A little horror story.
An upper-class couple attended their children's school ceremony. Their outstanding young son performed the piano on the stage, and his parents were filled with pride.
The eldest son Ajie, who was sitting nearby, did not receive a look.
So Ajie obediently brought a glass of water to the principal who was talking to his parents:
"a cup of water."
Naturally, he was called a good boy.
originally thought that this matter would just go away.
As a result, a family of four was in the car going home.
The father suddenly said a word:
"glass."
"It is a glass of water. If you don't know English, don't say it outside."
Finally, he cursed:
"Garbage."
If this little story, you There's nothing scary about it.
Well, you are in luck.
At least, he is much luckier than the kid Zheng Youjie in the movie.
Teenage Diary
was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and finally won the Best New Director Award. After being screened, the Douban score rose to 8.6.
is indeed high.
, especially as a work of this score level, the excessive use of MV-style shots, as well as the hesitation and lack of character portrayal, all expose the new director's greenness.
but.
To be honest, it is difficult to judge a movie like this sir rationally.
because it is not only talking about the native family.
is actually answering the question of how the renunciation, fear of marriage, and fear of childbirth that occur around us at any time, and even in ourselves, are formed.
It is an emotion that strikes directly between the eyebrows at the moment.
So, when the audience becomes the little boy in the film.
this story. Can
still be just a story?
01
Teenage horror film
The story begins with an anonymous suicide note in the third grade of high school.
class teacher Zheng Sir wants to find out who is the owner of the suicide note.
But one of the sentences evoked Sir Zheng’s memory.
So he found the "Youth Diary" and faced his boyhood surrounded by all-round fear.
"I am not an important person."
The 10-year-old boy Zheng Youjie wrote in his diary.
Ajie has two characteristics in the eyes of adults.
is "stupid".
As a primary school student, he not only had poor grades, but also failed many courses and had to repeat a grade. At the same time, he also had no special skills: Ajie had two teachers to play the music that his younger brother was proficient in, but he was still stumbling.
one is "good".
He is a very obedient child. He is neither noisy nor fussy in front of others, and he also works hard behind others. He is a "good boy" who is always observing and imitating, and strives to meet the requirements of adults.
Yes, these two characteristics seem to conflict.
In people's stereotype, children with poor grades tend to be particularly naughty and disobedient, while only children with good grades may be good children.
But Ajie was exactly the poor student who couldn't meet the adults' requirements no matter how hard he tried. How did
develop such a personality?
One sentence: "A dutiful son emerges from under a stick."
Ajie's father, lawyer Zheng, a "chicken boy" maniac, maintains this "simple" view of education.
Didn’t do well in the exam?
hit.
hides comics?
tear.
Rebuttal?
scolded.
What Ajie feels at home is more of push than care.
In other words, Ajie's stupidity and obedience are both the result of long-term indoctrination from his father ("stupid" destroys self-confidence, "obedient" is the survival instinct).
But the question is, is this just a problem with the educational method?
no.
What his father said was "for your own good" was more like doing it for his own sake.
He called Ajie "trash" because he was afraid that he would be embarrassed outside.
Just like he used violence against his wife because he was afraid that his family control would be shaken.
The same is true in school.
In a school where grades are the only criterion, those stupid students face only one word: judgment.
like once.
Ajie was punished to stand because of depression and insomnia, and fell asleep in class.
In this section, the movie uses a handheld follow-up lens.
The camera stared directly at the back of Ajie's head.
Offscreen the teacher ordered him to turn around.
Ajie turned around reluctantly, his face full of tears.
The lens completely recorded the process of a child's self-esteem being torn to pieces. What to do with
?
please help.
There is an important prop in the movie, the flashlight.
At night, Ajie always used a flashlight in the lower bunk, or wrote down "Come on" in comics, or talked to dolls, or "disturbed" his brother in the upper bunk.
Why?
because he tried to reach out for help.
