Special feature of 1905 film network On April 23rd, the finalists of the Beijing International Film Festival main competition ushered in the world premiere, and at the same time appeared at the launching ceremony of the College Student Film Festival as a specially recommended film.
This film is the first feature film of the new director, starring with a partner. It won the Excellent Project Award of WIP Unit of Beijing International Film Festival Venture Capital in 2021. This time, it will compete with 14 Chinese and foreign new films for the major awards of the Beijing International Film Festival Tiantan Award.
The film is adapted from Douban’s novel "200 Days of Dog Husband", which tells the story of Zhang Qianying, a retired bridge engineer, and Chen Zhiyong, problem of juvenile, who met each other because of a cross-provincial driving trip.
What is the quality of the film? How did Kara Wai and Hu Xianxu do? As the first audience, 1905 Movie Network brings you first-hand viewing evaluation without specific spoilers.
"Look at a Bridge" is a typical road movie. The overall narrative track of the two protagonists from strangeness and conflict to mutual change of attitude and familiarity is very clear.
Although there are smiles and tears, it doesn’t make people laugh like crazy, nor does it make people cry at the end of the journey, but it is between relaxed humor and warm and healing emotional atmosphere.
The film has adapted the role setting and story text of the original work to a certain extent. Chen Zhiyong in the novel is a 30-year-old unemployed and confused young man, and the film changes him into a 20-year-old rebellious boy.
At the beginning of the film, I first follow Chen Zhiyong, played by Hu Xianxu, into his daily life: working in a car repair shop and living in a broken family of origin. He evaded the college entrance examination, was clever, lacked maternal love, and always quarreled with his father. Just as Hu Xianxu shared his understanding of the role after the screening, "He is ignorant, has no respect for his elders, loves to steal things, wants to succeed but doesn’t know the normal way, and always wants to take shortcuts. Give him a few more years and he will grow into an asshole. "
Because of a driving business trip, Chen Zhiyong met Zhang Qianying, a customer. The old lady is alone, suffering from Az Harmo’s disease, and her personality is arrogant and withdrawn. These two are completely from different worlds, with extreme personalities and huge age differences, so they have enough space to collide with the sparks of contradiction and the warm light of reconciliation.
In this journey like On the Road, at first, through their relationship with each other, they created many bickering comedy situations, created a playful and humorous interactive atmosphere, and brought comfortable visual experience with the beautiful scenery along the way.
The film changes the route from Fujian to Inner Mongolia prairie in the novel to from Guangdong to Guizhou, and there are also ingenious ideas behind the change of space.
Guizhou is known as the "Bridge Museum", and nearly half of the top 100 Gao Qiao in the world are located in Guizhou. Kara Wai said that one of the main reasons why she took on this film was that her role was set as a bridge engineer, which highlighted the leading position of Chinese bridges in the world.
The film shooting has brought into play the rich and diverse advantages of bridge landscape in Guizhou, which not only integrates the visual elements of the bridge into the type characteristics of highway films, but also titles the film "Look at a Bridge". It is also regarded as a symbolic image that connects two lonely hearts to form a friendship landscape.
The noteworthy detail is that the foreign language title of the film is "Ciao" in Italian, which means "hello" and "goodbye". The visual motif of "bridge" and the emotional relationship between the two protagonists echo together.
With the continuous progress of the road, the tonality of the film has also deepened into a relatively serious and heavy topic, and she has gradually replaced Chen Zhiyong’s lost position as a mother and replaced his responsibility of educating him.
In the process of constant understanding, the two men uncovered their hidden secrets, formed a friendship of mutual companionship and inseparable, and ended up with a very romantic fairy tale, reaching the two-way expression of death and growth in life issues.
The story frame and theme of the whole film are very clear, but there are still some deficiencies in the internal details.
For example, relying on some contingency and coincidence to promote the plot; The turning point of the relationship between Chen Zhiyong and Zhang Qianying and the transformation of Chen Zhiyong lack clear main events and turning power; The plot trend and structure of the second half are somewhat scattered. ……
In terms of performance, this is not the first time that Kara Wai has played a role with Az Harmo’s disease.
She once interpreted patients with Alzheimer’s disease in the film, and won the Best Actress in the Hong Kong Film Awards. Because this characterization is in the early stage of Harmo’s disease, her portrayal of symptoms is not particularly exaggerated and sensational, which is different from the past.
Kara Wai’s acting skills are still sophisticated and steady, showing the solid skill of the acting school. Regrettably, the breakthrough and surprise are not enough.
Hu Xianxu used the advantage of his sense of youth to interpret the rebellious personality of the role naturally, injecting vitality and conviction. Because of the growth of the characters, the previous unruly and later friendly and kind changes, the acting methods are also different. In the film, he secretly sees his mother, and while eating beef powder, he weeps, which is quite expressive.
We can see that Hu Xianxu’s performance is still a little green, and we can also see that he is making progress, and he is moving towards the direction of being a good actor.
Driven by Kara Wai, the two men played opposite each other, which also inspired some bright spots. For example, in his quarrel with Kara Wai, he improvised a few nonstandard Cantonese words, which created a sense of contrast with his character’s status as a native of Guizhou, causing a joke and making the characters look vivid.
Through Look at a Bridge, the new director Song Xinqi showed his ability to master popular genres and tell warm stories, and he didn’t be vulgar and funny, and he didn’t incite emotions too much. Some plot designs also had brilliant treatment different from traditional methods. Even if it is awkward, there is still room for improvement in the mastery of audio-visual language. As the first feature film, it is still worth encouraging.
Don’t stop in Beijing International Film Festival, I look forward to the official release of "Look at a Bridge" in the future, so that more viewers can "look at it".