A small city in the north seems to have an endless winter. There is such a person is always looking forward to something, she is thirsty for spring. So much so that once the spring is established, it is felt that even the wind in the air becomes immediately warm and moist.
But she waited until the entire spring had passed, and there was no stirring as she had imagined. She wet her eyes, but in the end it was just a self-touching scene.
Wang Cailing, a woman's name that sounds ordinary, even vulgar. But she has a good voice, and is quite high-minded and proud, recognizing that she is talented and different.
She is a music teacher at a local school, but she doesn't identify with her social role, telling everyone that she will soon be transferred to Beijing.
In her heart, she belongs to the Central Opera House and the Paris Opera House, and one day she will become a pillar of the world's top stage.
Singing at the radio station in a small town, teaching others how to sing, these were not her ambitions, or rather she did not see them at all. Her dream was to leave this vulgar city and go to the elegant hall of her heart, to unfold her sacred and great artistic career.
She has buck teeth and a face full of melasma, a slightly bulky figure, and is plainly dressed in loose striped sweaters and tweed jackets, which don't match her singing voice.
In other people's mouths, she is a poorly equipped, ugly-looking older woman, in her own eyes, she is a talented and rare Bai Ling buried by the times.
She is not unaware of her current situation, and she still has a certain sober understanding of her own situation. She evaluated herself as penniless and unattractive, the only thing she had was this heavenly voice, other than that she was a waste.
She has a certain culture, she can say "silk is better than bamboo, bamboo is better than meat". She reads Chekhov's The Three Sisters, she plays the piano and sings opera at the same time, and she speaks Italian.
She knows how to recognize reality, and even though she loathes the city, she still cleans up the house, does the laundry, and goes to work, no matter how much she doesn't want to recognize her own locale.
Only she still harbored hopes, or rather false hopes of her own desires.
She loves art, but she doesn't just revel in the fragrance of its flowers, she wants to bloom. She was never willing to live a life of mediocrity, and she longed for the fame that singing would bring her.
So in the last century, she was willing to spend 30,000 yuan (almost all of her savings) to ask someone to solve the matter of the Beijing account, in order to go to Beijing, on the stage of the Central Opera House. She wanted to go to the center of the stage and announce her talent and ambition to the world.
She was lying on the railing in front of Tiananmen Square, looking up at the towers, and no one knew what she was thinking at the moment. Perhaps it was a force of supreme light pulling her, she just didn't want a nine-to-five, she just didn't want another year of parenting and sewing.
She sews her own costumes, and she buys herself low-cost tickets for the opera that sell out twenty minutes after the opening night.
With a thermos in her hand, she always says, with a condescending and questioning expression and a slight disdain for others, "I'm getting transferred, and I'm only here temporarily, you know.
She said, "I don't want love in this city."
You see, in Wang Cailin's eyes, even love has a higher and lower level.
She was high-minded, but not to say that she was impatient. She was really eager, thirsting for an inner stirring, praying for an ideal that would allow her to transcend the pattern of this troubled life.
Obviously, her hometown seemed to her to be dilapidated, and the people here were not noble at all. And she feels that the reason for her lack of success, and the fact that she is still unmarried, is that she wasn't born in a place where art could be nurtured.
She believes that she is gold, just buried in a small place. So her whole belief in life is to dig her way into a Beijing hukou and then into the Central Opera House, so that her life is complete for her.
Of course, her hukou problem will never be solved, just as she will never be able to step into that seemingly beautiful "noble" world.
She wants to be famous, not just an enthusiast. I think Wang Cailin should be a very ceremonial people, singing opera in a small room that can not, must be in the top of the recital hall can, and must wear costumes, under the flashing lights, to accept the audience's attention of the eyes of the worship is called singing.
She's not pathetic, she's not sad, she's not honorable, because sometimes she's the epitome of what millions of (pseudo) young people do. They like elegant art, focus on spiritual enjoyment, and on the one hand, they are noble enough, and on the other hand, they are vain to the bone.
Rather than the beauty of literature and art itself, she cares more about the extra added value that can be gained through it, and her gaze is outward looking, wanting to be recognized by others.
Wang Cailing felt she stood out from the rest in this small place, as if she was superior because she could sing opera.
She was conceited because of the opera, but also lonely because no one around her could communicate with her. She wants to make a name for herself on the basis of her talent, while everyone around her just wants to live their own little lives.
Ideas are a very private thing, something we hold carefully in our hearts. If we are lucky enough in this life, we may realize it a little bit, or we may never reach it. However, Wang Cailin always puts it on her lips, and she is stubborn enough and crazy enough to do so.
Huang Sibao, an older, jobless young man immersed in painting, had applied to the Central Academy of Fine Arts several times, but failed even the preliminary exam. He paints pictures that others can't understand, and is scolded by his mother for being a pig.
While he was drawing his own human body in the mirror, he was frightened by the sound of his mother's key when she suddenly opened the door and hid under the bed.
Fallen, utterly fallen.
