Film Name: 吉祥如意 / The Reunions
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie like The Reunions that could make me think like this…… months of waiting, it was worth it.
This movie uses the most simple and simple lens to cut into the muscle of thousands of Chinese people, and also pierced into the heart of every person who has realized something.
As long as you are a Chinese-speaking adult, as long as you have been in the society for some years, you will definitely find yourself or your relatives in this movie.
The Reunions is full of surprises, but its “accidental” qualities also bring out the reality that our future may not be as clear as we think, because the way we came from is gradually becoming blurred and dark.
[Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below, but they’re not relevant, and I hope you’ll read the rest of The Reunions whether you plan to see it or not].
The Reunions is divided into two parts; the first half is a pseudo-documentary, A Final Reunion, in which director Roc films his family life after returning to his hometown, and the second half is a real documentary, The Reunions, which chronicles the filming of A Final Reunion.
Let’s start with A Final Reunion.
The protagonist is Dapeng’s third uncle, Wang Jixiang, a 62-year-old demented old man who can eat and sleep but has no sense of normalcy and cannot take care of himself.
Through the film’s various information clues can be found, the third uncle was the family’s five siblings in the most capable, the biggest contributor, as a soldier, has done the security section chief, but also helped the relatives a lot of help, but unfortunately, the prime of the mental problems, his wife and he divorced, but also took his daughter Wang Qingli.
Third uncle usually repeated recitation of “Wen Wu Xiang Gui, one, two, four, five”, is the name of the two brothers and sisters younger brother, coupled with the phrase “looking for mother in the morning”, and can recognize the daughter who has not seen for many years, all proved that he cares about his own loved ones in his heart the most.
As the story gradually unfolds, Uncle Sam’s relatives have also entered the role – the family’s real bond is the common mother, when the old lady died, the group also lost the most important bond ……
So, after taking new family photos, (perhaps for the last time) gathered together for New Year’s Eve, the family began to discuss a clichéd “new problem”: Wang Jixiang how to resettle? Is to let 10 years for the first time in the hometown of the daughter Wang Qingli pick up, or let has taken care of the oldest three 20 years of the oldest two families continue to bear the burden, or everyone together with the money to contribute to think of a way?
The discussion gradually turned into a quarrel, until the end of the movie, did not give Wang Jixiang how to stay or go the answer ……
Like millions of ordinary families, Wang’s family has filial piety, warmth, unity, affection and warmth, but also shirking, good-faith, negative dilemmas and helplessness, and the first half of the movie ends in Wang Jixiang’s solo walk in the snow.
Up to this point, A Final Reunion can only be regarded as a good documentary short film reflecting the plight of a rural family, it is so plain and unadorned that I was a bit sleepy when I first watched it, until the family’s hidden worries slowly surfaced, and I felt the reality and difficulty of this family.
The Reunions, which followed, completely changed the entire atmosphere of the movie, chopping up and smoothing out the cuts of life shown in A Final Reunion, and handing them back to the viewers’ eyes.
If “A Final Reunion” can only make some people with similar experiences empathize with it, then “The Reunions” will take all the rest of them in one go.
Director Dapeng went from behind the scenes to in front of the curtain, and Wang Jixiang’s real daughter Wang Qingli also appeared – Liu Lu, who plays Wang Qingli, is the only actor in the whole movie, and all the other roles are “colorful”, but in The Reunions, we can see that life is more intricate and complicated, and difficult to talk about. But in The Reunions, we get to see life in a much more intricate and complicated way.
To explain this feeling, it is enough to mention a very representative scene: on New Year’s Eve, during a family dinner, as the older generation gets into an argument, the humiliated “Wang Qingli” suddenly kneels down and cries to apologize to the elders, and then runs away from the camera under the influence of her emotional outbursts. …… The sound was left to the quarrel that should have been shouted “stop” but still continued, and the picture was given to the two Wang Qingli hiding in the next door.
Yes, a fake and a real two Wang Qingli at this time in the same frame, the difference is that the fake daughter is lost in the spirit of dry sitting silent, the real daughter in the matter of their own playing the phone.
A “truthfulness” that should be in everyone’s common sense is fake; a surprisingly chilling “indifference” is real.
In The Reunions, actress Liu Lu is more like (and indeed) an outsider, unable to understand the character she plays, asking Wang Qingli’s question, “I still don’t understand why you didn’t come back for ten years. Just like Wang Jixiang’s stay or go, there is never an answer.
Is Da Peng trying to use this strong contrast to criticize “Wang Qingli’s” family responsibilities and ethics? People with a little bit of empathy will not come to such a conclusion.
Because we are outsiders, we can’t know exactly what the people involved think.
In my opinion, the real and fake Wang Qingli very different performance there is a common point, that is, are a kind of escape from the reality of the painful oppression …… With the blurring of the character image inside and outside the camera, the heavy emotions about family and countryside, but also quietly infected everyone.
Director Dapeng, likewise, is a party that cannot stay out of it.
Even if we don’t talk about the content, The Reunions, the film’s creative techniques and genre exploration and other performance are also noteworthy – but I don’t think there is a need to deconstruct and analyze too much effort, because to a large extent, this is an unrepeatable creative experience, and it can even be said that, to give Roc 10,000 times, he can’t make another movie. opportunities, he wouldn’t be able to make The Reunions again.
From 2016 to 2020, the four-year production of The Reunions has encountered too many accidents, the protagonist has changed from Roc’s grandma to his third uncle, Liu Lu has changed from playing Roc to playing Wang Qingli, and after the opening of the real Wang Qingli has gone home again ……
With all the mishaps, the movie eventually became what it is now, with Roc completing The Reunions in a state of constant abuse.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to belittle Roc, on the contrary, as a filmmaker who can never take off the label of “comedy”, I admire Roc’s ability to make such a “non-commercial” realistic work in spite of his own difficulties. I admire him very much.
Moreover, Dapeng may not have thought that his movie, which is full of “accidents”, has accidentally accomplished a rare ideological proposition of the times: where will the young generation “return to their roots” in the future when they “lose their leaves”? Where will the young generation “return to their roots” when they “fall” in the future?
The most impressive line in The Reunions is actually a line from Dapeng, to the effect that I feel like I’ve become two people. The one in Beijing hasn’t been back to his hometown for New Year’s Eve for a few years, and he’s pretty much forgotten all about the people and things at home, but the one who came back has become the other one, and his mind is full of things here (at home).
It may be worthwhile to convert this context, we always say “often go home to see”, “home is a warm harbor”, but when this “home” in their own hearts continue to blur or even disappeared? But what about when this “home” keeps blurring or even disappearing in one’s heart?
This land under our feet is experiencing the most enormous social change in thousands of years, to land, clan and other elements of the inheritance of the model is rapidly declining, population migration, housing demolition, spatial and temporal changes, conceptual innovation and so on are also unprecedented rate and way of …… Due to the special reason of epidemic prevention, this year we will also be Experiencing an unprecedented “New Year’s Eve wave in a different place”, under the joint impetus of subjective and objective factors, countless people are consciously or unconsciously pushing away the memory of “home”.
The Reunions” has brought out an unspoken but realistic question: while the ‘roots’ of the older generation are gradually aging, withering and fading, where will the ‘roots’ of the younger generation be?
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