After 4 years, " Retrograde Life " directed and starred by Xu Zheng finally met the audience in the summer season.
This so-called "realistic theme" work is Xu Zheng's first film as an independent director after 2020's "囧Mom".
The film tells the story of Gao Zhilei, a middle-aged programmer who was laid off by a major Internet company. Faced with the pressure of life, he had to change his career as a food delivery boy and redefine the direction of his life in the process of delivering food.
, a commercial film director with great box-office appeal, made a realistic film that focused on the living conditions of delivery workers while also conveying a positive and warm outlook on life.
This kind of expression of humanistic care does have a certain appeal to me.
Unfortunately, after I went to the theater to watch "Retrograde Life", not only was I not moved and healed by it, but I was also offended several times by Xu Zheng's superior and elite perspective.
In my opinion, this movie, which tries to impress ordinary people in a way that makes ordinary people pay for it, is a realistic work created by a rich director who has no idea how ordinary people live.
"Retrograde Life" failed at the box office and did not meet expectations. So what did Xu Zheng do wrong?
Next, let’s analyze it from 7 aspects.
1. False humanistic care
The promotional point of "Retrograde Life" is that of a delivery person, but the true identity of the protagonist is a programmer.
At the end of the video, the "Passepartout" applet written by Gao Zhilei was once again favored by his former company. This detail is enough to show that the career of a delivery boy is just an episode in his life.
Therefore, this film, which clamors to care for delivery workers, is actually looking down at the living conditions of delivery workers from an elite perspective.
In his eyes, in the eyes of his father, and in the eyes of his colleagues who are elites like him, food delivery is a profession that is degrading to dignity.
Even though delivering food helped him get through a difficult period in his life, he still couldn't accept this profession, just like he couldn't accept his wife working in a nail salon.
The daily life of ordinary people is experienced as suffering by the middle-class elite, and they also try to make ordinary people sympathize with their class downgrade and life difficulties.
What is the difference between this and the homeless people sleeping on the street, poor homeowners who cannot afford their mortgage?
I don’t understand this hard concave theme of humanistic care, why should it be photographed?
2. Consumption Suffering
What makes "Retrograde Life" infuriating is that it writes about the plight of a middle-class elite, but forcibly draws out the suffering of ordinary people to praise it.
Even more, it made Gao Zhilei forcefully feed everyone a bowl of poisonous chicken soup at the commendation meeting for winning the "Single King", so that everyone was willing to accept the suffering.
In order to use these hardships to stir up the emotions of the audience, the film deliberately made Gao Zhilei’s co-workers, the deliverymen, have miserable lives.
Lao Chi’s daughter has leukemia. Dahei caused the tragedy of the amputation of a former colleague. Xiaomin is a lonely and helpless single mother.
Even Yang Dashan, who seems to be optimistic and optimistic, is also a suffering child who has been affected since childhood.
These sufferings in life are not terrible, but what is hateful is that the film actually promotes and praises these sufferings as inspirational stories.
This reminds me of Wang Shuo's words: "The most shameless, insidious and vicious praise in the world is to use the hardships and sufferings of the poor as inspirational stories to fool the people at the bottom."
3. Transferring contradictions
in me It seems that "Retrograde Life" is a very "chicken thief" movie.
It wants to ride on the professional popularity of delivery workers to stir up the emotions of the audience, but it does not dare to analyze the real problems behind this industry.
attributes the professional dilemma of delivery workers to "mutual harm at the bottom".
For example, jealousy among colleagues, conflicts between customers and delivery staff, and discrimination against delivery staff in other professions.
But in fact, it is not these that really put pressure on delivery workers, but the various unreasonable algorithms stipulated by the platform.
The conflict between the delivery staff and the platform has long attracted social attention.
A well-known magazine once wrote an article titled "Takeaway Riders, Trapped in the System" to reveal how the system can significantly shorten the food delivery time of takeaway riders through "optimization".
It is this unreasonable algorithm that directly increases the pressure on food delivery workers and disrupts their normal riding speed and service attitude.
However, this film pushed away the responsibility of the platform and made a very superficial transfer of the deep-seated contradiction.
This kind of "harmony" pseudo-realism is tantamount to scratching the surface and is really disappointing.
4. Distortion of details
One of the most important characteristics of realist works is "truth", but many details in "Retrograde Life" will appear to be unreasonable upon closer inspection.
