Fan Damien
"I'm telling you about the magical things that happened in that sorghum field in our hometown."
The first line of narration at the beginning of the film "Red Sorghum"
The overall impression of "Red Sorghum" is that it fully expresses the author's admiration for the primitive life force. This is a movie that brings Zhang Yimou's strong subjective idea, and should be regarded as a more typical author's movie.
In "Red Sorghum", Zhang Yimou on the primitive will to life, life force of the irresistible praise and praise, can be said to have reached the ultimate, to the point of a few into the essence of the out of the gods, which is a kind of worship of the realm of the five bodies.
First of all, the worship of the divine power of sex. In the "sedan chair" a scene, from the surface, it is more than carrying the sedan chair of the rough men in the sedan chair of a red dress, red head of the bride's playful mischief; but from the deep, it is several bare shoulders in the face of the bride's charisma of the budding of the potential joy and desire for spontaneous catharsis of sexuality, but also to the nine children facing an irrational and inhuman The combination of the sexes is not reasonable and inhumane, but it is also a spontaneous outburst of sadness and resentment that Jiu'er can't help. And only can make this singing and dancing "upside down sedan chair" disco from the apex of the madness came to an abrupt end of the power of God, not other than the sedan chair Jiuer's several choked sobs. The writer-director in this mood and rhythm of the transition point, the group of rough and strong man inside the natural human nature of the beautiful spirit of insight and candles out, is the beginning of the movie first hit the heart of the eye. The difference in mood caused by this rhythmic break establishes the truly sacred position that Jiu'er actually occupies in the hearts of the wild men, and is a clear evidence of the movie's worship of the divine power of sex. In this group of sedan chair-bearers, only "my grandfather" Yu Zhanao, with his stronger willpower of life driven by the divine power of sex, dares to put his inner turmoil and longing one by one into practical action - compared to other strong men, Yu Zhanao is indeed a step ahead of the rest. Higher than the other strong man, Yu Zhanao is indeed a chip, is truly unique - by virtue of the nine children had given him a beautiful eyes look forward to, so that the ensuing kill husband, wife robbery and even sorghum fields in the intercourse wild, have become a pile is no longer violence and evil, but all the natural package of "benevolence"! "Things beautiful business. Here the "benevolence", can not be narrow law of the law as a criterion, and must be from the broader natural and primitive laws of life - the kind of benign reproduction and development, the kind of survival of the fittest to look for; and here the "beautiful The "beauty" here is naturally the artistic choice and rendering of the beauty of the movie (e.g., omitting the direct description of the "killing of the husband", etc.). When the screen to show the nine children obsessed with the poetry like hazy close-up, Yu Zhanao kneeling in that side of the fallen sorghum on the open space in red "big" shape in front of the nine children overlooking the large distant view (here is simply a religious sex worship, fertility worship solemn ceremony!) As well as backlit red sorghum shadows in the sun and wind swaying dynamic aerial mirror, can be said to be the film on the worship of primitive life force in this situation and the scenario of blending the pavement painting pushed to the heights of artistic beauty - however, looking back at the film, Zhang Yimou really should be here to make the article of the concentration of the article a little bit more adequate, in order to make this The red sorghum ground of "heavenly match, ground into the beauty of" the scene of intercourse, gorgeous music like to achieve more of its sanctification of the situation!
Second is the worship of the divine power of death. In the "red sorghum", Zhang Yimou to show us the picture of life is: these eighteen miles slope people, they love women, live freely, live painfully; and for the family hatred of the shame of the country, they must also rise up to fight, avenge the shame, even if it is for this death - and death, but also want to die freely, die painfully! The two poles of life and death love and hate are opposite and consistent. Indeed, these people say die, that big head Li, the road robbers posing as "bald three guns" and so on, seems to be so easy to die, so easy and so noiseless. Naturally, we are not referring to these negative deaths. But those who have a positive meaning of death, those who fight against foreign invasion and the death of righteousness - no matter Luo Han uncle or nine children and even the "bald three guns" died under the Japanese invaders of the butcher's knife and artillery, have become the death of the sacrifice of the death of the heroic, shocking the people's death! For this reason, Zhang Yimou in the movie do not hesitate to let people accept the bloody sensory stimulation, and let the cattle slaughtered and people slaughtered into the sacrifice to strengthen the contrast. In this regard, we should not superficially regard it as an exegetical illustration of the original meaning of the word "sacrifice", but rather as a metaphor for the fact that the sacrifice of cows is not the same as the sacrifice of people. The ending of the film makes the bloodthirsty Japanese invaders realize that the cow is slaughtered in silence and becomes a sacrifice, while the human being achieves his sacrifice in an outburst of resistance and will die with the slaughterer. This performance, too, ultimately became a testament to the divine power of death.
The third is the worship of the divine power of wine. Being beautifully named "eighteen miles of red" sorghum wine, its character in the "Song of Wine Offering" has been repeated twice to get the highest praise: "Drink our wine, nourishing yin and Yang mouth does not stink ...... Drink this our wine, see the The emperor does not kowtow ...... "And Yu Zhanao is precisely in a drunken party in the divine power of wine, he and Jiu Er in the sorghum field of the private love of a vomit, and in the eighteen-li slopes of the people from ancient times to the present day as a beautiful story - red sorghum wine of the divine power, is the people of the eighteen-li slopes The divine power of red sorghum wine is the wild and uninhibited divine power of the people of Eighteen Mile Slope; the character of red sorghum wine is the free and easy character of the people of Eighteen Mile Slope. One forty-seven, three sixty-nine: Jiu'er, the only woman of the eighteen-li slope, is not it at the moment she joined the eighteen-li slope wine shop as the shopkeeper, to the wine shop fellows for the first time to announce their own nickname is "Jiu'er" (wine child)? Wine and people, its divine power and character is the same, because both were born in the red sorghum field. Eighteen-lippo people take wine as their atmosphere, and eighteen-lippo people take wine as their support; wine pervades the crowd in eighteen-lippo, and wine becomes a catalyst for eighteen-lippo people to regulate and strengthen interpersonal emotional relationships. To put it bluntly, the movie's worship of the divine power of wine is the worship of the divine power of the people of 18-li slope.
"Red Sorghum" worships sex, death, and the divine power of wine, and expresses the worship of the most fundamental spiritual source of human nature - the primitive desire for life, the will to live, and the power of life's essence; it is devastatingly and wantonly fully displayed in the movie, making the movie extraordinary. "It is a groundbreaking attempt and exploration of Chinese cinema today. In my opinion, the film was able to win the international film world **** Ming and unanimous applause, it is at this point; it is not "the more national, the more cosmopolitan" can be summarized in one sentence.