Author | Nanfengchuang Reporter Zhao Jiajia
Kong Dashan had a pair of narrow eyes embedded in his face, which seemed like he could not open them. It made him seem like he was always half asleep. When
attended the event, he sat in the front row with his head hanging down. While waiting to go on stage to receive the "Director of the Year" award from Nanfeng Window, he inserted his headphones into his cochlea and isolated himself from the world around him. It wasn't until historian Wang Di came to the stage to give a speech and said that "specific people can also construct history based on their own actions" that Kong Dashan took off his headphones, as if waking up from a dream.
In 2023, Kong Dashan used images to create an absurd dream for us. On April Fool's Day, the film " Universe Exploration Editorial Department " directed by Kong Dashan was released, breaking through the lackluster narrative dilemma of mainland Chinese theaters. As early as 2021, the film had its world premiere at the Pingyao International Film Festival and became Fei Mu's Honorary Best Film. It received unanimous praise from film and television practitioners, film critics, and the media.
This absurd movie coincides with Kong Dashan’s own temperament.
Wrapped outside the film is a comedy shell and Kong Dashan's "bad taste". It is the story of a paranoid man trying to find aliens. The truth pursued by paranoia has become the core of the film. It is a motif that runs through human history and is about the ultimate meaning of human existence in this world.
The story of "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department" has ended on the screen, but Kong Dashan's quest is far from the end that awaits him.
01
心灵山
The story begins with a science fiction magazine called "Space Exploration". Tang Zhijun, the editor-in-chief of
magazine, is a man with disheveled hair like a bird's nest who has lost his wife and daughter. However, he has been persistently searching for traces of extraterrestrial civilizations for decades. He firmly believes that "the only way for human civilization to evolve again is to find extraterrestrial civilizations." people".
After suddenly receiving a "strong signal from an alien civilization" one day, Tang Zhijun led a group of friends from Beijing to the southwest, to a small town in Sichuan, and then continued deep into the local virgin forest, just to Find the identity of the alien that sent the signal. The English title of the
movie is translated as "journey to the west", which has become a metaphor for the spiritual core of the film. Just like Tang Xuanzang in "Journey to the West" , who led his apprentices all the way to the west, Tang Zhijun actually went to the West to learn scriptures and gain the world. truth.
The truth that Tang Zhijun wants to pursue is actually the truth that Kong Dashan, as the director, wants to pursue. In Kong Dashan's eyes, the ultimate destination of all issues people think about point to the nature of human existence and the motif of human destiny: "What is the meaning of human existence?"
's "Cosmic Exploration Editorial", which was finally presented on the screen, was shot in a pseudo-documentary style, with unique aesthetic taste and philosophical depth, which made it win numerous honors when it debuted at the Pingyao Film Festival. .
However, in Kong Dashan's narrative, the script was initially just a hodgepodge of "bad taste" plots.
His inspiration came from a news broadcast on Shandong TV in 2017. A farmer claimed that he had electrocuted an alien and that the alien's body was stored in a freezer in the farmer's home. When they opened it and took a look, everyone discovered that the "alien body" lying in the freezer was a silicone doll.
In the news, the person involved seemed extremely serious when describing this matter. He said that he would protect the "alien's body" and wait for its companions to pick it up in a flying saucer.
Based on this news, Kong Dashan wrote the first version of the story outline. It possesses some qualities of critical realism, but as Wang Hongwei, Kong Dashan’s graduate tutor, said, it is a superficial “critical formalism” that is far from reaching the maturity and completeness of its final form.
In order to fill the formalistic flaws in the story, Kong Dashan decided to push a specific person to the center of the story. This person will be the origin of all absurd colors and the guide who leads the audience to ask the ultimate question.
In the movie, this person is Tang Zhijun. But in reality, this person is actually Kong Dashan himself.
In the process of constantly exploring the depths of the story in order to break away from the shackles of formalism, the problems that have been troubling the director himself began to be gathered together. This accidental story became the "natural carrier" of all his own confusions, and also became the result of his constant search for personal inner thoughts.
After his trip to the southwest, Tang Zhijun found his own answer. He said that the answer is not in outer space, nor in the depths of the universe, but "in each of our bodies." He said that everyone in this world is both a puzzle of existence and the answer to this puzzle.
