Hou Xiaoxian's "City of Sadness" seems to be a difficult movie for young audiences today.
Mixed languages, mixed ethnic groups, complicated history, not to mention the cultural codes scattered throughout the daily life of seemingly movie characters: Nanyang, war, promotion, economy, class, bureaucracy... It's too hard to understand.
Therefore, I will analyze this work in depth from three aspects.
The complexity of Taiwanese identity
After the storm of history, riding on the raft of the times is still moving silently and steadily towards the sun. The director Hou Xiaoxian of
takes family affection and love as the main axis, and takes the surrender of Japan in World War II and the February 28th incident as the background , laying out the social atmosphere and values of the time. Although it is the "City of Sadness" called Sadness, it is a sadness that makes people cry but can't cry, leaving only a condensed mood.
In recent years, many Taiwanese have this kind of cultural disorder. On the one hand, many "movements" with various demands have been introduced one after another.
and always ignore the process of culture itself mutating on this land for a long time .
I really like Wenqing’s deaf and mute arrangement. Apart from the deaf and mute meaning that the people of Taiwan cannot prove their identity, the dialogues with other people are also presented with subtitles. Wenqing’s dialogue, click After the key plot before this subtitle, looking at this still picture with only black and white, through a brief description of the text, it seems to have been to the scene of long-term colonization, and there is a feeling of weeping.
Therefore, "City of Sadness" not only exposes the complexity of Taiwanese society, but also reminds us that these differences are not black and white.
's simplest classification method can roughly divide Taiwanese society into "locals" and "outsiders".
With such a framework, you can understand "City of Sadness" as a movie about people in the province-after all, the protagonist's family fits this classification. Most of the dialogue in the film is either Taiwanese or Japanese (Taiwan was a Japanese colony in 1895-1945), and residents at the time usually communicated in these two languages.
In fact, the most nasty scene in the movie expresses the connection between language and Taiwanese identity: a group of people from the province pick up a dumb person on the train (he is actually a native of the province), they I was about to retaliate against the provincial people, so the dumb character was asked to speak Taiwanese or Japanese (both languages were not spoken by the provincial people at the time). The inaudible character said nothing at first. Until he realized what was going on, he hesitated and shouted: "I am Taiwanese!"
followed by the scene of Jiufen's mountains and seas and the dining table. Although it is still connected to "Love in the Wind", at the beginning, Chen Songyong's Jianghu Taiwanese, and then the photographer's Japanese, and then, Xin Shufen played Kuanmei in an elegant Taiwanese diary:
"November 8th of Showa 20th, good day, there are clouds."
The era of Japanese occupation ends, Taiwan People are ruled by foreign military regimes one after another. Should they regard themselves as Japanese? Or Chinese? Or the only line the actor Wen Qing uttered in the film: "Taiwanese?"
and in a sensitive period in Taiwan , Taiwanese film and television works as long as they use Taiwanese in the dialogue will be cut off by the government or directly banned. At that time, martial arts films and romance films replaced socially significant films or art films. At that time, almost no film could gain attention outside the Chinese-speaking world.
But in the 1980s, Taiwan entered a stage of democratization, and the film and television industry also ushered in a new wave. A group of cutting-edge directors began to produce more realistic and localized movies to record the lives of Taiwan residents.
Hou Xiaoxian is a member of these new directors, and "City of Sadness" is the first internationally renowned movie in this new wave. This achievement of confirms the strength of the new directors and makes Taiwanese films a force in international films.
If you prefer the earlier Taiwanese movies, such as "Cape No. 7" or "Meng Jia", some of the British thank Hou Hsiao-hsien for letting theseThere are opportunities for rising stars. This is because many directors who debuted after 2000 are bestowed by their predecessors who set off a new wave before. If the predecessors hadn't created the world, Taiwan’s film and television industry would not have the prosperous scene it is today.
He is the director Hou Xiaoxian who brought Taiwanese films to the international stage and set a benchmark for his creation. The
film is a faithful recording tool in Hou Hsiao-hsien's hands, describing as much as possible the life level of Taiwan at a certain stage and under a certain situation, and such an attempt is even more prominent in "City of Sadness".
Looking back at Hou Xiaoxian, he can be said to be one of the most important Taiwanese directors in the new film period in Taiwan.
His films are not only internationally acclaimed, but they have developed a unique visual language and a sense of reality with deep humanistic care. They have also made him become a well-known senior film critic Jiao Xiongping. "Not only a conscious artist, but also a sense of mission." Historian".
"City of Sadness" may not be the best work of Hou Xiaoxian, but this movie is indeed a few steps ahead of its time.
