After being nominated for the best film at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, the movie "Go Away" was recently favored by the judges of the 37th Golden Rooster Awards and won four nominations: Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress Best directorial debut,

After being nominated for the best film at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival, the movie " Going on a Boat " was recently favored by the judges of the 37th Golden Rooster Awards and won four nominations: Best Actress, Best Actress Supporting Actor, Best Directorial Debut, Best Small-Medium Budget Feature Film. How did this low-cost debut film by a new director impress the film festival judges and audiences (Douban score 8.1)? Recently, the film has been logged on to online platforms, giving more viewers the opportunity to watch it.

The image of the poem

Coincidentally, the Douban score of "Away by Boat" is the same as that of director Yan Hao's classic masterpiece " Homecoming ", and it can also be classified as "A Time Goes Back" and "A Time Is Back". The type of poetic films represented by "Spring River Plumbing" have what cultural scholar Tang Yi calls a "contemplative, flowing-water style."

This kind of poetic film has the following characteristics: the narrative focuses on lyricism, weakens dramatic conflicts, and emphasizes the inner emotions of the characters; the picture pays attention to the blending of scenes, creating a "love and scene together", like a person swimming in the middle of a painting. In addition, they rely on the traveling perspective and scattered perspective methods of traditional Chinese art, and often use horizontal shifting lenses to capture the scenery into the mirror, creating a flowing poetic atmosphere. The overall aesthetic purpose can be summarized as "the beauty of neutrality" and "vivid charm", pursuing the beauty of plainness, simplicity, simplicity and moderation.

In terms of storyline, "Away in a Boat" and "Homecoming" also have similarities. "Back in Time" tells the story of a frustrated Hong Kong woman who returned to her hometown of Chaozhou to visit her grave in the early days of reform and opening up, hoping that the simple nostalgia would soothe her wounded heart. Unexpectedly, her arrival stirred up the restless desires of her childhood and fellow villagers. In the end, she returned to Hong Kong sadly.

The story of "Leaving on a Boat" is related to death and returning home. It tells the story of Zhou Jin (played by Ge Zhaomei), a mother who lives alone in a village beside a canal, who suffers from a brain tumor. Her daughter Su Nianzhen (played by Liu Dan) who is a businessman in Shanghai and her son Su Nianqing (played by Wu Zhoukai) who works as a tour guide in Beijing have to return home. The family takes care of her. Faced with her mother's serious illness, Nianzhen insisted on giving her the best treatment, while Nianqing believed that just letting nature take its course supported her mother in accepting the impermanence of life calmly. Finally, they agreed to the old man's request, and they returned to their hometown together to spend their last days with their mother.

Director Chen Xiaoyu used the water town of his hometown, Deqing, Zhejiang, as the background of the story. Small bridges, rivers, boats, old houses covered with vines and Jiangnan scenery gave the film a poetic and picturesque atmosphere. He also used the image of water to convey the melancholy and emotion of life like flowing water and phantom through images of rivers and their reflections, rainwater, and tears.

The image of the boat

As a comprehensive image in the film, the boat is not only the most common means of transportation on the canal, but also the medium that connects the countryside and the city, life and death, past and present, children and home, disappearance and rebirth, thus It becomes the center of emotional entanglement and concern between mother and children in the film.

For my mother, the boat is life and her whole life. For Nian Zhen, boats are an outdated means of transportation and lifestyle, which have been replaced by her private cars, which represent speed and city. For Nian Qing, the boat is both a warm harbor and a prison in life that once made him feel suffocated. For the siblings, mom is the boat and home. As long as she is alive, the ship is there and the family is there; after she dies, the ship is gone and the family is gone.