After the film was released, Kong Dashan often used "Journey to the West" to explain Tang Zhijun's enlightenment. On the way westward, there were nine or eighty-one difficulties. Tang Xuanzang asked Sun Wukong, when will he arrive at Lingshan Mountain in the West? Sun Wukong said, you go from childhood to old age, no matter how young you are, it is still difficult even if you are a thousand times old or young, but as long as you are sincere and sincere, then wherever you look back, there will be spiritual mountains everywhere.
This is Tang Zhijun's answer, and it is also the truth that Kong Dashan found: "Don't look far for Buddha in Lingshan Mountain, Lingshan is only in your heart."
02
Another door
Many people think that what Kong Dashan photographed is a group of "losers" story, it seems that some of Tang Zhijun's downtrodden and marginalized temperament is consistent with the director's own temperament. After the movie
was released, the high school teacher approached Kong Dashan and hoped that he could return to school as an "outstanding graduate" to give a lecture to the junior students.
The "outstanding graduates" who were invited back to school to give lectures were "bad boys" who were once rejected by high school teachers. In Kong Dashan's view, the absurdity of this scene is no less than that of a movie.
Kong Dashan often talks about his middle school days. In junior high school, because he was too partial to subjects, his grades declined and he was ostracized by his classmates. After entering high school, he began to listen to rock music and join a band, which opened another door to the spiritual world. However, the teachers all felt that "this kid is finished." So he was assigned to stay in an empty classroom and became one of the abandoned ones.
In his family, the adults are either civil servants or teachers. His parents had no other requirements for him, as long as he passed the undergraduate degree. Because you have a bachelor's degree, you are eligible to take the public or editing exams.
Therefore, the reason why he started studying film was also a helpless move to a certain extent. He realized that he couldn't get into college by playing in a band.
At that time, he noticed that a film-related major might be compatible with his own cultural talents. In order to take the college entrance examination, he began to watch more and more movies, so he watched "Xiao Wu" by Jia Zhangke and "Crazy Stone " by Ning Hao. After meeting a director with attitude and a good work, another door besides rock music opened to him.
Kong Dashan wants to make his own movie.
suffered from poor grades. In order to achieve the goal of making movies, he gradually designed a path for himself to "save the country through curves". He first got admitted to the Radio and Television Directing Major of Sichuan University of Communication, and then managed to get admitted to Beijing Film Academy for graduate school. Moreover, he also set a prerequisite for his graduate career, that is, Wang Hongwei must be his mentor.
Wang Hongwei is the vice president of the China Film Directors Association and chairman of the Green Green Project. He has served as a producer and consultant for the film works of Ning Hao, Guo Fan, Lu Yang and others. He is a well-known young director in the industry.
Under the guidance of Wang Hongwei, Kong Dashan began to try to use the form of "pseudo-record" to create. Wang Hongwei analyzed the ontology of pseudo-recording for them and guided them to think about the essence of the director's role, that is, "the style of all films needs to consider completing a hypothesis." This means that the director must complete the expression at the border between fiction and reality.
Kong Dashan first attracted attention precisely because of a short film he completed in the form of pseudo-records, namely "Legal Future Tense".Here, its original title can be used to summarize its content: "Shocked! Making a literary film makes the news boring! The director was arrested!"
The entire film was written, directed and acted by Kong Dashan. The director he played was wearing Wearing an orange prison uniform, he sat behind the bars and wiped his tears, saying, "I realize my mistake. I am like this because my ideological consciousness is too low, I don't care about the safety of the people's lives, and I am always addicted to self-expression." - Criticism Consciousness and "bad taste" are revealed together.
But it was precisely because of this short film that Wang Yitong, the creator of "Space Exploration Editorial Department", realized Kong Dashan's talent, which indirectly contributed to the birth of a feature film.
In fact, rock music and movies do not only exist to carry human emotions and thoughts that are independent of conventional rules. More often, they can promote the gathering of people on the aesthetic and intellectual level, so that at least some human beings will not Feeling too alone.
And Kong Dashan also seems to hope that his audience can feel less lonely.
In the final part of "Universe Exploration Editorial Department", Tang Zhijun is no longer paranoid and almost rigid. When he realizes that the meaning he is looking for lies within his own body, the world in his eyes no longer looks cold but becomes colorful, and the mood of the entire film transitions from absurd to soft.
