About three or four years ago, my friends and I talked about a Hong Kong Film Awards dark horse movie "金都". In her debut film, the director of the film, Huang Qilin, expressed her views on marriage, happiness, Thoughts on issues such as freedom and shackles.
Not only did she write the script for this movie, she also wrote the lyrics for the theme song of the same name, allowing movie fans to see the talent of this new director.
In fact, before Huang Qilin became a director, she had always dreamed of becoming a lyricist. She spent a lot of effort on this and even published a collection of essays that recorded her journey of learning to write lyrics.
After "Golden City" gained word-of-mouth, Huang Qilin decided to turn to telling her own story. She invested the 2 million she earned from "Golden City" and wrote and filmed it during the epidemic.
Most of the movie scenes were found in places that could provide them for free. After going on and off for more than a year, I finally produced this semi-autobiographical youth movie - "Lyrics" .
The entire film is like a relaxing and interesting book. Through 7 chapters, it tells the story of the heroine Luo Yingshi's experience of working hard to become a lyricist from high school to graduation from college.
According to the formula of youth movies, such a story will definitely be labeled as "youth inspirational".
You can even imagine those routine jokes, such as the moments of youth in middle school, the emotional twists and turns of ignorance, the moments of hard work and cheating... In the end, the protagonist, in the aura of success, summed up to the audience that "youth is about ups and downs" chicken soup for the soul. . Although routines like
have a sunny theme, they are not the true face of youth in reality, because most people cannot suddenly cheat on the way to pursue their dreams, and not everyone’s youth is full of nonsense and pain. .
The story of "Ci Ci L" strives to restore the ups and downs of an ordinary high school girl on the road to pursuing her dreams -
's school held a "Teacher Respect Day" event in high school, and the heroine and her friends carefully adapted it I learned the lyrics of the theme song of " Infernal Affairs " and prepared to shine on the school stage.
As a result, on the day of the performance, due to the serious timeout of the previous program, the school simply canceled the heroine's program, which was a waste of time. After
, in order to improve her lyric writing skills, the heroine took advantage of the summer vacation before college to sign up for a lyric writing class and quickly mastered the skills of Cantonese lyric writing. She began to look for part-time lyrics writing jobs on the Internet and sent massive emails to musicians. . Unfortunately,
received very few replies. Only an unknown musician sent his demo.
The heroine cherished this opportunity so much that she worked tirelessly to write lyrics for the musician's songs, and finally got an "album" with her own signature and lyrics.
She feels that with this work, she can join the Hong Kong Composers and Lyricists Association (cash) and become a professional lyricist.
However, the conditions for membership must be a public performance or a work that has been sold.
In this case, in order to bring that record to the market, the heroine went to a record company in Taiwan and recommended her own work.
However, the other party just listened to her song respectfully and had no intention of further communication.
Returned to Hong Kong, the heroine fell ill, but at this time she was still thinking about the lyrics writing competition that was about to be completed, so she asked a friend to operate the computer and submitted her work in the hospital bed.
Fortunately, this time the heroine is really one step closer to success. She won the championship of the competition. Although she did not imagine the awards scene with all the stars holding the moon, she finally signed a contract with the company and officially became a lyricist.
But not long after enjoying this joy, the heroine encountered a career blow. The work she sent to a Taiwanese record company was indeed adopted and published, but the other party hired a new lyricist and replaced the Cantonese lyrics with Without the Mandarin lyrics, the whole song has nothing to do with her.
It doesn’t matter, the heroine readjusted and found a new job. A music producer hired her as an assistant to release an entire album for a female singer. If everything went well, the female lead would have a chance to showcase her talent.
She couldn't hide her excitement and was eager to show her strength in front of the female singer, so she went beyond the director and sent her work to the female singer. As a result, the project was canceled midway and the female lead was fired. .
This experience of being laid off at the speed of light made the heroine start to face up to her past. She put aside her dream of being a lyricist and applied for a job in an online ride-hailing company. The boss was a person with quite entrepreneurial ambitions and admired the heroine's dream very much. Her first task after joining the company was to compose a theme song for the company.
In an instant, the heroine's enthusiasm for passionate creation came back. She imagined the final company theme song mv, and imagined the moment when she realized her dream like "saving the country through curves".
It's just that this time the "fire of dreams" seemed to go out faster - the company got into disputes over the legalization of online ride-hailing, and it was disbanded soon after, and the heroine became unemployed again...
That's right, "Lyrics" l》is a story about losers. The heroine of
is from the age of 18 to 25. Without any family background or social resources, she just relies on her passion to constantly look for ways to pursue her dreams. She has never had a beautiful full-time work experience, the so-called "entrepreneurship" She just set up a stall with her friends. During this period, her friendship gradually drifted away, and her love ended without any illness.
So, after falling short time and time again, the heroine gradually extinguished her dream.
Stories like this are not the mainstream of youth films, but they are the main theme of most young people in reality. They are confused, trying, failing, and giving up. In ordinary life, it seems that they have never been insulated from the word "success".
As an audience, we seem to have no reason to review these familiar life experiences again, but this "Lyrics" still has its moving parts.
There is a plot in the film where the heroine sent her work to a female singer without permission, which angered the music director. The music director originally wanted to scold her and fire her, but seeing the heroine's naive enthusiasm for writing lyrics, I couldn't help but start to persuade tactfully -
Have you ever thought that you have been working hard for so many years (6 years), but you still haven't succeeded. Could it be that you are not suitable (to be a lyricist)?
The heroine thought about it seriously and replied - is because I didn’t work hard.
The tone of these words sounds relaxed, but everyone who has seen the heroine's experience knows that what she said about "no effort" is not the truth. The dream pursued by the heroine of
is not a career where "hard work will bring rich rewards". It will not even appear in ordinary recruitment channels, and there are no corresponding majors in universities. Ordinary people who want to enter the industry, at first There is simply no way to find the corresponding way, and the first thing everyone who has had relevant experience said to her is "This business is not profitable."
However, the heroine still tried her best based on her limited experience and judgment. She submitted articles to competitions, sent massive emails, and came to the door alone to recommend herself. All the methods she tried were the best that an ordinary person can achieve. ——Is this still called "lack of effort"?
From this perspective, the heroine's words "I didn't work hard" are more like a kind of self-respect, mixed with her helplessness of not being appreciated by others, and her unwillingness to admit that she is mediocre.
It is worth mentioning that the director does not think that this story that has always failed is decadent and hopeless. Instead, she hopes that everyone can see the happy ending from the end.
The heroine experienced unemployment again and decided to participate in the working holiday program and came to the countryside of Taiwan to start farming.
By chance, she heard a Cantonese song playing on the radio. It was a song for which she had participated in writing lyrics. The familiar melody evoked her experience of pursuing her dreams, and the long failures and short-lived happiness all came to her mind.
She smiled faintly and confessed to others - in fact, I am the lyricist. This is the first time since she pursued her dream that she has faced up to her less "successful" identity.
's calmness towards failure corresponds to the lyrics written by the director in the theme song, "Success is too passionate, and no one can tell about small setbacks."
And this is the majority of life, and this is what youth movies should be like.
