Jin Jide, another Korean director I like very much, said, "In Korea, I am the third, Jiang Digui is the second and Li Cangdong is the first." Movie master Dai Jinhua also called him the best director in Asia and one of the best directors in the world, which shows Li Cangdong's recognition in Asia and the world.
The era of walking alone
As for literary and artistic works, only by reflecting the rut of the times can they stand the precipitation of years and become classics. Li Cangdong obviously did it.
He especially likes Lu Xun's works and loves critical realism. His films practice that "tragedy is to tear up beautiful things for people to see", but they do not completely copy Lu Xun's pungent and ironic style.
With historical thinking and respect, during his film career of more than 20 years, he directed and scripted six feature films, each of which reflected on the shortcomings of the times with cold eyes without losing profound humanistic care.
Many movies in South Korea describe the revenge and counterattack of human nature under the dark life, but he is like a handsome son who does the opposite in the big environment of business entertainment to death, adding a touch of poetry to the Korean film market. He is just talking about how life drives a person to a dead end and how to ruin his life.
Mint is the masterpiece of Destruction. The unique flashback narrative brings the audience back to the past again and again. If we turn the upside-down seven times into a straight sequence, it tells the story of a middle-aged man, Jin Yonghao, who was cornered step by step by the traces of the times and finally committed suicide against the roaring train. However, the ingenious seven backtracking allows the audience to sort out the timeline again and again in the process of watching movies and trace back to the source of the protagonist's despair. Like duckweed in the wind, he was held high by the torrent of the times and fell heavily, unable to control his own direction.
There are many details in it. At the beginning of the film, we will find that the hero is a little lame. When we go back, we will suddenly realize that this is the trace left by the Gwangju incident and the war. His foot was injured by a bullet. Later, although the war was far away, traces still existed. Just as his whole personality and destiny are closely related to the times. Mint not only criticizes the times, but also reflects on the characters' indulgence and depravity.
Every film work carries the director's own genes. The tragic Gwangju incident and his childhood exploited by the government have become the shadows of Li Cangdong who followed him closely, making him more deeply aware of the turbulent changes in history than ordinary people.
In Yang Mi, he boldly questioned people's beliefs, and his discussion of religion reached its peak. A mother who lost her child became a Christian, singing forgiveness for the murderer of her child again and again.
When he saw the murderer, he said simply, "Thank God for forgiving me, I have been doing very well" without any remorse.
Later, she challenged the authority of religion again and again, rebelled against God, and even lured priests to find psychological identity. From believing in religion to resisting it, she dared to face the pain. She must not force a smile and deceive herself, saying that God loves us, but the person who loves her the most is around. Movies are also using this awakening to make the ending warm.
Li Cangdong is a calm director. This is how he discusses the choice of human values. The close combination of this era and personal reflection must be worth staying for repeated aftertaste.
Elegance: the balance between sweetness and bitterness
If Park Chan-wook is a furious and self-deprecating domino player, then Li Cangdong is more like a kind grandfather who sees through the vicissitudes of the world and slowly reveals the pulse of the times to children by telling stories.
His film style is euphemistic and implicit, with soft poetry, but it also sharply expresses everyone's sadness. The elegance in his films attracted me, which was different from Jin Jide's obscure Zen poems. His lines are gorgeous and elegant.
Perhaps it has a considerable connection with his poor family background and writer background. He maintains a normal attitude towards life, always taking the intellectual's calmness and caring for the people at the bottom. Therefore, it can be said that he is a representative of "writer's films", and his films all express deep insight and complete thinking about real life.
This elegance and gentleness can best be reflected in my favorite "Oasis" in the green trilogy.
In my mind, this movie about love can be compared with Titanic.
Oasis tells the love story of a woman with cerebral palsy played by So-ri Moon and Hong Zhongdu, a released prisoner played by Xue Jingqiu.
The scene of "Rape on Meeting" shocked me, not because Li Cangdong used a large-scale plot to attract the audience's attention, but because he made this passionate scene extremely restrained and sad, without deliberately beautifying it, but objectively expressed ugliness-perhaps a woman with cerebral palsy with a distorted face lacked sex, so she was at a loss.
I can feel the longing for love or lust caused by Han Gongzhu's long-term neglect by his family, the grievance of being violated at the first meeting, and the feeling that he is a vulnerable group and can't resist or even give up fighting.
This is why his elegant film temperament will not make people feel false. He exposes the inner feelings of the people at the bottom, instead of deliberately pursuing scar literature or monologues of alcohol and tobacco to create a melodramatic atmosphere.
It is reasonable to say that the scene of rape on meeting will make us hate Hong Zhong and sympathize with Han Gongzhu, but Li Cangdong can turn Gan Kun around and surprise us with the love of these two ordinary people.
The hero's seamless escape from the surreal scene of cold reality and fantasy is undoubtedly the most romantic and elegant display of the whole film. The two scenes of dancing on the subway and at home are simply engraved in DNA.
Hong's eyes fell on a couple sitting opposite each other on the subway, while Gong Zhu was sick and even had a problem standing. The long lens moves back, Gong Zhu stands up, and her distorted facial expression is replaced by a sweet smile. She patted Hong Zhongdu's head with a water bottle. Then the next second, the camera pulls us back to reality, still her twisted face. In the contrast between reality and ideal, she can't help but feel the biting coolness.
