New Age Artists

Chapter 638: Little People in Nanjing

The movie opens.

"1937" focuses on the life and death of two characters, the printing worker Lu Dachuan and the apprentice Lu Shuisheng.

There are group portraits, but they are all integrated into the main storyline, which mainly tells the story of how two ordinary people escaped from the massacre from an ordinary person's perspective, without too much plot-oriented showmanship.

It is still Shen Santong's style, simple and easy to understand.

How many lines there are beneath the page is left for the audience to experience.

Nanjing.

1937, November, late autumn.

The autumn rain is falling at Renhe Printing House on Taiping South Road.

When the printing press got stuck during the air raid alarm, 24-year-old Lu Dachuan repaired the pedal of the old printing press and continued to print the wedding invitations.

The 15-year-old brother Lu Shuisheng squatted in front of the type rack, using maple leaves from Purple Mountain as bookmarks. The originally golden maple leaves were smoked into a burnt brown by the war.

Mr. Zhou, the accountant in a long gown, rushed in and reminded, "Hurry up and collect the special edition of the Jinling Evening News! Chairman Chiang said that he would defend Nanjing to the death!"

Lu Dachuan stared at the custom-made wedding invitation he had just printed for the rice shop owner's son. The red ink on the invitation had spread like blood drops.

The rice shop owner's son came over to urge the delivery: "It must be delivered tomorrow!"

His younger brother Lu Shuisheng discovered that the date of the invitation was December 12, which was the day the defenders said they could hold the city.

Old Qin, who was selling pressed duck at the corner of the alley, coughed and said, "Sichuan boy, print me some pictures of Chinese characters. My grandson needs to start learning Chinese characters."

That night.

Lu Dachuan exchanged two bags of flour for salt, saying, "Bullets may be in short supply, but salt will always be useful."

The plot revolves around the lives of the two brothers, focusing on the lives of ordinary people when the enemy is at the gates.

They had heard the news of the Japanese invasion a long time ago, and watching the cities fall one after another, Lu Dachuan was extremely anxious.

His colleagues advised him not to worry too much, saying: "Nanjing is the capital, the Nationalist government is here, nothing will happen."

11 month 20 day.

The Nationalist government officially moved its capital to Chongqing, casting a shadow over the city of Nanjing again.

Government officials, wealthy businessmen, and powerful people have been evacuating by rail and ship since November.

But ordinary people still have to live and are busy with their own meals, and the same is true for the Lu Dachuan brothers.

They also wanted to leave, but they couldn't.

According to the "Printing Industry Wage Guidance Standards" of the Nanjing Special Municipal Government in 1936, printer Lu Dachuan's monthly salary was 12 yuan in legal currency.

His younger brother Lu Shuisheng, who was an apprentice, had an even lower monthly salary. According to the account books of Jinling Press in 1937, he only received a 2 yuan allowance.

The brothers' combined monthly income is 14 yuan.

In normal times before August 1937, a third-class seat on the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway cost 8 yuan from Nanjing to Shanghai, and a steerage seat on a China Merchants Steamship cost 1.8 yuan from Nanjing to Wuhan.

When the Japanese invaders attacked, all expenses skyrocketed, including transportation costs.

Starting from November 1937, according to the November 11th edition of the Xinmin Daily, advertised railway tickets soared more than tenfold, with the black market price being 11 yuan, and whether one could buy one depended entirely on luck.

The ship ticket, according to the price list of British Jardine Matheson on November 11, is 20 yuan for the general cabin.

The rickshaw fare out of the city is 8 yuan per person.

Nanjing is a big city after all. It was the capital before the capital was moved, so the cost of living is naturally very high.

You make money in Nanjing and spend it in Nanjing, don’t even think about taking a penny with you.

The brothers' necessary expenses included rent of 3 yuan. The price of rice before the war was 0.08 yuan per catty, but it soared to 11 yuan per catty at the end of November.

My brothers need at least 9 yuan per month for food, just to maintain basic survival.

Lu Dachuan only had 9.7 yuan in savings, and the two brothers could not afford to buy train or boat tickets after the skyrocketing prices.

On December 12, the situation became increasingly bad. The two brothers took all their savings to the Xiaguan Wharf and found that the railway ticket sellers demanded transactions in silver dollars.

The fiat currency has been devalued and its purchasing power has dropped significantly.

The smuggling fee for the coal ship is 15 yuan per person, and the printing press key must be mortgaged.

The defeated KMT soldiers appeared and began to rob civilian ships. In the end, the two of them had no choice but to use 9.7 yuan to buy two warm clothes made from cement bags, five pounds of brown rice mixed with sand, and a hand-drawn hiding map of Nanjing streets by old citizens.

As time went by, a large number of the 50 permanent residents were stranded, and 10 refugees from surrounding areas poured in.

