"She has a lot of shortcomings, but once she stands on stage, she really shines with her own light. She has a temperament that makes people forgive her." In the movie "Chasing the Moon", the current female lead of the Yue Opera Troupe Zhuang Lingling ( Tu Ling (played by Tu Ling) commented on Teacher Qi (played by He Saifei), a famous Yue opera actor who was once a smash hit.
On March 8, "Chasing the Moon" directed by Qiao Liang was released with mediocre reviews and sluggish box office. The straightforward plot arrangement and TV drama-style camera scheduling give people a lack of polish, but these do not obscure the brilliance of the heroine Teacher Qi. He Saifei, who is also a famous actor in Shaoxing opera, brings vitality to this character. In 2023, at the age of 60, she won the China Film Golden Rooster Award for Best Actress for this role.
The film is adapted from Ai Wei's novella "The Past" and tells the story of a Shaoxing opera star named Teacher Qi who left his family behind to pursue a career in a provincial capital when he was young. When she returned to her hometown of Yongcheng, she was eager to reconcile with her three resentful children. At the same time, she endured the pain and worked as a consultant for the new play of her hometown Yue Opera Troupe. The main character.
"Flawed Women"
The reconciliation between Teacher Qi and her children is not easy: the eldest son Qiu Sheng was caught in the provincial capital when his mother cheated on him, and he angrily told his father, who later disappeared; the second son Xia Sheng inherited his mother's business and lacked maternal love. He and Zhuang Lingling in the group, who were more than ten years older than him and took good care of him, were a secret lover; the younger daughter Dongmei fell in love with a married man and became pregnant due to lack of parental care. Qiusheng beat the man in anger and entered the hospital. After six years in prison, Dongmei suffered a mental breakdown and entered a mental hospital. He Saifei dug out the rich emotional side of Teacher Qi and acted it more vividly than the description in the original work.
The image of her giving her acceptance speech at the Golden Rooster Awards ceremony made her laugh and cry, a bit incoherent. "The sisters who were nominated together are all very outstanding, but there is only one golden rooster. Hehe. I don't know that I can be like this today. In fact, I should have sorted out a few sentences while I was sitting just now. I'm afraid that I didn't say what I should say and just talked randomly. "The audience in the audience was already enjoying themselves because of her true temperament.
Compares actor He Saifei's willfulness with the character Teacher Qi's "tight leakage", which shows her painstaking efforts in polishing the characters and her acting talent.
At the beginning of "Chasing the Moon", the appearance of Mr. Qi's figure is enough for the audience to follow him for a long time like the security guard in the film. She wore a well-tailored light blue cheongsam, and every strand of her wavy hair shone with the style of a former heroine, so much so that her youngest son Xia Sheng, who was supposed to lead the way, couldn't help but follow behind her. Entering Xia Sheng's house and sitting on the sofa, she felt like she was suddenly relieved. She kicked off her high-heeled leather shoes and leaned to one side tiredly. Then she began to criticize the artistic photos in the room: "You need to paint your eyebrows three times." Color, the top layer must be virtual! I would never have the shame to hang such a photo on the wall!" When talking about the past with her son, she shed tears; when talking about the house, she suggested selling the house owned by her daughter Dongmei, " After being admitted to a mental hospital, do you still expect her to come back?" - so cold that Xia Sheng was speechless. At this time, her former apprentice Zhuang Lingling suddenly came to visit her. She immediately wiped away her tears, tidied her clothes, and complimented each other in vain and cowardly, as fluently as if in a drama.
The above "role reversals" happened in just a few minutes, and the image of a "flawed mother" who is always between "acting and non-acting" and "acting and non-acting" is ready to emerge. She treats art so truly and purely, and devotes her family and life to it, which is undoubtedly admirable; but when her end is approaching, her eldest son Qiu Sheng sneers, "Is this the mother who sends the money?", which is pitiful and deplorable.