Before the start of Taiwan’s history education, Hou Hsiao-hsien, with "a kind of depressive air", overturned the grief and indignation of his father’s elders who deceived and rode, and outlined where Taiwan’s "sadness" came from. It is a pity, five or six of watching movies. Most generations do not know what "sorrow" is. Their nature is not depressed, but clean, almost ignorant, but the wave after the lifting of the martial law has been coming all the time.
And this wave cannot replace Hou Xiaoxian's care for Taiwan's land. That's why
was born.
And such an excellent movie of course also needs excellent actors to highlight its extraordinary.
Whether it is Chen Songyong who plays Lin’s parents and Wenxiong, or Wenqing’s Tony Leung, or other characters such as Gao Jie, Taibao, Li Tianlu, Xin Shufen, they all play the characters in the play appropriately, especially Chen Songyong, when he reads in the play There will always be swear words in the lines, vividly showing the bad temper of being a gangster.
also plays the role of Tony Leung, who was deaf and dumb as a child because of his injuries. He interprets this role impeccably with his eyes and expressions. Although he was positioned as an actor at that time, he can also see his extraordinary talent for acting.
In this movie, which is mostly pronounced in Taiwanese, at the time the director Hou Xiaoxian did not want to use Tony Leung from Hong Kong as an actor, but because the producer insisted that he must be included in the movie, he could only add it in the script. Modification, and a sudden change of inspiration turned Wen Qing's role into a deaf and mute person, which allowed Tony Leung to perform well.
In addition, Gao Jie, Taibao, Li Tianlu, Xin Shufen, etc. are all hard-bottom actors. Perhaps because of their good scripts, excellent actors and Hou Xiaoxian’s meticulous directing, they were favored by the Golden Lion Award judges. Right.
Auditory historical memory-talk about the soundtrack
, a film that is close to a documentary. What surprised me is that it has quite good music.
Originally, I always thought that the music of many Taiwanese movies is that kind of casual editing and has no appreciation value, but the music of "City of Sadness" written by the Japanese new century music master SENS is really impressive. Although
does not have many passages in the movie, it feels like the soundtrack in the Japanese movie "Akira". A few simple electronic music and drum sounds are quite eye-catching and outstanding under the outline of the composer.
even has background songs that occasionally appear in the film as well. Or the songs sung by Cai Qiufeng and Cai Zhennan in cameo roles in the play are also quite impressive musical applications. Among the Taiwanese movies 20 years ago, the use of the soundtrack of "City of Tragedy" is a model, even if it was once The Golden Horse Award for Best Soundtrack, "Silk" did not have such outstanding performance. Of course, "City of Sadness" naturally captured the hearts of the audience.
1,
"City of Sadness" uses Hou Xiaoxian's usual fixed lens position, long lens, and deliberately shaped text aesthetics throughout the film, constructing the film's unique breathing rhythm, even through writing.An artificial consciousness that gives the viewer the most direct historical imprint on the senses.
The narrative effect, which tends to be inferior to the visual image, may not be as strong as the former on the first impression, but it is cleverly used to supplement or even enrich the historical memory of the film in "City of Sadness", and it is implicit It reveals Hou Xiaoxian's narrative style and humanistic consciousness.
The soundtrack is often used in the film to render the atmosphere, heighten the image of the characters, and strengthen the theme, which has the effect of promoting and catalyzing the mood of the audience . In today's movies, more and more passive soundtracks such as theme songs, interludes, and ending songs are used to persuade strong audiences and deepen the director's will from a third-party narrative perspective.
This is also unmatched by other movies of the same type.
Overview of the application of sound in "City of Sadness", in addition to the film soundtrack produced by the thinkers, and various realistic environmental sounds to pave the whole film, it is more noteworthy that the multilingual situation and intention presented by the character dialogue The interspersed active music not only characterizes the true state of the times, but also invisibly replaces the audience with historical annotations of hearing.
It is worth noting that "City of Sadness" has a particularly intriguing significance in the weight and purpose of the soundtrack.
Unlike most movies that use theme songs and episodes that do not exist in reality to highlight the plot and atmosphere, the soundtrack of "City of Tragedy" accounts for a large proportion. Therefore, how do the several particularly prominent and important music in the movie line up, describe, and show the plot and historical experience that "City of Tragedy" is trying to construct? It will be another way for us to watch this classic work by Hou Xiaoxian.