80% of NJ citizens failed to evacuate in time, the poor were unable to pay for the ship tickets, and the third-class ticket price on the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway rose to 10 times the pre-war price.

A large number of citizens can only rely on the protection of the "International Safety Zone", even though it is actually only 3.86 square kilometers.

As a film about the Nanjing Massacre, "1937" did not use black and white images, nor did it rush to show the atrocities of the Japanese army. It took minutes to depict the city of Nanjing at that time in detail, the clothing, food, housing and transportation of the two brothers Lu Dachuan, and the changes in the social level in response to the Japanese invasion.

The various aspects of NJ citizens, the daily necessities, joys and sorrows.

There was anxiety, anger, and fear when they learned that Chiang Kai-shek had decided to move the capital, but there was also joy when Britain and the United States intervened. After they were unable to leave, they could only rely on the international outlook and the kindness of the Japanese army.

The struggle of the little people in the torrent of history always makes the audience feel anxious.

They know that this is not a drama film set in the Republic of China period.

This is the Nanjing Massacre.

suddenly.

The time came to December 1937, 12, and the film had its first major transition.

morning.

St. Joseph's Church, Wuhan.

As the morning prayer bells ring, the colorful glass projects the suffering Jesus into twelve rainbow lights.

The gold foil on the dome reflected the Bible in the hands of the YMCA students. The lead-inlaid rose window trembled with the river breeze. Satan transformed into a poisonous snake and spit out his tongue in the painted Garden of Eden. The void flickered in the picture, and the shadows of Japanese warships cruising on the surface of the river in Hankou appeared.

The female student in the Indigo cheongsam knelt in front of the confessional, and the enamel Madonna on her brooch suddenly showed tears.

The candlelight on the altar swayed with a muffled "boom", and the Noah's Ark in the dome mural turned into the outline of the Zhongshan Warship.

When the organ played "Hallelujah", a bullet flew from nowhere, penetrated the stained window and was nailed to the cross. The face of the saint in the broken glass fell to the ground and turned into a cap badge with a blue sky and a white sun.

However, no one in the church noticed the vision and continued to pray as usual.

The statue of Jesus on the stained glass window was shaken crooked by the bombing, and Zhang Guoli, who played the role of Jiang Gaishi, was kneeling in front of the distorted reflection of the cross.

A Times headline flew out of his suit pocket, oozing with bloody ink, with a few large characters written on it: "Britain and the United States call on China and Japan to exercise restraint."

It was the appeasement article by Tokyo correspondent Fleiza published in The Times on December 1937, 12.

The church scene is also a historical itinerary.

Damn it, Chiang had just concluded the Nanjing Defense Conference on December 12, but he actually held a YMCA event in Wuhan on the same day.

When he said "Amen," all the candles suddenly went out, except for the American flag candlestick.

The air was filled with the scent of "Jasmine Flower" played on the organ, and cherry blossom branches with bullet holes grew between the keys.

The audience in the cinema held their breath.

After this shot, the tone of the film becomes absurd, bleak and terrifying.

Especially with the daily foreshadowing in the early stages, the audience who feel involved in the story feel chills all over.

This is an absurdity that they find hard to bear. Combined with the historical background of the film, the brighter the colors of the shots, the more uncomfortable they feel.

The camera returns to Nanjing.

Back to brother Lu Dachuan.

The film's camera language and scene transitions remain unchanged, but the atmosphere has changed profoundly.

It's winter.

It’s weather, and it’s history.

12 month 10 day.

When Lu Shuisheng delivered the wedding invitation to the rice shop, he saw that the rice shop had been blown up.

The gold-plated "囍" character on the invitation seemed to turn into "喪" in the bloodstains.

Life must go on.

A banner reading "Year-end Big Sale" was hung at the Yong'an Shopping Center in Xinjiekou.

The so-called price reduction has skyrocketed more than twenty times compared to a few months ago.

Lu Dachuan was pulling his brother into the crowd of shoppers when he suddenly heard a scream from the lady in the fur coat. Her diamond ring was stuck on the scale.

As the gendarmerie fired into the air, Lu Dachuan noticed young men in student uniforms distributing leaflets, a teahouse owner sinking a radio into a well, and a foreign professor wearing glasses teaching a beggar the English word "Help".

Everything in the camera is so magical, yet so realistic.

Fans of Shen Santong suddenly understood why Shen Santong criticized Mo Yan so fiercely. If Mo Yan limited his creations to the period before the founding of the People's Republic of China, there would actually be no problem.

However, when his creative techniques were used after the founding of the People's Republic of China, a big problem arose. The period before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China are two different worlds and cannot be confused.

Mo Yan's use of magical realism to write about the post-founding period of the People's Republic of China is just a tool to cater to certain people or certain forces.

(End of this chapter)