Chinese Entertainment: Academic Director

Chapter 335 The Clever Director

In the days leading up to the film festival's opening, Cao Yang first ranked the 22 films and watched the top-ranked ones.

The ranking criteria weren't anything special. Apart from Depp, Theron, and Ning Ying, Cao Yang could roughly deduce Berlin's thoughts from the list of the remaining five people.

Dieter Koslick once said that Cao Yang is fully capable of making decisions on awards other than the Golden Bear, but that doesn't mean he does nothing.

If Cao Yang uses even one or two of these five names, wouldn't he "profit"? It's better than doing nothing.

However, it is clear from this list that Dieter Koslick has not yet made up his mind about who will win the Golden Bear, or is still hesitating.

In the past few days, Cao Yang watched "Beaufort", "The Spy", "Yera", "Wandering on the Roof", "The Good German", "Operation Bernard", "In the Jungle", "Angel", and "Tuya's Marriage".

Five people, each with five names, resulting in only nine films.

You could say their aesthetic tastes are similar, so each person gets five, and only nine are selected from five people.

However, art is a very subjective thing.

Unless the actor's acting is exceptionally good, so good that you can tell at a glance, or the movie has something special and interesting about it.

Otherwise, it would be too much of a coincidence that five people could reach a consensus and select only nine movies in just a few days.

"Beaufort" tells the story of an Israeli outpost commander and his army before their withdrawal from Lebanon.

In this film, the enemy doesn't appear in person; instead, an invisible organization drops bombs from the sky, and the soldiers must find a way to complete their mission from the mountaintop...

All four judges recommended this film and gave it very positive reviews.

The general idea is that "because Israel is a small country, it lacks the necessary international understanding and support on how to deal with the issue of war..."

The highlight of this film is that it doesn't take a strong stance on how to proceed; it simply hopes that both sides can unite and ultimately achieve victory.

Israel, a small country?

Lack of international understanding and support?
Did not take a clear stance?
Do you even know what you're saying? Israel is being portrayed as a victim?

If this was officially authorized by the Berlin Film Festival, it can only be said that the Germans have indeed "knelt" very thoroughly. Films about World War II or Jews are particularly likely to win awards.

This falls under the category of political correctness in Europe and America.

However, this does not fall under Cao Yang's political correctness.

"The Spy" tells the story of Edward Wilson, one of the founders of the CIA.

Unsurprisingly, for the sake of the country, Wilson not only sacrificed his personal ideals, but also deepened the conflict between him and his wife Margaret. Their marriage became a mere formality, and even their family and kinship were plunged into despair due to his transformation.

This is a "mainstream" movie unique to Americans.

Furthermore, this movie is very formulaic.

In Cao Yang's opinion, such a film would hardly win an Oscar, yet Berlin wanted to give it an award. He really couldn't understand what the Germans were thinking.

The film "Yera" is somewhat novel, weaving an existential allegory with a circular narrative of "car accident-rebirth-death".

Death is rebirth, and rebirth points to death. The car accident at the beginning is both the starting point and the beginning. Yera's psychic nature is a collage of unfinished obsessions by a dying brain, attempting to confirm and redeem self-worth in hallucinations.

The story presents contemporary Germany's national conditions and contradictions through the lens of gender relations, revealing the powerlessness of history in every individual's choices.

This is a concept film, and also an experimental film.

Cao Yang found the movie very interesting, somewhat like "Run Lola Run," but with more restraint and a more nuanced use of allegory.

The plot is simple: a woman who has lost her husband is in a car accident, and the film attempts to give her a new life, allowing her to relive it within the more than one-hour narrative.

When the final curtain falls, she and her husband, who had been entangled with her, had actually died at the very beginning.

The film initially presents the woman's life after surviving the ordeal in a calm tone, but when the answer is revealed, it tells us that these were all just tricks, and that Yera's near-collapsed life ultimately ended in death.

This architecture, presented in a minimalist German style, appears calm and almost brutal.

For Cao Yang, winning awards for experimental films would only be beneficial, since most of his films are marketed as experimental films.

The movie "Wandering on the Rooftop" finally gave Cao Yang a small shock.