In a small room, Hong Zhong imagined a bright world. Indian women and children hold elephants and dance with them. The room is full of petals. They kissed in such an environment. However, Hong Zhongdu only beautified this cramped environment in his mind, because people's cognition is limited and they can't escape the shackles of reality.
When fantasy suddenly falls into the abyss, Li Cangdong sets off the cynicism around with a little sweetness, which is the edge hidden in elegance.
Elegance is not all-inclusive, but clearly proclaiming beauty and implicitly expressing pain.
The world is big, we just need a little love.
Oasis: a family portrait that touched me for a long time
In my opinion, poetry and elegance are different concepts. Elegance is the temperament of the whole person, painful and romantic, which adds color to the work, while poetry contains the grand theme of life and the use of some images and techniques in the narrative mode.
Burning in 20 18, it is hard to imagine that crime movies are poetic and unique in Korean movies that win by bloody violence.
What makes countless audiences linger is the graceful dance of Haimei at sunset.
Haimei was naked, and the silhouette was shot against the light. It was beautiful, but it gradually merged with the darkness. Where should a person belong when he takes off his ornaments? Li Cangdong used this dance to boldly express the confused core and nihilism of the role, which was of course attributed to the state that young people didn't know where to go under the background of the times.
Regarding the poetic nature of his narrative, the best discussion must mention the film "Poetry".
The film tells the story of a 65-year-old woman, Taimeizi, who seeks salvation by writing poems under the close pain of life. She looked for sporadic poetry in the tired reality, and even looked at the wild flowers on the roadside for a long time. Finally, Miko left a blank ending, but before her hat was blown into the water by the wind, the girl's eyes drowned herself at the end, bringing an open ending to the audience, and we also vaguely guessed her choice.
This movie is also different from other movies. It uses a lot of artificial music, but natural sounds, and the dialogue is greatly reduced, showing a kind of quietness and forbearance, which makes us feel the uncut beauty of the witch's heart and Li Cangdong's unique grasp of the female perspective.
In herring, Mo Dong sat on the ruins, calling for his brother with cerebral palsy and recalling the herring in his childhood, but his brother couldn't respond.
At the end, Li Cangdong deliberately avoided describing the process of getting rid of poverty in the late Eastern family, only showing that the family lived the life they wanted in the sun. This way of leaving blank makes us feel the numbness and neglect of our family's death in the late East.
Killing a chicken is even more shocking. The chicken was strangled by family and society, but it was caught by brother cerebral palsy and handed over to the gangster. The rulers are alive and well, and the bottom people will always serve them. The use of this image has brought irony to the extreme.
Including the red cloth floating over the head, red is the representative color of desire, symbolizing dazzling and suffocating love.
The train is also a frequent visitor to his films, often appearing in mint and poetry as a turning point in life.
Li Cangdong said that he was a loner in troubled times, so he always gave people hope at the end, just like the names of a series of movies, such as oasis, green fish, mint, poetry and sunshine. ...
Oasis is the crumbling branch of a big tree that Hong Zhongdu escaped from prison, and it is the shadow of Han Gongzhu's fear every night. Herring is a clear childhood memory. Mint is usually the most inconspicuous candy we have never paid attention to. Poetry is the love pursued by the witch in her later years, and the hidden sunshine falls all over the ground.
I think hope is another name for poetry! If we still have pens and can write poems, the backlog of emotions will not be without homes.
Regarding fog, the most wonderful performance is burning. Regarding this film, the audience has different opinions on the truth, and there are too many hints and deep meanings hidden under the camera and in the dialogue.
A cow at the end of the corridor, "love to cook" and anti-social personality that can't cry make the audience think about "sacrifice".
At the end, Zhong Xiu's nudity reminds me of the naked dance of Haimei mentioned above. Zhong Xiu wants to get away with it and keep her purity in a pool of blood. Haimei's nudity wants to be free, shed her heavy body and pursue the meaning of life. Perhaps Zhong Xiu finally understood Haimei's nudity. In a sense, they both mean the same thing. Haimei is an unloved girl on the edge, so Zhong Xiu is her light.
The last long shot was very shocking. Ben was stabbed, but hugged Zhong Xiu. The first meaning is to liberate yourself. Ben is an empty and lazy man, and he will only be happy if he burns down the barn. Secondly, it is the pleasure of spilling your own blood on Zhong Xiu, which should be the source of evil, but it was transmitted to Zhong Xiu, including smoking marijuana. Finally, Zhong Xiu burned Ben's car and body, which is more like a kind of inheritance.
In addition, the little girl's crime is not described in Yang Mi, but let the audience think more about the film through the details and realize the meaning of tolerance and redemption.
Everything implicitly and clearly expresses the director's profound meaning. Obscurity is because he didn't say what he wanted to say directly with his lines. Make it clear because the audience will not think that he is deliberately seeking an ambiguous and artistic sword, but will only understand it as seeking truth in the fog. In the process of exploration, he will constantly think about human nature and the ownership of life.
He casts his own rich and unique ideological content in popular aesthetics.
This is my favorite Korean director Li Cangdong. I hope we can all live a poem.