The most exaggerated setting is that Gao Zhilei, who suffered from type 1 diabetes, miraculously recovered after delivering takeaways for several months.
To be honest, it is doubtful that a middle-aged man who has been sitting in an office for more than ten years has the physical strength to deliver food and the ability to win the "Single King".
As a result, the screenwriter also allowed the food delivery profession to have the skills of a miracle doctor, which is really false.
In addition, Gao Zhilei graduated from a prestigious school and was still the backbone of a major Internet company. After leaving his job, he submitted more than 1,000 resumes but could not find a job.
But his wife, a full-time housewife, can work a part-time job with a monthly income of more than 7,000 in minutes.
What’s even more funny is that at the end of the film, in order to forcibly highlight the excitement of Gao Zhilei winning the “Single King” at 12 o’clock in the middle of the night, a drumming scene was even arranged.
Any normal person with some life experience would not beat the drum at twelve o'clock in the middle of the night. It is illegal to disturb the public!
In addition, there are some details that are relatively fake.
Trucks knocked the electric car away, but the takeout was still good. The deliveryman gave the security guard a box of cigarettes, and the gift to the restaurant owner was the latest tea on the market. The compensation for knocking down a broken car is 5,000. Yuan.
If this is what Xu Zheng understands as "realism", then I can only say that he has been away from real life for too long and no longer knows what reality is.
5. The protagonist has too much aura
This film seems to be a group drama with many characters, but in fact, the supporting characters who seem to have a story have a weak sense of existence.
In other words, their existence is to serve as a foil for Gao Zhilei. When
was laid off, in order to highlight his helplessness, his leaders and colleagues were all heinous villains. Even his father humiliated him inexplicably.
I really don’t understand why my father would arrogantly say that he lost his job when his son was laid off. When
finally found a job delivering food, in order to cheer him up, the people around him changed into people who were more miserable than him but as kind as him.
Even his father changed his previous attitude and began to act coquettishly and cutely to encourage him to deliver food well.
As for his mother, wife and daughter, they also "acted according to the wind" and completely complied with the direction of Gao Zhilei's life and provided the background for his life.
After watching it, I had a strong feeling that in this film, except for Gao Zhilei, who has a halo as a character, the other characters are just tool men.
6. The forced sensationalism
may be the attitude of the creator, which was not sincere enough from the beginning. Therefore, except for the clips of ordinary people at the end of the film, there is almost no natural expression of true feelings in "Retrograde Life".
But it is very ironic that there are forced and sensational plots in the film more than once. This kind of setting that is moved for the sake of being moved will really make people feel uncomfortable.
For example, after the father played by Ding Yongdai suffered a stroke, he first cried in front of the whole family and said that he did not want to live anymore, and even wrote a suicide note. Finally, he acted coquettishly and said that he had not "drawn a map" for a long time.
In him, the audience cannot see the pain of the disabled old man, nor the hope of survival of the disabled old man.
can only see an old man pretending to be helpless, superficially sensationalizing and pretending to be young, everything seems out of place.
For another example, Dahei, who is often called the "Single King", was beaten to a bloody head and cried in front of the camera like a child.
There are also Lao Jie and Gao Zhilei. Both of them almost died in a car accident, but they only cared about takeout without caring about their lives.
This kind of sensational plot that is deliberately set up to arouse the emotions of the audience is very low-level.
Anyway, when I watched it, not only was I not moved, I often felt angry about it.
7. The audio-visual effect is average
Realistic works, in addition to pursuing truth in content, should also be simple in expression.
However, during the process of watching the film, I was affected by inappropriate audio-visual methods more than once.
For example, when Gao Zhilei was working at a major Internet company, the extremely low tones, fast intersecting editing, and complicated background sounds would make people feel uncomfortable.
In addition, in order to correspond to Shawnee's identity as an amateur drummer, some exciting music often appears in the film.
These numerous and complicated soundtracks not only fail to heighten the mood and convey the plot, but often disturb the audience's movie-watching experience.
Overall, the audio-visual effect of this film is really average.
The above 7 aspects are what I felt dissatisfied with when watching "Retrograde Life".
Whether it is called the 7 flaws or the "7 deadly sins", in short, their existence will reduce the perception of this film to a certain extent.
If you have also watched this video, please leave a message in the comment area and share your true views on this video with everyone.(Written by Ye Shi)