This is not the first time He Saifei has appeared in "Flawed Women". Except for the "mother-in-law" roles in TV dramas in recent years, her most well-known roles mainly focus on a series of marginalized women in society.Some of them come from humble backgrounds, such as the actress Mei Shan in "Raise the Red Lantern" (1991), and the prostitute Xiao E in "Pink" (1995); some have bad personal ethics, such as "The Romance" (1996) Yu Xiuyi, who has an abnormal relationship with her younger brother. Yang Jiuhong in "The Mansion" (2001) is her most nationally acclaimed character. The second concubine of the Bai family, a wealthy family in Beijing, who was born in a brothel, was never truly accepted by her husband's family, and was forced to separate from her own flesh and blood. , her daughter no longer recognizes her. Years later, she snatched her granddaughter away, allowing her own pain to happen again to her daughter, and her mental state was close to "the edge of madness."
However, when Yang Jiuhong finally died alone while fasting and chanting Buddha's name, we couldn't help but shed tears of sympathy like Bai Jingqi who once loved her and hurt her under the coercion of her mother's life. In the final analysis, whether Yang Jiuhong is hysterical or vicious, it is just a sinking step by step in the repressive environment of a large family. As the second concubine of the Bai family, she was exploited by "rules" all her life, and she used "rules" to force her concubine Huaihua to death. She bravely resisted oppression, but also became the perpetrator of oppression unconsciously. On her own, she was unable to contend with the "structural problems" of the feudal family. Facing Bai Jingqi, who had obeyed her mother's orders and robbed her child, she could only say in tears: Are you still the seventh master who went to jail for me?
In his youth, He Saifei, with his charming eyes and even flesh and bones, is most suitable to play this kind of woman who is charming and clever but trapped in prison. Marrying into a house did not end their fate of being insulted and harmed, but instead put new shackles on their fate. In the deep courtyard, their talents are just "things" for the master to enjoy. In "Raise the Red Lantern", the fourth concubine Songlian praised the third concubine Mei Shan, a popular actress, for "singing in Peking Opera is really emotional." Mei Shan responded nonchalantly, "It's just acting, and it's not worth being sad. Acting. If you do well, you can deceive others; if you do poorly, you can only deceive yourself." The skills that made her popular in the past have become a tool for self-paralysis.
In literary and artistic works, flawed female images always seem to be more emotional than flat, perfect female images. The reason is that they show women’s actual survival plight. When we understand these complex women personally, we will find that their flaws, madness, and depravity are all caused by passively accepting the consequences of their fate. Destroyed beauty and human nature in extreme situations can best burst out the sparks of art.
The valuable thing about "Chasing the Moon" is that it puts aside the perspective of moral judgment and proposes another possibility of narrative: What if beauty does not dissipate in the house, but shines outside? What if a woman’s madness is not passively involved in family-style internal fighting, but actively put into a broader artistic stage? When talented women decide to leave the family, and when their value is no longer limited by the power of the husband and father in the family, will they embark on the "broad road"?
"After Nora Runs Away"
Teacher Qi's former style not only transformed into elegance and remained in her gestures until old age, but can also be heard from the narrations of the group leader and Zhuang Lingling. Zhuang Lingling recalled to Xia Sheng half-sadly, "The team leader, the director, all support your mother! How can we be like us now, worthless!" It can be said that Teacher Qi bravely ventured into the world with his passion for art. Big cities, despite paying the price of separation of husbands and wives, have gained glory that many literary and art workers cannot achieve. From this point of view, she is lucky.
Teacher Qi first went to the provincial capital and then to Beijing. Is her real life as successful as her artistic career? Regarding this part, the movie vaguely omits it. The original book briefly mentions, "How many marriages has my mother had in her life? Five or six? There are too many for Xia Sheng to remember." This kind of marriage is regarded by the sons as " The life of "only knowing how to have fun alone" hides Teacher Qi's unknown humiliation. When she was confronting Qiu Sheng, she suppressed herself and yelled: "What can I do? I'm just an ordinary actress!" From the new generation actor Wang Jing's position as the female lead, she "fawned" to Mr. Sun. , it is not difficult to speculate that Teacher Qi may have experienced more such scenes.
