Ren Xiaoyao's background moved from Fenyang to Datong, a bigger and more restless city. Datong once appeared in Jia's documentary Public Space. Jia said that I chose Datong because Datong is a legendary city for me. People in Shanxi say it's a terrible place, and I just want to see it. And there was really a legend at that time, which was particularly attractive to me. There are rumors that Datong will move away because all the coal mines there are on fire and the miners are laid off. Then it happened to develop the west, saying that all miners would be moved to Xinjiang to exploit oil. Legend has it that everyone there is eating, drinking and having fun in time, and ordinary restaurants should be booked 30 minutes in advance. "In such a" special "or actually very representative city of China, Jia still pays attention to the marginalized people. In this film, the protagonists Xiaoji and Binbin are "hybrids", while the heroine Jojo is a wild model. They are the kind of people who don't know what to do tomorrow after today. Xiaoji said, "Why did you live so long? Thirty years old is enough. "Binbin's answer to the massage woman's' eating for a living' is' eating for a living'." Ren Xiaoyao has two sources in this film. Xiaoji's Ren Xiaoyao is from Zhuangzi. Joe San told Joe Joe and Xiaoji that "Ren Xiaoyao just wants to do whatever he wants". Binbin's Ren Xiaoyao is from Richie Jen. He and his girlfriend are dating in karaoke, and they sing together "Let me be sad, let me regret, hate God, you don't know, let me suffer, let me be tired, let me be happy with the wind". Jia said in an interview: "Under the pressure of such rapid progress, people have an inexplicable restlessness and excitement, an irrational attitude towards life, muddling along, enjoying the happiness of life, looking for happiness excessively and living uncontrollably. Behind this attitude towards life, there is a very sad reason: many people can't see tomorrow, and there is an atmosphere of' dying carnival' in it. The whole movie has been looking for this kind of breath when shooting. " Jia's camera language well explains this restlessness and excitement, people's desire and pursuit for freedom and misinterpretation to some extent.
But on the whole, the plot setting of the film is still a bit stumbling. When Jia focused on the theme of "sense of space" in the city, the plot seemed to be an accessory to a series of unique "public spaces" he understood, which expressed the declining industrial scene of Datong, Shanxi. "Public space" has many meanings, which can refer to a specific place where people gather, or it can be an abstract concept that belongs to everyone. As the carrier of culture, "space" in movies is not a pure material, but has a certain social and cultural added value. These spaces are not only the background of the characters' activities in the film, but also the important elements of the specific historical and cultural environment and its changes to be expressed in the film. Therefore, when Jia pursues the film principle of "true record", how to re-express an important element of "true record"-"space" has become his core. As Jia said: "The past space and the present space often overlap ... What I see after the space overlap is a profound and complicated social reality. Here, it may be easier to understand the concept of "space" expressed by a large number of buildings and cities as "places" in the movie. The conceptual difference between "space" and "place" is that the latter emphasizes the factors that people experience themselves in space. Place can be regarded as a subjective understanding and feeling of space.
The most striking feature of the film is the overlapping space. The functions of these spaces have shifted with the changes of the times and become a deformed public space. The almost abandoned bus station waiting room is the best example, and this place is also chosen in the "public space". This scene was used twice in Ren Xiaoyao: once at the beginning, Binbin and Xiaoji appeared, and then Binbin broke up with his girlfriend. This space should be regarded as the largest indoor public space in the film. The front hall of the bus station became a billiard room, and the waiting hall was abandoned there, which may have been changed into a ballroom. Judging from the state of this city, its rise and fall is the easiest. The slow panoramic lens fully shows the physical state and historical traces of the waiting room. The most detailed point is that when Binbin and his girlfriend met for the last time, they sat in a corner of the hall like a coffee shop. The once popular train seat is now broken, and the broken back is turned over in the dim light. A unique outdoor space in the film is the dry river bed between Qiaoqiao residential area and expressway. Crossing the river bed is a shortcut from the residential area to the bus stop on the expressway. Many people opened a road on the riverbed through this shortcut and built a simple bridge near the bus station. A lot of rubbish is scattered on the river bed. There are many factories, mining areas and corridors for transporting media outside Datong, which is very suitable for expressing the desolate and barren industrial image. Although these spaces themselves are not public spaces in the general sense, a publicity performance without an audience has shaped these negative environments into a special public space, suggesting the image and decline of public spaces owned by these special people in factories and mining areas. These spaces are often unmanaged, just like those marginalized groups in society who are not concerned. This is in contrast to other conceptual spaces in the film, such as "Textile Factory" and "No.7 Middle School". These deformed public spaces are anonymous, or have lost the meaning of their names, lacking new meaning, and become a vague and ambiguous space. This can also reflect the mentality of people who are active in it, just like Binbin's mother. After 20 years of service, she bought out 40,000 yuan. What can she do next? This mentality has also been described in Xiaowu, and the demolition people complained that "the old one has been demolished, where is the new one?"