With his creations unrecognized by anyone and unable to support himself with them, he lived in dire straits.
Wang Cailing, however, accidentally read his world and fell in love with this literary young man who wore a leather jacket and Martin boots and had long hair.
She lent him a book called Longing for Life, with a Van Gogh self-portrait on the cover, but not a single word on the inside of the book, which was all white paper. But Huang Sibao flipped through the book and smiled, and said to her, "Thank you.
One by one, the relationship between the two people is getting better and better, Huang Sibao thought he had met his spiritual soulmate, although he had laughed at Wang Cailing's ugliness before, but now he had taken her as his soulmate, and Wang Cailing thought she had met love.
The two of them take a train together to escape from the small town and head to Beijing, the ideal mecca of their hearts.
Wang Cailing said, "Will you love me forever?" Huang Sibao was shocked, and confessed that he had always treated Wang Cailin as his buddy, and had never thought of her in any other way.
Wang Cailing angrily questioned, "You treat me as a buddy because I'm ugly!"
The two finally broke up, ending a brief alliance of interoperable fronts.
But one night brought the two together again.
This time it was Huang Sibao who confronted Wang Cailing, who felt he had been tainted. Unable to accept this, Huang Sibao chose to go to Shenzhen to go to sea.
Zhou Yu is Huang Sibao's cousin, and he was the first one to find Wang Cailin and introduce them to each other. Zhou Yu is obese and worldly. He was initially attracted to Wang Cailin's singing voice and then fell in love with her.
But his confession to Wang Cailings was, "Both of us are not in good condition either."...... On the spot, Wang Cailings disliked him back, "I would rather eat a bite of an immortal peach than a basket of rotten apricots. " The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers," he said, "but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that.
At a cultural performance in a small town, Wang Cailin met Hu Jinquan. Hu Jinquan is a dance teacher, and he usually teaches people to dance the joyful fan dance (similar to square dance), but in fact his real hobby is ballet.
At the open-air performance venue, a group of aunts twirled a festive rice-planting dance, and onlookers clapped and cheered, watching in delight.
When it was Hu Jinquan's turn to perform, he stood on his tiptoes in a tight-fitting costume and danced to "Swan Lake". There were sneers from all around, and some people deliberately imitated his dance moves.
More and more people left the stage, and the radio kept calling out, "Please watch the show in a civilized manner and respect the artists," but it only seemed more sarcastic, and Hu Jinquan stepped off the stage in anger.
The final soprano soloist was Wang Cailin, and as soon as she opened her mouth, some people yawned and others sprayed empty air. Almost all the people around her were gone, and suddenly the sky was filled with snowflakes, which was really appropriate. Wang Cailin was strong enough to sing to herself.
Later, Wang Cailing asked Hu Jinquan for a dinner date to try to encourage him. But Hu Jinquan said he was an unsolved case in people's hearts, saying, "As soon as I saw the way people looked at me when I danced, I really wanted to run over my head."
In the eyes of the crowd, this teacher is a different kind of Hu, he is enchanting, mother, not masculine enough, does not have a strong gender identity, as much as to dance some charming dance, is a "two pancreas".
Hu Jinquan knows that he is incompatible with the world, and is only interested in ballet. But he still cares a lot about other people's opinions, so in order to block the mouth, he wants Wang Cailing to cooperate with his fake marriage, so that people will not think of him as a "pervert".
But Wang Cailing is a person with her own requirements, she refused to do "cannon fodder".
Hu Jinquan, who was denied the request, cried alone in the snowy night.
He said he was like a fishbone stuck in someone's throat, but he himself was not a fishbone, the pain is unbearable.
Finally, he makes the appalling decision to prove he is "normal".
In prison, Hu Jinquan danced in shackles in an image that Wang Cailin could not bear to look at.
One time when she had a stomachache, Wang Cailin went to the house of Mr. Wang next door to ask for medicine, and a bowl of eight-treasure congee created a little friendship between the two.
Wang Cailing began to gradually shed her pride, and she slowly discovered another kind of beauty in life. Before, she only cared about raising her head and singing, ignoring the fact that even the smallest things can contain beauty.
The sound of firecrackers on New Year's Day prompted her to open the door to her room, which also seemed to open the door to her heart.
Just then, a bald girl named Gao Beibei found Wang Cailin, whose mother had heard that Wang Cailin had stayed in Beijing, and wanted to ask Wang Cailin to help her daughter, who was terminally ill, to realize her dream of going to Beijing to take part in a singing competition.
Withdrawing from the mother's and daughter's pleas, Wang Cailing decided to get back the money she had entrusted to help her with her account and use it to finance Gao Beibei's dream.
She took her mother and daughter to Beijing, where Gao Beibei won second place in a singing competition.
When Wang Cailing was moved to cry with Gao Beibei, Gao Beibei suddenly knelt down and said that she didn't have cancer, and that the woman beside her wasn't her mother, and that even though they had lied to her, there was a reason for it, and she hoped to gain Wang Cailing's forgiveness.
