Venice Film Festival: Three trends in the art film

While China is the second largest movie market in the world, fewer Chinese films come to the Venice International Film Festival. Film director Barbara believes this is because more and more Chinese filmmakers are filming films that suit the tastes of local audiences and abandon the international market.

"The Venice Film Festival is an old friend of Chinese movies," Alberto Barbera, chairman of the Venice Film Festival, told a Southern Weekend reporter with a smile.

But "old friend" has encountered new problems. "Finding a movie in China that fits the taste of the international market is now difficult, as more and more Chinese filmmakers have abandoned the international market and taken only films that suit the tastes of local audiences." This is Barbara's observation.

In 2013, Barbera to China to select films, almost can not find a Golden Lion entry level of the film, and finally only Wen Yan's directorial debut "Watermark Street" short-listed film festival critic Zhou unit.

In 2012, China's annual revenue of movie box office reached 17.07 billion, surpassing Japan and becoming the second largest movie market in the world. In 2013, China's annual box office revenue even reached 21.7 billion yuan. The Chinese films that contributed to this box office are, in the opinion of the insiders, mostly local commercial films that "can not go out".

Wang Xiaoshuai's new film "Intruder" is the only Chinese film in the Golden Lion Award Competition Unit. Although it has not been won, Wang Xiaoshuai's new movie "Variety", "Hollywood Report" and other media reviews are "adequate standards." "Variety" magazine commentary, "Intruder" and the show film "Dear" and "Golden Age" are just some of the "accidental" stories of Chinese films: "The high box office of commercial films in China is already threatening to meet international markets Taste of art film production. "

"Everyone is saying how good the Chinese movie market is, but we see only one Chinese movie appearing in the main competition unit.What does Chinese film really contribute to world cinema?" At the opening ceremony of the festival, an Italian woman reporter Aggressive questions. She named for Ann Hui answer. Ann Hui is the current Venetian Film Festival "Horizon" unit jury chairman, and the other two Chinese women, actor Chen Chong and director, producer Yan, respectively, as the Golden Lion Jury and the "Lion of the Future" best debut award unit Judges. They became the "China" image attracting attention at the festival.

Xu Anhua paused for two seconds and said: "We do have a lot of money making movies right now, but money can not explain everything.We still have a lot of room for improvement, and we are doing our best."

History does not go past simply

The story of "intruder" took place in modern Beijing. LV, Hermès, Apple Computer ...... These brand names continue to appear in the movie, reflecting the Chinese "good day." In such a good day, Lao Deng, an empty nephew played by Lu Zhong, has repeatedly been in trouble. She often did not say hello to "break into" the lives of two sons, and daughter-in-law, the younger son of homosexuality, but also let her do not know how to deal with. When alone at home, Lao Deng was often harassed by a silent phone call, and a 16-year-old boy followed her like a ghost.

Wang Xiaoshuai gave Lao Deng a very strong side. She has inflicted damage on others, just to allow her youngest son to be born in Beijing to make your family better. But social changes she can not control, several children are not as she wishes, she tried to strong control, but did not succeed. "Where did this strong control come from? Back in the past, in fact, our generation and the previous generation have also been strongly controlled." Wang Xiaoru, born in 1966, said.

The film "Intruder", when translated into English, has no literal translation but translates into "Red Amnesia," highlighting the flaws of the Cultural Revolution.

Wang Xiaoshuai attempts to explain to the Western audience the connection between the "Cultural Revolution" scars and reality. "I saw through my parents that they were actively seeking to recover themselves in their later years, but now the society has become so distracting that our history has not simply flowed past." More than thirty years have passed since China's reform and opening up Year, but the influence we have undergone in our spirit has not changed completely till now.History has created a generation of people including me, as well as China with a red mark.Nowadays, many people make introspection in order to make China move toward a more When strong, add more rationality and stop repeating the past where many people are harmed and many are hurting themselves. "

In 1986 Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci came to China to film the "Last Emperor," and also addressed the Beijing Film Academy. At that time, Wang Xiaoshuai was still a student of the director's department. "It is a great stimulus for me to have a master character come to China to take the story of the Chinese emperor in the past. The film has reached a certain height and can cross regional and cultural differences . "In the" Last Emperor ", Bertolucci finished the palace, also photographed Pu Yi into ordinary people after the real life. Wang Xiaoshuai is very much inspired: to take a Chinese, but also "international" story, "In addition to passing on cultural symbols, but also convey the human existence, life and emotional state."