's first deep-rooted soundtrack in "City of Sadness", appeared in a restaurant where a group of intellectuals such as Wen Qing, Kuan Rong, Teacher Lin gathered for dinner and chat. Teacher Wu, played by Wu Nianzhen, told a joke about the anti-national flag of Baojia, and then Kuanrong changed the subject and said with earnestness: "I speak the truth, and bandits like Chen Yi are also used by the motherland. I think that the Nationalist Government There is no extravagant hope..." The
camera then came outside the restaurant, Wen Qing went out to buy meat skewers, some people shouted at the entrance of the restaurant to solicit customers, some were yelling, and a burst of invisible singing gradually became clear amid the hustle and bustle "Soy sorghum...My home is on the Songhua River in the northeast..." The singing voice is faint, forming a layered sound space with the sound of barbecue. Inside the
restaurant, reporter He identified it as the "Trilogy in Exile", which symbolizes the audience's auditory identification with the subjective voice heard by the characters in the room. As the singing voice fades,
expands into an empty mirror of the seaside landscape, and then the chorus is covered by the faint thunder, the picture is cut to the width of the clothes, it seems to express the tranquility before the storm.
Popular science, "Trilogy in Exile" is a popular patriotic song during the War of Resistance Against Japan, is composed of "Songhua River", "Leaving Home" and "Going Frontline" composed of , and in the film Kuan Rong and other intellectuals The chorus passages are taken from the first piece "On the Songhua River" composed by Zhang Hanhui in 1936, which describes the people's longing and sorrow for the three northeastern provinces occupied by Japan after the September 18th Incident.
When these intellectuals comfortably sang their heads after dinner, they could neither experience the sorrow of losing their homeland in the lyrics of "Songhua River", nor could they arouse the indignation and patriotism of the anti-Japanese through the "Exile Trilogy", revealing Taiwan The people have limited knowledge of the motherland. After all, when the September 18th Incident occurred, the Taiwanese not only under Japanese colonial rule, but also sent troops to fight for Japan. The sentiment for the Songhua River in the northeast can be said to be minimal, let alone the feelings of the Chinese people in exile.
Therefore, this period of seemingly longing for the return to the motherland actually echoes the truth from Kuan Rong, implying the divergence of the fundamental complex between the two places, and the tragedy that is about to tear eternal scars.
From "On the Songhua River" to "Sorrowful Destiny", these few soundtracks are cleverly used and have made outstanding contributions to the audiovisual language of the entire film, the most important of which is the implementation of Hou Xiaoxian's realism.
and even Hou Xiaoxian selected the characteristic music on behalf of that era, which successfully aroused resonance in the hearts of the audience and created a special time-space background, To achieve the effect that Hou Hsiao-hsien wanted to truly record the social life and historical conditions of Taiwan at that time in "City of Sadness".
2,
set against the upcoming anticipation and hesitation, Hou Hsiao-hsien cleverly inserted the Japanese nursery rhyme "Red Dragonfly" in the film to convey the Taiwanese people's perseverance and desolation from Japanese rule from another angle. The key person who brought out this ballad is Shizuko Ogawa, a Japanese woman who has a deep friendship with forgiveness and grace.
"Red Dragonfly" was written by Miki Rokaze in 1921 and composed by Yamada Koru in 1927. The song is full of the protagonist's nostalgia for his sister, and also symbolizes a gone childhood past.
For Wu Kuanrong, Jingzi is like the old deceased in "Red Dragonfly". The relationship between the two of them can only rely on remembrance in the future, revealing a touch of sadness .
In addition, the simultaneous sound of "Red Dragonfly" played by Jingzi was replaced by a passive piano variation with the same melody, accompanied by scenes that remove the active sound, such as flower arrangement and calligraphy by Jingzi.
In fact, this is also the willingness of the dragonfly to fly high when trapped on the ground. Always living in the plot of fighting against the high-pressure exploitation of the Japanese Empire, the people of Taiwan are eager to return to the embrace of the motherland.
Just as they were talking indignantly, Kuan Mei and Wen Qing quietly came to the corner of the room and played a German folk song "Loreley's Song", which diluted the voice of current affairs.
According to Jiao Xiongping-these seemingly unrelated stories metaphorically explain the extreme romance of the intellectuals on the left and the color of sacrifice for ideals.
Through "Lorelai's Song", we can already imagine that these Taiwanese elites will be like sailors bewitched by banshees, devoting their lives to their romantic and idealized ambitions.
In addition to the Japanese songs and Taiwanese songs mentioned above, there are also puppet play music from the opening of Lin’s Little Shanghai, Wenqing and Kuanmei’s wedding octaves when they married, and Wenqing’s memories of his deafness Different soundtracks such as the children's operas I have heard, and the Beijing opera sung by female artists by the Shanghai gangs in Yidan, make the overall sound environment created by the film conceal the complexity and diversity of the turbulent era.
Hou Xiaoxian realistically involved social, geopolitical, cultural, historical and other issues at the time.
In all fairness, Hou Xiaoxian deliberately selected a large number of soundtracks for the purpose of making the originally dramatic movie obtain a strong sense of reality, closely following the core theme of "City of Sadness".
Looking at the present, it may be that the current good national conditions do not require such magnificent film and television works, but I always feel that compared with that era, there is something missing...
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