This is a movie that has had a profound effect on me, and it has made me look at all the small, unassuming spaces in the city, and imagine that they can be used in a very vibrant way.
Today, I'm using the movie to talk about spaces of interaction.
The old man on the cover is a retired worker from North Steel. According to the director (Xiao Yangzi, as the old man says from time to time in the film), the film was shot in the Qingta neighborhood where she was renting at the time. Combined with what old man Cao reveals in the film, we can tell that they lived near the Nanshaowu Bridge on Beijing's West Fourth Ring Road, in the Xiuyuan neighborhood, which belongs to the Qingta community in Fengtai District.
Xiuyuan is very ordinary. 1999, the neighborhood does not have so many cars parked, simple personnel. The neighborhood environment is not much better, but it is clean and tidy.
This group of people living in the neighborhood, every day, in addition to eating and sleeping, you have to go downstairs to get together in a piece of nagging old people, is the protagonist of the documentary.
Not all of the empty spaces in the corners are places to stay. They need shade and ventilation in the summer, and the sun at their backs in the winter. As they get older, it is difficult for them to walk, let alone stand for long periods of time. That's why they also bring their own ponies when they go out.
This movie is all about the old men from beginning to end.
The first scene: a house in the neighborhood
The old man Cao, who has difficulty walking, may have felt something, and tried to talk to his son to go back to his hometown, but his son and daughter-in-law did not stay.
The old men around him advised him that maybe his son just hadn't gotten around to retaining him yet, after all, there were still ten days before he really had to go. At 5:00 pm, he rushed to go back, because back late, the family will not wait for him to eat.
The old people mentioned that there was an old Feng who used to be a common face, but suddenly said no.
The second one is the one who is not a member of the family, but is a member of the family.
The second scene: a neighborhood substation
Although it's a different place, the content of the conversation hasn't changed much.
This new place looks nice, not too far inside the neighborhood, with steps and a broken couch, so no need for the old men to bring their own matches.
However, this place, which looked like a neighborhood substation, did not have a steady sun. The old men decided to create a new place.
A heartbreaking meeting after the Spring Festival saw the distant old man's grandson suddenly pass away from a brain hemorrhage. He suppressed his emotions in his cramped home, but came to this wall and cried all morning.
While they look down on their own lives and deaths, they are extremely unable to accept the young man's death.
Another summer came and went, and there were three less old men
The so-called going back was their implicit way of talking about death. The old men took death lightly, their only concern being whether or not the other person suffered when they passed away. They see death as something that must be faced and discuss it optimistically together.
Though many people watching the movie read all sorts of pathetic encounters with the old men and shed tears of sympathy.
In fact, from start to finish, it's all about the way old men socialize! Old man socialization! This is the same as the arms and legs of the flexible mom dancing square dance, and young people meet dinner singing K hacking, and no difference.
Modern consumerism offers a variety of choices for young people, but the exclusive places belonging to the elderly over eighty years old, in addition to homes for the elderly and hospitals, what else can you think of?
It is zero!
There are two main contradictions between the elderly and consumption: 1. 2. Can't get out of the house
At that time, Xiuyuan still had a lot of empty space for the old men to sit down and talk for a day. Even trembling out of the door, a hand on the wall, a hand on crutches carrying a small horse, which is also the old man's daily thoughts. However, today, 18 years later, the roads of Xiuyuan have been fully occupied by private cars. The sidewalks are dilapidated, dirty and occupied by illegal structures. The space for interaction has been further compressed with the passage of time.
Jan. In Life between buildings, Gale suggests that outdoor activities in public space can be categorized into three types: necessity, spontaneity, and sociality. Each type of activity for the physical environment requirements are very different.
Walking, stopping, sunbathing these activities, will only occur in the external conditions of the appropriate place, as if everyone shopping, always pick the tree-lined paths, not along the north-south elevated wandering.
In a low-quality environment where people can't stay, they just want to go home. By poor quality, I don't just mean crumbling roads or dirty air, but also a spatial intention.
The marketplace of Arrow Factory Hutong does not make people feel unable to stay, while the neat and quiet Nanchi Zi is closed on both sides of the road because of the high walls that make people not dare to stay.
What does a good modern city look like? This issue has been discussed for hundreds of years in the Western architectural and planning circles. There is an American journalist called Jane Jacobs, who wrote a book. Jacobs, wrote a book called "the death and life of America's great cities" (although it has been rotten to the hands of a copy of the book, but I still want to push a push), put forward a crime prevention point of view.
If the streets are interesting, there will be a lot of people watching the streets and paying attention to the activity on the streets, which naturally creates a fair amount of natural defense.
The incremental era of mass construction is in its second half, and city planners are finally starting to care about stock space. (The planners here are obviously not referring to the planning mappers ......) In addition to demolishing illegal structures, planners should invest more care in improving the quality of urban space.
With wider sidewalks, some benches, shade, and the ability to linger, people will want to take to the streets and socialize. We always blame the indifference of modern human relationships, but in fact, modern people have very little outdoor space for normal interactions.
The positive effect process of activity in cities is that there is activity happening because there is activity happening. The negative process is: there is no activity happening because there is no activity happening. (Note: "Interaction space - outdoor space life, a process")
I remember a while ago asked the real estate company to work in the small partners, why now do not do the bottom of the road, the night back to the neighborhood road are no one, a little scary.
The partner's answer is: the bottom of the business is not as good as the residential sales, in case you do not sell, and can not recruit the business, will look very low, the image of the residential image is not very good.
Well, it can be so. The road is a long way to go.