That ray of light in the dark night is the only hope he has in this world. But what about
?
The cartoon was torn up by his father, and the younger brother just responded impatiently: "Have you hugged me enough? I still want to sleep."
This small light cannot break through the narrow bed board of the family.
At the age when he most needs a sense of security, Ajie faces a jungle society.
There is a scene in the video that makes many people tremble.
The beginning of the movie.
Before the title came out, the audience saw Ajie hesitate on the rooftop and fall down.
The audience's heart skipped a beat.
It wasn’t until the next shot when we saw Ajie turning around from the rooftop that we breathed a sigh of relief.
but.
Did he really survive the emotional violence of his childhood?
Bear with it and endure it.
Is it really "just good when you grow up"?
02
The Cage of Adults
The ending of Ajie’s story, sir, will not be spoiled. It is a highlight of the film, and the film is not simply exaggerating the tragic past of the young man.
It talks about the present moment.
means that the growth environment has a lifelong impact on a person.
is as mentioned at the beginning.
The starting point of the film is a diary dug out by high school teacher Zheng Sir. The experiences recorded in this diary are like an explosive bomb, causing Zheng Sir to experience continuous aftershocks for more than 20 years.
but the problem is.
Who wrote that suicide note?
The male student who is often bullied in the class?
The quiet squad leader who still looks emotionally stable but hides cuts on his sleeve?
The video did not give the answer in the end.
but with a lens.
When the video read out the suicide note in a voice-over, the screen scanned the faces of every student who was immersed in studying.
Each of them read the desperate words in the suicide note. What does
mean?
is actually saying that such psychological problems have become a common phenomenon. The person who said the desperate last words "I am not an important person" may be him, it may be her, and it may be everyone, ourselves. .
Even Sir Zheng is one of them.
He is a problem husband.
When his wife became pregnant, he was terrified and could not bear the responsibility of being a father. Eventually, his wife aborted the child and divorced him.
He is a problem son.
My father, Lawyer Zheng, was seriously ill. He couldn't even stay for a meal and left in a hurry.
As a teacher, he is also good at escaping.
When the school leader said something that was not responsible for the suicide note, he retorted in his mind. When the matter came to an end, he could only say "ok" or "sorry".
Sadly, when Sir Zheng grew up, the victim Ajie and the perpetrator's father appeared in his body at the same time.
seems.
In this family, whether they are the recipients of the attack, the perpetrators, the accomplices, or the bystanders, they all spent the rest of their lives to prove it.
No one is spared among these covered scars. What to do with
?
sir chatted for a while with Zhuo Yiqian, the director of " " after the screening.
△ Director Zhuo Yiqian and the film’s “actor” hippopotamus doll
Director Zhuo said that "Diary of a Youth" is not a final answer, it is more like a question.
The movie does not have a clear explanation, but his initial feeling is:
"A wound is a wound, and it is very likely that it will never get better, but at least the first step is to accept its existence."
Just like in the movie A detail.
Sir Zheng saw a news on the Internet that a student was overwhelmed and committed suicide by jumping off a building.
A tragedy.
But the comments below are all blaming today’s students for their poor ability to withstand stress.
Sir Zheng wanted to refute.
So he typed a line angrily, but then deleted it.
He uses speech-to-text instead.
This plot seems strange, especially when Zheng Sir keeps pronouncing "comma" and "period" during the speech-to-text process, which gives people a weird feeling.
But we will know in connection with the subsequent plot.
What the director wanted to express.
actually means "voicing".
When we have emotions, we must speak them out loud instead of keeping them in our hearts, denying them, fermenting them, and slowly engulfing ourselves.
And this one.
The first step is for to face .
faced his recurring wounds.
faces the fact that guilt and hurt will flow to the so-called "weak people" who have stronger empathy and care more about giving emotional support to others.
