Film Name: 走走停停 / Gold or Shit / G for Gap
For a while now, the new film Gold or Shit has been praised to the skies, and with such rave reviews, it has infinitely raised my expectations – but even so, it has given me many surprises.
The film can be considered one of the very few domestic films that truly manages to be restful, leisurely, loose, nice to look at, relaxing, bawdy, and to be had!
One of my favourite things about Gold or Shit is the strong sense of life on which it is built, or rather, it is that strong and pure sense of life that gives birth to such real and moving relaxation.
Life is of course difficult and painful, but it can also be wonderful and joyful, and under the film’s unique filter, life is given an interesting and supple aroma that is tasteless, but sweet and cleansing.
Warm tip: Spoilers below.
Gold or Shit’s entry point is colloquial and delightful:
Wu Di, played by Hu Ge, returns home after failing to drift north and begins his life of looking for a job while nibbling at his old age. One day he bumps into Feng Liu Liu, an old classmate who works for a TV station (why is Gao Yuan Yuan still so beautiful?!), and the latter plans to film a documentary for him. One day he bumps into his old classmate Feng Liu Liu (why is Gao Yuanyuan still so beautiful?!), who intends to make a documentary film about him, thus opening up a new page in their lives with the people around them.
It’s not hard to see that the beginning of the plot is a bit ‘unsavoury’ – Feng Liu Liu wants to capture a northern drifter returning to his hometown to be his own filming material in a small town, and Wu Di wants to take the opportunity to market and show off a bit of himself. The two sides have their own little schemes that lead to this co-operation.
Much of the fun in the first part of the film comes from the tugging and pulling between the two parties, with Wu Di always pretending in front of the camera, and Feng Liu Liu (the film) poking at that pretence through the many shots, with the comedy of contrasts coming out all at once.
But even so, it doesn’t change the fact that Gold or Shit’s story is rooted in muted iniquity and self-interest.
Miraculously, the film doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable, and there are many reasons for this effect, the most important of which, I think, is that the essence of the social atmosphere of Sichuan, Chongqing, and Ba Shu is captured in the film.
Speaking the Southwest official language of Sichuan and Shu region, probably the most know how to enjoy life in China – regardless of the accuracy of this label, but that optimistic, comfortable and open-minded attitude, is not to be faked.
A mix outside for more than 10 years with little success, home GAP nearly 40-year-old man, according to the world’s eyes, that is too failed, born to detonate the family conflict fuse, but look at Wu Di family is how to come over?
Wu Di said big words, cheeky live down, dad, mum and sister, although the heart of the slander, but no one really cynical, the whole family have smoothly accepted.
The closest to the outbreak of a time, is Wu Di unauthorized refusal of his father to introduce him to the job opportunity, the old man this time is really angry, but the wife and daughter of the quick hands, hard to move the pots and pans and the table to move away, held down, and finally the father threw out the glass of wine fell on his head …… The fire has not yet burned it, let the family to I’m not going to be able to do that.
The key is to be happy, to be happy, to look forward, to do what you want to do, not to be angry.
In this kind of family atmosphere and social temperament, Feng Liu Liu’s documentary successfully started shooting, Wu Di’s self-written and self-directed film also started, the family did not fall into any frustration or internal friction, but began to follow Wu Di with the ‘nonsense’ up, even the father who initially did not agree with the matter, but also quickly with words and deeds as part of the ‘comedy’. Even the father, who initially disagrees with the story, quickly turns his words and actions into part of the ‘comedy’.
I think this is the most valuable strength of Gold or Shit: it’s funny but not laughable, light but not frivolous, and always keeps the tone at a humorous and flirtatious frequency without being maliciously mocking, making fun of, offending, or even judging.
Able to distill the everyday laughs of life in an incredibly grounded audio-visual language, the film’s laughs are all very high class, and I cracked up several times during my viewing and was bowled over by them.
It is also worth mentioning that the design of the film’s multiple camera shots contributes a lot to this equal and gentle character narrative.
The camera on which Wu Di and Cao make their film, and the camera on which Feng Liu Liu makes his documentary on Wu Di, form the two perspectives in the film, and with these two shots alone, the falseness of the characters has been removed to a great extent.
Coupled with the multi-camera, multi-genre shooting of Gold or Shit itself, you’ll find that every character featured in the film seems to have no one in a supporting role, and is himself or herself participating in a mundane, yet uninteresting piece of daily life that’s very comfortable to watch the whole way through.
That being said, it’s important to mention the film’s greatest quality: it’s deceptively decentralised, akin to an essay with only a rough outline, where all the seemingly meaningless things come together to form the meaning itself.
In my own understanding, the characters in Gold or Shit have relative but not absolute purposes, and the biggest protagonist is actually ‘life’.
This counter-intuitive design is contrary to what we are used to when we watch dramas. The characters in the film all seem to have their own things they want to do, but not many of them really have a reason or a result: is the mother still regretting that she didn’t go to the Northern Dance that year? What good words did the father say behind the recording camera? What happened between Wu Di and Feng Liu Liu when they met again in a traffic jam? There are no answers.
Even Feng Liu Liu’s documentary was tampered with by the leader – it turned out that Feng Liu Liu’s filming of Wu Di was not all about recording ‘losers’, she also wanted to understand the idea of ‘people who dare to go out of their small towns to the big world’ – Wu Di! ‘The idea of Wu Di has become a complete joke in the eyes of the world, and his mother died in an accident during the filming. ……
Even with so much malice, misinterpretation and bitterness, Gold or Shit digests it all, mourning but not hurting, grieving but not hurting.
Wu Di is like a thriving weed that lives and breathes in spite of the wind, the sun, the rain and the frost.
The English title of Gold or Shit is ‘Gold or Shit’, a question with a strong utilitarian meaning, but after watching the film, you will find that the answer has already been given: who cares who is gold or shit? Life, ah, is always on its own.
We’re here to live our lives, don’t let it get the best of us.
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