In addition, some other public activity spaces also show a certain personality, such as hospitals, banks, theaters and discos, as well as restaurants, hair salons, neighborhood committees, auto repair shops, karaoke boxes, dental clinics, police offices and other small ones. Of course, the description of outdoor scenes is indispensable to the streets of disappearing old houses in the city, the streets of restless people, the boring and dirty environment outside residential buildings and so on. It is worth mentioning that for Datong, an ancient city with many historical sites, Jia did not show interest in those local cultural heritages. Except for a few scenes that use folk houses to express the change of urban appearance. Any remains of ancient buildings (the most famous ones are Upper and Lower Huayan Temple, Shanhua Temple, Yungang in the suburbs, Hanging Temple in the outer suburbs, Yingxian Wooden Pagoda) never flashed in the lens. This is one aspect of my appreciation of Jia's works. Because he didn't flatter the local cultural symbols. This feature is also reflected in the first two films. For Shanxi people, the ancient buildings, which account for more than 75% of China's above-ground cultural relics, are not their present life at all. Long shots are the most basic expression of these spaces. For example, several scenes in the karaoke box. The position of the lens is basically fixed except for one or two turns to the TV screen. Sometimes, Jia also tries to make some changes in the style of lens processing, such as Ji and the conversation in the restaurant. The camera switches strongly between two people. Finally disappeared into the panoramic view of the whole restaurant. But I don't like this passage very much, especially borrowing Pulp Fiction's story to imply the plot of the final robbery. This passage itself is quite dramatic, but I think it is a bit like the noise of the whole movie, which is not in harmony with the overall style. Maybe Jia can't bear to give up what he wants.
Another form of space that people don't pay attention to is transportation. There are two ways for vehicles to express space, one is their own space form, and the other is as a way to connect with public space (from one place to another). For the former, there are three different scenes in the film. One is a van and the other is a bus. And a caravan for performance. It is worth noting that the turning points of Jojo's emotional changes all occur in these moving vehicle spaces. Her first direct contact with Xiaoji was in a minivan. The confrontation between her and Qiao San was in the caravan of the performance, and the moment when she and Xiao Ji first merged was in the bus. And her emotional change has also become a turning point in the dramatic change of the whole plot. These unstable spatial images in transportation just imply the emotional instability between the characters in the film. For the latter role of transportation, Xiaoji's motorcycle is the most important element. Although there is no specific spatial feature, it has become the baseline of plot description. At the beginning of the film, the motorcycle is a tool to bring Binbin into the city streets. Then I took Xiaoji from the city to the factory to see Jojo. Then he appeared on the national highway of the traffic media and found Jojo, but he gave up the motorcycle and Jojo got on the bus. Then it became a tool for Xiaoji to snatch Jojo from Jojo in the factory and bring Jojo to the world that seems to belong to them-the hotel. The most exciting part of the motorcycle should be the part where Xiaoji tries to climb the riverbed. Needless to say, this long shot shows the symbolic significance of the living conditions of the characters in the film. But the car itself has brought these characters a different way (pedestrians can walk that bridge) and a different taste. The motorcycle finally took the characters to the savings office to rob, a place they could bear psychologically. After Binbin's failure, Xiaoji escaped alone on a motorcycle. This scene on the national highway should be said to be quite wonderful. Finally, Xiaoji gave up again and got on the coach.
In Ren Xiaoyao, what we see more is Jia's rational discussion of the film itself. Personal strong nostalgia is no longer the original motive force of creation. Therefore, I can no longer see the conflict between his belief in pursuing the purest "authenticity" and his personal feelings that are ready to go but strongly suppressed. Although this conflict is beneficial to the creation itself. But these passions have fulfilled Jia's mission of finding his own film position. Just like his own monologue, "I started making movies at the age of 28, and now I'm 32." After these years, my only gain is to become more and more rational, and I used to be an extremely irrational person. " If the plot of Ren Xiaoyao is abrupt, it is a portrayal of Jia's reflection on his previous works, indulging in strong nostalgia and tending to rational thinking, although such thinking is not perfect. However, the pursuit of truth is still the core of his creation. Like many other directors of his age, he shouldered the obligation of "telling the truth" that former director China didn't have, and the inspiration they sought in the documentary maintained their creative passion. The filming of "Public Space" inspired Jia's Ren Xiaoyao: "When I feel that my life has been changed more and more, my thirst for knowledge is getting weaker and narrower, the filming of the documentary has revived my life experience, just like the blood vessels have been blocked for a long time, and now these blood are flowing again. Because I was able to put myself in a position to find a foundation for my role, I returned to the scene of my life and accepted the atmosphere from there. " In addition, it should be said that the use of dv in Ren Xiaoyao is just the opportunity for Jia to take this step. The economy of Dv makes it possible to shoot continuously for a long time, which gives Jia a chance to shoot more "real" shots and be at ease.