The second step is for to embrace . Director
once expressed, "The biggest difference between facing up and escaping is that escaping is faced by yourself. And when you talk to an important person, you don't need to face it alone."
is like The title of the movie.
originally used "Suicide Note", and its current English name is "time still turns the pages".
was adjusted from a "completed" status to "still developing/to be continued".
We have to look forward.
At the end of the film, Zheng Sir finally came out of self-isolation, handed the youth diary into the hands of his wife, and went to talk to his father about the deepest wound in the family.
Along with tears of relief, a montage of hugs in different time and space appeared.
seems to be compensating for the brief hug that Ajie was broken away from when he was a child.
03
Social Trauma
Yes, we have discussed a lot about the issue of the original family in recent film and television works.
is especially "patriarchal".
has almost become a hot topic nowadays.
For example, " Crossing the Angry Sea ".
sandwiched a patriarchal bashing core into a murder and revenge drama.
Under the madness, we will find that this is a tragedy caused by the mismatch between a father's self-righteous love and his daughter's needs.
or " the sun shines ".
is more restrained and panoramic, like an ukiyo-e with patriarchal oppression as the background.
The death of his elder brother has become an unsolved mystery, and the younger brother has to break free from society, friendship, and family ties to escape emotional kidnapping.
Even "If Running Is My Life" became popular because of the tiger and wolf lines.
Yang Chaoyue's mother-daughter relationship involves the strict control of the parents, using various superficial social rules to interfere with the daughter's human rights and freedom.
is also trying to talk about this topic.
Some people may think that "Diary of a Youth" is just a cliché.
is even a "stereotype".
has a very high rating, but with this kind of subject matter, fewer and fewer people go to the cinema.
But the question is, what is the result of being bombarded by so many film and television works? When we all know and even feel that there is no need to say such things, what about the current society?
Hong Kong, China.
In 2022, the suicide rate among teenagers in Hong Kong will be as high as 12.2 (per 100,000 people).
"Emotional illness" has become a social disease.
Mainland.
News about students committing suicide also appear frequently.
Many people will also criticize today’s children for their poor ability to withstand stress.
Why?
Because in the final analysis, when we see similar news, many people look down from above, observe and judge.
instead of empathy.
is like the father in the movie.
As a middle-class person who worked his way up from the bottom, in a highly competitive "number theory" society, he is worried that his hard-earned status will be lost because of the "unsatisfactory" performance of his descendants.
This is not a personal issue.
But this wolf-like society has squeezed out a father’s humanity in the family.
Under such social competition thinking.
He can't see it.
also doesn’t want to see a little bit of weakness in children.
So from this perspective.
sir feels that narrative methods like "Diary of a Youth" that can arouse the audience's empathy are still valuable.
It is not like "Under the Sun", it is like an essay shouting "I accuse" to the society.
but like an essay.
Calmly and gently, say to yourself, "I reflect." So is
. Even though
has many technical shortcomings.
We will still give it a very high rating emotionally, and this is also the reason why it has become the number one rated Chinese cinema film this year.
Speaking of this, Sir remembered a piano piece that often played in the film, Debussy's "Dream".
It's soft and gentle.
But at the same time, the contrast is that this is also a piano test piece for Grade 8 of the Royal Conservatoire of Music, which requires great effort and skill to play well.
so every time.
Whenever the not-so-smart Ajie tries to play this piano piece, he always gets scolded by his father and puts a lot of pressure on him.
Ajie cried and said, I will definitely play it completely.
for him.
This is a dream that hopes for beauty, hopes for gentleness, and hopes not to be scolded, but cannot realize it.
And the movie "Diary of a Youth".
Isn’t this also a dream full of hope?
In dreams, we can reflect on ourselves, understand, stretch out our hands to comfort each other, and let our children grow up well.
We still have the power to embrace and face it.
And what about reality?
when the lights come on.
What we hope to leave behind is not just a few sobs in the dark.
The pictures in this article come from the Internet
Editorial Assistant: Tu Yile