The battle for the female lead in the Yue Opera Troupe's new play originally started between Zhuang Lingling and Wang Jing. To everyone's surprise, Teacher Qi instigated Wang Jing to give Zhuang Lingling sleeping pills. He benefited from this and won the premiere opportunity, which brought a successful end to his artistic career. Prescribing drugs, fanning the flames, sitting on the mountain and watching tigers fight... It seems that Teacher Qi has used all kinds of "careful tricks" with ease.
In reality, women who pursue career goals often face accusations of being "scheming." It's not because women are more scheming, but because women have too few opportunities.
A hundred years ago, Lu Xun proposed in his famous speech titled "What will happen to Nora after she leaves?" "Nora may actually have only two ways, either to fall or to come back." What is sad is that after running away " The "successful and famous" version of Nora - Teacher Qi - has traveled two paths. She "fallen" when she was young and sold herself in order to move to a bigger stage; she "returned" when she was old and started a fight with her children full of resentment. A heart-wrenching battle in the soul.
In this regard, director Qiao Liang said in an interview, "Teacher Qi still evaluates herself from a male perspective. At the end of her life, she will still beg for forgiveness from the secular society represented by men, even if the man here is her son. ."
In comparison, I prefer the original author's interpretation of Teacher Qi, "The mother in the novel is almost hopelessly selfish in some aspects. In her, selfishness and selflessness can be said to be It’s so inextricable that it’s difficult to clearly define it. But although this mother is sometimes outrageously selfish, I think she is still quite cute.” As a woman with a strong sense of subjectivity, Teacher Qi felt that running away was “selfish.” ", returning may also be "selfish". And "selfish" may be regarded as a neutral word.
However, even a "selfish" mother does not naturally enjoy immunity from women's pain, struggle, and dilemma.
American female writer and art critic Susan Sontag once said, "The various requirements for women, such as being charming, patient and considerate, caring for their husbands and raising children, being virtuous and gentle, sensitive and passionate, obedient and four virtues, etc., all of which are related to the great The self-centeredness, aggressiveness and indifference to individuals necessary for the full development of creative talents are in conflict with each other, and are even necessarily incompatible."
This sentence is also appropriate to describe Teacher Qi's life path. She did not "choose" it. Abandoning her husband and son, but if she wanted to pursue art, she had no choice. She and her husband were originally a couple who believed in art first. However, her husband is talented but has no power, power and incompetence. In order to put her husband's hard work "To the Moon" on the stage, Teacher Qi can only exchange her youthful body for the opportunity. Qiu Sheng not only couldn't understand his mother, he couldn't even understand his father. He called them a pair of "living treasures." "Any man is willing to live in two places and sacrifice himself to help the woman's family." Ironically, if the identities of the two were exchanged, maybe everyone would become accustomed to it.
Teacher Qi, who abandoned her child, was attacked by a sense of shame, but her artistic life saved her from a mental crisis.
The most intriguing relationship in the film is the love-hate relationship between Teacher Qi and Qiu Sheng. Although there is no news from his parents, Qiu Sheng only holds grudge against his mother. As Teacher Qi's favorite son, he is also the one who attacks his mother most unscrupulously. At first, "actress" was just a sarcastic remark in Qiu Sheng's mouth: "Do you think I would believe the words of an actress? Or a famous actress?" As the resentment was resolved, "actress" turned into praise from Qiu Sheng: " You look good even without hair, so who calls you an actress?"
This moment is the real "reconciliation" between mother and son. "Reconciliation" does not lie in the family reunion, but in the son finally confirming the mother's value as an "artist" and as a "person".
He Saifei said at the Golden Rooster Award Ceremony that making movies is "life depreciation", "I would rather live a few less years, and also want to create more characters to dedicate to everyone." There are not many "old people" in the world who endure humiliation and sacrifice themselves. Mother", but the artist "Teacher Qi" who has spent his life vigorously.
(Reference: Jiemian News interview with "Chasing the Moon" director Qiao Liang: He wants to show the situation of a successful woman in a patriarchal society; The Paper News interview with Ai Wei on "The Past": The feeling of life is our memory.)
Southern People Weekly staff writer Shang Lu
editor-in-chief Yang Jingru
