Original title: "Flowers" is nostalgic, and the years are exaggerated
At the beginning of 2024, the grand drama "Flowers" officially launched, and it was so lively. This drama is directed by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai and brings together many well-known actors from Shanghai to interpret Shanghai accent and oriental legends.
Wong Kar-wai's works have always had a self-contained style. From "Chungking Express", "Ashes of Time" and "Happy Together" at the end of the last century to "In the Mood for Love" and "The Grandmaster" in the 21st century, the director has created multiple movie worlds. In this In the world, the emotions are delicate and sincere, and the pictures are psychedelic and slightly sad. When we watch the TV series "Flowers", we can always capture the old atmosphere of Director Wang's films, including fragmented narratives, highly saturated colors, slow camera movements, etc.
The TV series "Flowers" is adapted from Jin Yucheng's novel. The novel "Flowers" has attracted a lot of attention and discussion since its publication in 2012, and won the 9th Mao Dun Literature Award. Jin Yucheng is the editor of "Shanghai Literature" magazine. Before "Flowers", he had not been involved in novel writing for many years. He spent 30 years of his editing career in the former residence of Shanghai literature magazine "Shanghai Literature" on Julu Road, Shanghai, where Shanghai rich man Liu Jisheng once lived. One day, he saw an old lady selling clothes on the street. He recognized her. She was a famous beauty in the Jing'an Temple area in Shanghai in the 1970s. She was as beautiful as Marina in "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily" . Today, her face is filled with vicissitudes of life, aging and desolation. This momentary encounter reminded the author of many past events, and he decided to record these past stories of Shanghai in Shanghainese to capture the city's unique sense of history, and "Flowers" came into being.
Jin Yucheng believes that literature cannot be said to promote social progress, but at least it can preserve social traces. He tried to record past life forms and interpersonal relationships, and his recording method in the novel "Flowers" was dialogue-like and fragmented. The TV series "Flowers" uses audio-visual language to reshape the written language, turning ordinary people's struggle history into a legendary history, integrating the joys and sorrows of the 1960s and 1990s into the high-spirited atmosphere of the 1990s, and transforming Shanghai's broken thoughts into a legendary one. The philological dialogue is transformed into a dazzling image. The specific relationship between the TV series and the novel is endless, but let’s see that both have successfully created the halo of Shanghai. They create auras and enjoy auras. To a certain extent, this aura is Benjamin’s aura, which has unique qualities.
Shanghai, written by Zhang Ailing and written by Wang Anyi. Whether you look at Shanghai with a desolate attitude or look at it from a commanding height, the mystery there, the loss of prosperity, the great changes in the mountains and rivers, and the class gap are always there. Tiny individuals, the dust of history, and the tide of the times, it seems that as long as they are in the city of Shanghai, they can produce unique chemical reactions. The liveliness of the TV series "Flowers" is largely due to the nostalgic Shanghai. In the 1990s, the play performed an urban archaeological presentation of the ecstasy of feasting and feasting in the restaurants on Huanghe Road, the craziness of the crowds at the stock exchange, and the chats between neighbors on the streets. From city landmarks such as Huanghe Road, Nanjing Road, Cathay Cinema, Peace Hotel, Shanghai stock subscription certificates, Shanghai No. 1 Department Store invoices, to Shanghai flavors such as pork ribs rice cake, butterfly cake, Kesling cake, Guangming Milk, etc., the love is deep. Misty, evoking collective emotions and nostalgia in the audience.
This nostalgia is very long. Nostalgia is an emotion. It is difficult to say what event it is, what cause and effect it is, or what kind of argument it should have. The retro settings, objects, outfits and hairstyles in the TV series bring the audience back to Shanghai in the 1990s. Sloppy conversations, boring walks, and lonely looks back can be seen everywhere. The TV series depicts the illusory prosperity of that era in realistic details. Mr. Bao and Li Li, the owner of Zhizhenyuan, have dinner parties at Xinlanju to eat hotpot mutton. They ate in a hot pot restaurant like a coffee shop, with dim lights, mutton out, and tea in. Walking out of Xinlanju, the two walked one behind the other, their golden high heels stepping on the slippery stone road. It felt like a rainy alley in the south of the Yangtze River, and like an adventurous spy war. The two people, each with their own concerns, kept walking for two and a half minutes.In the two and a half minutes of narrative time, there is not much dialogue, overhead shots, distant close-ups, and side faces in the background. Every shot is painstakingly designed to tell us what time is passing.
In this long nostalgia, the performance of the TV series is slightly exaggerated. Mr. Fan, the director of Huxi Knitting Factory, went to Shanghai alone to discuss business on the Yellow River Road. As a Zhejiang businessman, he is an intruder. According to the words of the proprietress of Jin Meilin Restaurant, he is a foreigner. A foreigner ate in the hotel lobby and loudly showed off his relationship with Mr. Bao, which made the hotel owner and waiters look down upon him. The word "outsider" had a contemptuous flavor in Shanghai in the 1990s. It was another expression of country people. When Mr. Fan walked into Huanghe Road, he was very humble: he was acting cowardly in order to sell goods; he was flattered and thanked profusely for being able to stay in a private room in Zhenyuan. But Mr. Fan like this does not seem to represent the Zhejiang businessmen who went to Shanghai back then. Mr. Fan's sense of comedy dispelled the dignity, shrewdness and diligence of Zhejiang merchants. In addition, the plot related to Mr. Bao in the play also seems a bit exaggerated. Bao is always a businessman, and the main line of his story revolves around the competition in the capital market, involving foreign trade, stocks, hotels, factories and other fields. Once, Mr. Bao had to go to Zhuji for business. Miss Wang said: Zhuji? Too dangerous. I know that the people in Zhuji are very courageous, and I'm afraid they will act recklessly. Speaking of which, Zhuji seems like a very barbaric place. Mr. Bao carried two suitcases and left, as if he was rushing to the battlefield and dying heroically. Hey, when you go to a Zhuji factory to discuss business, is it necessary to make it look like a war? At that time, which township enterprise boss in Wenzhou, Zhuji, Hangzhou and other places was not high-spirited? Who wouldn’t wear a mink coat, hold a mobile phone, and drive a Santana to discuss business? This is not a heroic deed, but a business ethos. The exaggerated artistic expression in the play seems a bit over the top.
The three heroines Lingzi, Miss Wang, and Li Li are undoubtedly beautiful. There is no limit to beauty, and beauty is not excessive. What relationship has Mr. Bao established with them? The unforgettable love between a man and a woman, the unwavering revolutionary friendship, or a dream that will eventually pass away? This is not important, I am afraid that the creator just wants to highlight a kind of affection that is difficult to classify in a vague way. This relationship is on the edge of ambiguity, a fuzzy zone, but it is extremely firm and profound.
In the final analysis, "Flowers" once again presents a unique Shanghai narrative, that is, a narrative with Shanghai as the central perspective. We enjoy admiring the beauty and pride of Shanghai. After all, it is a magical city! Mr. Nong wants to see the excitement of the Magic City. (Author: Zhou Caishu, associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Nankai University)