This transition from being unimaginative to falling into a conventional narrative actually reveals Kong Dashan’s goodwill towards the world. As he said, it's like a particularly unreliable friend of yours. When you are very sad, he comes to you and makes some incomprehensible jokes, but in fact he just clumsily wants to comfort you.
Some viewers commented that they cried a lot after watching the movie. At this time, the universal connection Kong Dashan wanted to achieve in the movie has been achieved.
03
After the carrot disappeared
But the highlight moment seemed to come too soon.
Kong Dashan, 33, has received numerous praises for his first feature film as a director. At the Pingyao Film Festival, it was the "Grand Slam" winner among many awards. Under the spotlight of the Golden Rooster Awards, he was named "Best Screenwriter". There are top screenwriters and directors who want to work with him because they think he has a "worldwide film language."
If the meaning that people pursue in this life is like the carrot in front of the donkey that Tang Zhijun finally rode, it is always out of reach. Then for Kong Dashan, each of the people he originally regarded as carrots Almost all dreams have come true. By the time "Space Exploration Editorial" was released, the carrot went into the mouth, and the meaning disappeared.
After this, he made a decision that was quite puzzling to the outside world and stopped directing for the time being.
He admitted that he felt uneasy throughout the entire process of making this film. Under limited funding constraints, the shooting cycle was shortened to within 37 days. Alia, a professional actor, marveled at the scenes featuring a large number of amateur actors as "scary" and joked that she had suspected that the director was "either crazy or stupid."
As a feature film in the form of a pseudo-record, Kong Dashan could not find a film of the same type as a reference. In the past, there were documentary-style thrillers and horror films, and the differences were so great that it was difficult to use as a template for learning.
It is far from easy to broaden the existing narrative boundaries in form.
He must always think about whether the "hypothesis" of this film is valid. This refers to whether the story can convince the audience that its logic actually holds. If the audience is completely unable to take on Tang Zhijun's perspective from the beginning and just thinks he is a madman, then the story will be over. After that, all the information Kong Dashan wants to convey will disintegrate into a pile of debris due to the audience's distrust.
In order to achieve this imaginary reality, Kong Dashan worked hard. He was also criticized by others on the crew as being too "perfectionistic". Not only would he argue endlessly with the art director over the shape of the collar of Tang Zhijun's clothes, but he would also obsessively find the best pot to put on Wang Yitong's head. He would also consider the breathing of the camera and the small movements of the actor's eyes looking directly into the camera.
Director Guo Fan once told him that in the process of being a director, 90% of the energy will be put outside the director's own work. He didn't believe it at first and thought the statement was too exaggerated. But when he actually became a feature film director, he realized that the real situation was even worse than Director Guo's statement.
In many interviews, he mentioned that in the month after the filming was completed, he could only stay at home and play games every day, unable to find the energy to edit because he had no confidence in the material he shot. It was not easy for him to wait until the editing was completed and the film was released. He was showered with honors and honors. Sometimes he was interviewed for 20 times a day, talking about many things in reverse, and he was exhausted.
So he said that he no longer wanted to be a director for the time being. He wanted to put aside that serious mental drain, and even stopped writing poetry and playing games.
He cannot operate like a superman like Director Guo Fan. In the tired moment after he tried his best to pursue his dream, all his strength was gone, and the truth of life finally emerged like a snow-covered field in winter. It turns out that life is repetitive, flat, and pale.
The place where I look back is Lingshan. Where is Lingshan? He said: "What you can't remember is a long life, a life without any waves, but that is actually the truth of life."
Wang Hongwei understood him and supported his temporary self-exile. Wang Hongwei believes that people should first think about staying as comfortable as they want, rather than materializing themselves into a screw, a labor force, or a specific link in an industry. "This is not necessary, so I think it is good for him to be like this."
Good creation is of course based on a deep understanding of the truth of life. "Journey to the West" belonging to young director Kong Dashan has pressed the pause button, but the journey to the west belonging to a real person has only really begun. His understanding of life is still delayed, so we have every reason to believe that his creation is far from over.
Editor | Huang Mingting
Typesetting | Fengjian Che
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