The movie "intruders" end, Lao Deng returned to the year when "educated youth" of Guizhou small town, looking for their own past. She walked through a row of dilapidated old brick factory area, "Hawthorn" music sounded in front of reporters, several French, Italian middle-aged audience, followed by humming melodies.

"Watching Intruders takes a little patience and close attention, but the film, which is a good show, will give us a glimpse into the complex history of China, a confused relationship with the past that has led them to the modern Chinese society embarrassing situation. "" Hollywood Report "such a comment.

"I do not necessarily fit the current market."

"Dear" premiere in Venice, the judges Chen Chong quietly entered the theater. "It touched me." After reading the video, she told Southern Weekend reporter.

Chen Chong was one of the first Chinese actors to deal with world-class directors. In 1986, Bertolucci filming "the last emperor", she played in the film actress Shirley. A scene, she was changing in front of the little emperors, accidentally slipped out of clothes there was a naked shot, and Bertolucci also made some small contradictions, she insisted on a contract with Bertolucci to ensure that This scene can not be put.

"The Last Emperor" won the 60th Oscars Awards, including the best film, best director, best adapted screenplay, including the nine awards, but also to Chen Chong and "Pu Yi" John Dragon onto the Academy Awards. In cooperation with Bertolucci and other Western directors, Chen Chong learned long ago that "human nature is important."

In recent years, Chen Chong often deals with "art films." In 2007, Jiang Wen's "The Sun Also Rises", Chen Chongyan "Dr. Lin" is a coquettish, somewhat morose, feminine symbol of a woman who has been suppressed for too long and has suddenly woken up.

In 2008, Jia Zhangke made "City in Twenty-Four Cities" and Chen Chong-Run was willing to "play a role in the game." He acted as a "factory flower" assigned to the old state-owned factory in Chengdu from Shanghai. "I really like Jia Zhangke's movie, he recorded our times and recorded the changes of the times, the changes of people and the changes of values. He is concerned about people, life and destiny that should be paid attention without concern," Chen Chong told the South Weekend reporter.

In 2012, literary film director Li Yu filming "second exposure", Chen Chong is "running dragon", acting as a plastic surgeon. The reason for her performance is simple: "Li Yu has her own ideas and personality. I really want to know her, know her and see her work."

Chen Chong shot in 1998, his director's debut "day bath." "Heaven bath" adapted according to Yan Geling novel, about "Cultural Revolution", Sichuan female educated youth show in order to return to the city, betrayed his own body, and eventually even catch the tragic story of life. The film was banned in the country, but Chen Chong won the Taiwan 35th Golden Horse Award for best director.

After "day bath", Chen Chong no longer be director. Sometimes I had something I wanted to shoot, but when I looked at one or two people, the other side answered "too high" and "not commercial."

"I'm not necessarily particularly suitable for the current market." Chen Chong seemed rather helpless: "Now that the audience of the younger generation in China is living peacefully without any major movement, economic development has deprived people of their thinking, Focus on trying to make money, and not encouraging you to think deeply. "

Chen Chong also served as judge for many film festivals such as Berlin Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival. In her view, the "global story" that can be accepted by the global audience wins against "the excavation of one's humanity and one's humanity."

"People like everything after all, but there are things that challenge one of your previous senses, which make you think more deeply about your own life, the destiny of mankind, and its significance and necessity." Chen Chong told Southern Weekend reporter. At the Venice Film Festival, she saw some competition films, "under some pressure to have a good ending, and the whole movie was destroyed."

The same high-rise buildings, how to shoot the Chinese texture

Wen Yan's judges are cut into neat pieces: watching two or three movies a day, every two or three days, the judges meet together to discuss until the last day, then make a decision overall. "We do not usually like movies that are specially calculated at first glance, you can not see the talent, you can not see the vitality, and you have all kinds of worries, the good things are really personal and heartfelt ."she says.