's mother's illness triggered the siblings' thinking about life and death. It also provided an opportunity for them to reflect, reflect, and settle their lost lives. On the surface, Nian Zhen is a successful person. However, the study abroad consulting agency she founded is running poorly and is in danger; her marriage to her second American husband has also turned red; at the same time, she and her ex-husband's son are working abroad. The actor Thao doesn't get along either. In addition, she not only fell into a financial scam herself, but also caused her old friends to lose their money. It can be said that her work and life are in a mess, and she is exhausted and anxious every day. Nianqing, because his family favored his eldest brother who died young, felt that he was being ignored, so he wandered away from home, living a confused and empty life, unable to find the meaning of his existence.

The situation and anxiety of siblings Nian Zhen and Nian Qing are a true reflection of many people nowadays. Like many people, they have conflicting and complicated emotions towards their family and hometown represented by the boat: they feel that they are irretrievably drifting away, but they also try in vain to retain something. In the film, the simple and orderly rural life of the mother and the old people selling fresh vegetables, fish and shrimps contrasts with the busy and anxious urban life. Returning to the hometown also alleviates Nian Zhen and Nian Qing's uneasiness to a certain extent. Reduce their mental internal friction. In the end, they peacefully accompanied their mother through the last journey of her life, and Nian Zhen's face showed a smile for the first time; Nian Qing eliminated the misunderstanding of not being recognized by his family, and chose to stay in the country temporarily to work as a carpenter. He got out of his boat, which indicated that he would usher in his new life.

Concept of Home

"Leaving on a Boat" not only tells the story of life and death, it also reflects people's current life and mental state like a mirror. In this fast-paced, high-efficiency era, it allows us to temporarily slow down, relax, and think about what is most important to ourselves—perhaps, finding our own spiritual destination.

In "Homecoming", the heroine returns from the glitzy metropolis of Hong Kong to the countryside of Chaozhou in search of spiritual solace, but fails to find solace, and ultimately returns dejected. Tang Yi combined the characters' stories to make a pessimistic understanding of the film's flowing water image: "The film captures a rapidly changing rootless society. Those who seek roots, those who return home, and those who are at home are all homeless. This society has already Lost roots, no where to fall, only the ancient trees stretching to the sky and the earth remain.”

The image of running water in “Leaving on a Boat” does not have such a pessimistic connotation, but has the function of washing, purifying, and sublimating. The director uses the story of Zhou Jin, a mother who calmly accepts death and "takes a boat away", to face the fact that her children and grandchildren will completely cut off ties with the "family" she represents, but this does not mean that they will drift away. , on the contrary, the director used the words of Tao, a young man who has never returned to his hometown to visit his grandmother, to say that home may not only be a physical residence, but also a place of spiritual belonging and peace of mind. Grandma told Tao that his parents’ home was not his home, and even grandma’s home was not his home. He knows that home can be here or far away, and everyone has to find his or her own home. Director

said that he set A Tao up as a person who cannot go home. Although there is a deep attachment between Tao and his family, he travels far and wanders. The relationship between him and his mother and grandmother also reflects the kite-like pulling and connecting relationship between family members. Compared with other people at home, A Tao, a character outside the family, may be able to observe everything happening at home more abstractly. As a bystander, he has no position, so he can understand everyone.

To a certain extent, Atao represents a new generation of people who have completely broken away from their hometown in the countryside. They were born and raised in the city, or went out to work and live after growing up, and settled in the city without ever returning to their hometown. If his mother and uncle represent the people born in the 1970s and 1980s who have a "love-hate relationship" with the traditional concept of family, then he represents the people born in the 1990s and 2000s who do not have the spiritual burden of family. Their heart belongs to them. 's home.

This may be the young Chen Xiaoyu’s new interpretation of concepts such as nostalgia and home in response to the current era: as long as people find their spiritual belonging, they will find their home. Therefore, at the end of the film, Zhou Jin, the mother, welcomed the end of her life calmly, and Nian Zhen and Nian Qing did not feel too sad, while A Tao used the open-mindedness and transparency of a new human being to dissolve the heaviness of "homelessness" because Home is only in your own heart. Perhaps what the Golden Rooster Award judges praised highly was the director's poetic and light expression.

Source: Beijing Youth Daily