuminates Zhang Chenhao.
The element of train appears repeatedly in the movie. The train represents the way out for young people in small towns such as Li Fei and Zhang Chenhao.
All people rely on trains to enter and exit the mining area, and where the train will go after exiting here is different for everyone.
The relationship between Li Fei and Zhang Chenhao is like these trains. Sometimes they meet and sometimes go in parallel. In the end, Li Fei is still willing to pay the price for saving Zhang Chenhao.
If you can see the two differences in the film, you can understand the unique expression of "Goodbye, Boy" and what kind of emotion it really wants to express.
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