Wang Cailing was shocked, and when she heard Gao Beibei say that it was too difficult to be famous, and that there was no way to do it without some special means, she was probably about to break down.
Then comes a long, long shot of Wang Cailing struggling to pedal her wheels on a path filled with factory chimneys nearby.
Her literary dreams are shattered, and she finally realizes that what she was doing before was akin to riding a bicycle against the wind, and that it was so thankless.
She chose to surrender to life. She had said that one day she couldn't hold out any longer and would just bite the bullet and find someone to marry. Now that she was ready to give up, she went to the matchmaking center and filled out the application form.
However, it is ridiculous that this matchmaking center is opened by Huang Sibao after he went into business, and after he changed his profession, Huang Sibao no longer pursued the real, and started to cheat and deceive people in every way, and of course, Wang Cailing did not have any success in the final matchmaking.
Wang Cailing, who was eating a kebab while looking around, met Huang Sibao on the street by chance because he had just had his car smashed and was driving a "convertible van" without a windshield, and the two of them glanced at each other and disappeared into each other's lives.
Wang Cailing went to the orphanage to adopt a hare-lipped girl, named her Xiaofan.
The scene shifts, and Wang Cailing is crammed into a truck with a bunch of sheep. It turns out that she has also gone to sea and become a self-employed person.
She now sells mutton, and with a butcher's knife in hand, Wang Cailing cuts the mutton with ease, a woman who once dreamed of elegant singing, but eventually became a "butcher's wife.
At the hospital, Wang encountered Zhou Yu, who was also holding her daughter. This man, who once boasted that no TV announcer could match his recitation skills, is finally living a life with a wife and children.
Wang Cailing took her daughter, Xiaofan, to Tiananmen Square, where she teased her wholeheartedly. When the sound of bells came from the direction of the Forbidden City, Wang Cailing sought the sound and looked toward the Tiananmen Tower ......
Is this a tragedy? A surrender to life?
Is this a comedy? Reconciliation with life?
Maybe when you are young, you always think of "life elsewhere", always think that the world outside is really wonderful, but automatically ignore the layer of helplessness.
In the hearts of many girls, perhaps love is the highest level of art, just like Wang Cailin can put down her dream of Beijing for Huang Sibao.
This is a story that the movie "Spring" tells us. Jiang Wenli's portrayal of Wang Cailing makes people feel that she is really like Wang Cailing Benling, real and natural enough.
Flaubert said, "If you decide your life by art, you can't live like an ordinary person."
With exceptional talent (timing and people) to be able to realize their own extraordinary talent is happy, their proportion is only a small handful.
Those who have no talent of their own and do not even try to envision it are also happy; they do not have that joy, but they are spared the pain of that obsession. （
The most unfortunate ones are those who have a little talent and can't do anything with it, and those who are stuck in a dilemma, they are the most miserable.
No matter how they have boarded the ship, but they can not understand the key to crack open it, can only be repeatedly entangled in the so-called reality and ideals are constantly entangled back and forth tearing, the struggle, just look up is enough pain.
"Spring" rips apart the dreams of an artistic young woman. Wang Cailing, a music teacher in a small town, lives a life that seems to have been eaten by dogs.
Several of the film's protagonists seem so niche, they may have a skill, but they are not recognized by society. None of them can be perfected, in a free, peaceful atmosphere, with art for life. Some of them chose to destroy themselves, some chose to "turn to the dark side" and stop fighting for their lives.
Is this the so-called way out? The movie doesn't give a clear answer, but you can still see that the director is trying to give encouragement to "Wang Cailings", and at the same time, he also feels sorry for them.
Character determines fate, so what makes character?
In real life, there are people who are still struggling every day, and there are also people who have long been recruited by life to surrender, and this state of affairs will continue in the future.
Those who finally chose to abandon life, also gave up their own people, perhaps on the understanding of the word life, there was originally a misinterpretation.
Life isn't a battle, you won't win against anyone. If you try to start seeking **** knowledge and crave for understanding like crazy, then maybe it means that you also lose the opportunity to **** with yourself forever.
"Go do what you love like it won't work."
I think I'll probably never demean literature and art myself, because it's never literature and art that are at the end of their tether, but the habitually helpless.
Success is a result and should not be treated as an end in itself. Nor can success and happiness be equated. Mistaking obsession for pursuit is a mistake.
Mr. Wooden Heart once said: "Eleven and a half years in the United States, I have watched many people fall down - is not willing to sacrifice the world's vanity, and the life of the heart of the real profit. Both vanity to the bone, and real profit into a fetish, the calculator is too fine: elegant, vulgar both, art, life double harvest. I applauded, but I applauded in a downward spiral.
Why must artists sacrifice? I can say completely: art was also just a dream, but more than the dream of power, wealth, lust, more beautiful, more durable, art, is a best dream. We have *** enjoyment of the psychological appeal. Power, wealth, lust, only show off, can not *** enjoy. Art can be ****enjoyed."
Small towns speak of big aspirations, and even if it doesn't help, it's worth a try.