Wen Yan is the producer of the movie "Daydream." In 2014, the film won the Gold Medal at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and the Silver Bear at Best Actor, with over 100 million domestic box office receipts. "Daydream" was quickly given a number of labels such as "a template for the integration of literary film and business."

In 2013, Wen Yan was the director at the Venice Film Festival. Her debut "Watermark Street" finalists the 70th Venice Film Festival film critic Zhou unit. Watermark Street tells a sad love of a young man in a Chinese city whose life was upset by a storm of accidental involvement. Wen Yan wants to explore a paradoxical state of existence: "For example, modern technology intervenes in our privacy and can both protect you and hurt you."

"Watermark Street" 2.5 million investment, shooting lasted a month. The young people in the film no longer come from China's rural areas or the urban-rural junction. They come from the cities and listen to the same pop music as the West and live similar lives with them. At the Venice premiere, an Italian film magazine commented that the movie reminds them of the "magnification" of Antonioni's film, both a change of reality and illusion.

"China is changing, Beijing may not be so exotic, are the same high-rise buildings .How to shoot the Chinese texture in such a scene?" Wen Yan said that this is her often thinking.

Concerned about the fate of the bottom small, many Western movies will do. However, if an author is very pampered on his daily life and completely ignores the underlying life, he suddenly writes a handicapped person and a bottom-class person. "I think that's not sincere, and the movie he shoots will definitely have problems." Wen Yan Said that the famous directors of Belgium, Darnet Brothers, whose main characters were coal miners, carpenters, cleaning ladies and the unemployed, had their means of reaching those people without overlooking or giving alms.

Three trends in the art film

On September 6, 2014, Xu An's Xiao Hong biography "The Golden Age" came to a close for the 71th Venice Film Festival.

The Golden Age tells the brief life of Xiao Hong, a Chinese female writer from the 1920s to the 1940s, and her feelings with writers Xiao Jun and Duan Mulao. In the three-hour video, more than thirty scholars from the Republican era appeared. They are facing the camera, with their own memories and impressions, for the audience put together a Xiao Hong.

It is not an easy task for Chinese audiences to fully seat more than 30 people. Ann Hui explained that she insisted on trying a different way of narrating, "that is, to turn everything into a pending case. We did not say something for you to finalize, but according to the first-hand information she wrote and my friend wrote , Sorted out, there is suspicion to tell you is a mystery.

Judging from audience reaction, this is not a very successful experiment. "Xu Anhua ambitious, she wanted to put a lot of big picture in this movie, that era of literary generation in the Republic of China, as well as during the Japanese invasion of China, political and personal choice of the conflict, to establish a biographical film Standard ... But it is precisely these ambitions that bind her, creating the "golden age." "Variety" magazine commented.

In 2011, Ann Hui at the Venetian Film Festival film "Peach sister", won the praise from the Western audience and the media, "Peach sister, a gentle, textured, low-key humanistic woman, but also perfection in Ann Hui Movie tag. "

Xu Anshun most of the time used to fulfill the "Horizon" unit judges chairman duties. Unlike the Golden Lion, the Horizon unit focuses its efforts on experiments and innovations in cinema to capture the trends and trends in the future of the world's cinema.

"I do not know the names of many countries, but many movies are very good.The surge in the world are new directors, they go to the Western Film Institute, and then back to their own country filming." Ann Hui told Southern Weekend reporter.

From these films, Xu Anshun saw the three currents of art films in the world today: one is to reflect the nihility of modern young people, "cut their hands, drug addicts, and wander away from home, and then they are particularly justifiably"; one category she calls " Third World "countries, such as the theme of war in the Arab region or the story of an old woman living alone in the midst of a war on the Middle East. Another category is the traditional critical theme, such as suing for certain systems.

The most likely to touch her, the first is the critical theme, "the last to judge what is not important, showing the most important, if you can put into what he presents, you are educated."

To attend the Venice Film Festival, in Ann Hui's view, is a process of learning how to tell the story of a world movie. "Learning about people's things is not necessarily technology, but cultural things - what their country is and what their life is like. But sometimes because we are too nervous, too scared, afraid of our films No prize, no time to enjoy other people's movies, but this is the most important festival. "She told Southern Weekend reporter.