Film Name: 无价之宝 / Be My Family
Be My Family is a movie that I didn’t think much of when I first saw it, and I went to a screening on Sunday night with the intention of going through the motions.
After watching the whole movie, I found that the movie gave me quite complicated feelings: on the one hand, it is really not gripping enough, the plot is scattered, there is a lack of polishing, but on the other hand, it will be in a lot of unintentional details and turning points, to give me touching and emotional.
All in all, the quality of this movie exceeded my expectations.
Director Zhang Dapeng has been making short films and commercials before, which is one of his strengths. Be My Family has a refreshing and effective way of dealing with small dramas and delicate feelings, such as the death wish and hysteria of Uncle San, the “male mother”, and his attitude towards his adopted daughter Qian Qian. There are not many lines, but they are precise enough to keep the story chewy while it melts in your mouth, which is rare.
Of course, the director’s strengths also reveal his weaknesses to a certain extent, that is, there are more traces of “microfilm”, and the articulation and integration of the entire feature film is a bit out of tune, and it can’t be said that the two threads of 1995 and the one of 2007 are clearly separated, but it also reveals a sense of tearing, like the balloons that appeared in the movie, which is very romantic, It’s romantic, it’s written, it’s got a lot of camera language and authorship, but you have to pull on it all the time, you can’t let it break or float away, otherwise something is going to happen to the people underneath the balloon.
But in the story of Be My Family, the balloon is doomed to get into trouble …… The same is true, I’m afraid, of the movie’s pacing.
It is worth mentioning that the film’s casting, persona and performance are very important plus points, Cheng Xi, Zhou still played the size of Qian Qian, respectively, for the film added a lot of flexible warmth, even Pan Binlong’s four or five uncles do not look like some of his other roles croak, the most appreciated is the Zhang translation of the third uncle Shi Zhenbang, guilty of axis without losing dexterity, coy but also show sincerity, which may be the best performance of his recent years.
Finally, I can’t help but sigh that the Northeast in the 1990s is really an inexhaustible treasure trove of literary creation. Because of its history of prosperity and decline, the most representative wave of layoffs and “finding a way out”, and the narrative of the times that we have always been limited, that part of the Northeast is the most suitable stage for writing about the rusting of iron and steel and the refurbishment of rust.
In the case of Be My Family, the main character, Shi Zhenbang, has a lot of images of responsibility, scars, sacrifices, sadness, and vitality in the Northeast buried in his body.
Perhaps it is true that “good people suffer the most”…… but no matter what era, we need to treat and remember these “good people who suffer”.
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