The male protagonist is a sensitive, rebellious teenager whose favorite thing to do is to hide in a treehouse and spy on others with binoculars.

Through his binoculars, he saw his friend and his girlfriend exploring the mysteries of the human body in the grove.

Through the telescope, he saw his father and stepmother doing some indescribable things, and the process was very intense.

……

He also wrote down what he spied on in his diary, and he liked to put on various colors of lipstick and wear women's clothing.

He also abused himself.

As the plot unfolds, the British director pulls a major twist, revealing that the protagonist had a reason for doing so—his mother had suddenly passed away, and his father immediately married another woman, his stepmother.

The male protagonist believes that this woman is not only a mistress but also the murderer of his mother, which is why he often uses binoculars to spy on her in order to find evidence that the mistress killed his mother and avenge her.

This reversal feels a bit forced and contrived.

Even if his mother passed away, and even if he had a series of doubts, that's no excuse for him to spy on others, put on makeup, and abuse himself.
Just as Cao Yang was thinking this, the plot took another turn.

The male protagonist never gave his stepmother a kind look and would seize any opportunity to criticize her. On their wedding anniversary, he disregarded his father's feelings and compared her to a prostitute.

Unable to bear the male protagonist's constant sarcasm, the stepmother and father discussed sending him to London to experience life.

The male protagonist, of course, refused to go; he wanted to continue spying... no, he wanted to continue searching for evidence.

Then the male protagonist's stepmother unleashed her ultimate move: seduction!
And they succeeded; the two did something naughty.

Cao Yang could only say that this is truly a European art film; there's nothing they wouldn't dare to film, only things you can't imagine.

Cao Yang thought that was the end of it, but the plot of the movie once again took Cao Yang by surprise. The male protagonist's stepmother had something on him, and the male protagonist had no choice but to submit and was forced to leave for a distant place.

In an unfamiliar city, the male protagonist meets a woman.

This woman looks very much like the male protagonist's mother, or rather, they look exactly alike.

From then on, the male protagonist's life revolved solely around this female protagonist. He would spy on her through the rooftop window, watching her box, laugh with others in bars, and do unspeakable things with a married man.

Well, after a series of events, the male lead, with the help of this kind older sister, said goodbye to his past self. What followed was a long series of passionate scenes, and the two lived a shameless life together.

Even knowing that Europeans are capable of anything, this plot still somewhat shocked Cao Yang's worldview.

I thought that was the end of it, but little did I know, it wasn't over yet!

The protagonist's happy life didn't last long before his stepmother arrived. She seemed a little jealous and said to him, "When you're being intimate with that woman, doesn't it look like you're having sex with your genitals?"

Damn, the British director is really something. He managed to get the truth out of this through the stepmother's mouth and say that.

It truly lives up to its reputation as a European art film, featuring plenty of raunchy jokes and scenes that will make your nose bleed!

As for the remaining films, there's not much to say. They're either biographical films or about World War II, which are all films that are relatively easy to win awards for.

Cao Yang paid special attention to "Tuya's Marriage".

In its original history, this film won the Golden Bear Award at this year's awards ceremony.

Cao Yang was very curious: was this movie more about manipulation or political correctness?

Forget about artistry. Like I said, among the thousands of films submitted each year, there are definitely many that are above average. Sometimes, deciding who gets the top prize requires a comprehensive consideration of many factors.

Cao Yang carefully watched "Tuya's Marriage" and, to put it simply, it was different from the works of the Fifth Generation directors.

This film is not one that is labeled with rural life, folk customs, natural scenery, news events, or extras.

It is not a pseudo-folk film, nor is it an "exposing" film with an "underground" label.

Some of its highlights show a difference from previous fifth-generation and even some sixth-generation directors.

In terms of plot, the film draws on several folk tales about "marrying and supporting a husband," which are inherently dramatic and therefore highly watchable.

Throughout the film, the director focuses on the central theme of marriage and develops the story around it, first explaining the inevitability of marrying the husband, then Tuya's choice, and finally her marriage.

With such a single, clear, and concise storyline, the plot is very tight, avoiding the problems of overly scattered plots and too many branches in the past.

Compared to the condescending and compassionate perspective of "Still Life," "Tuya's Marriage" is more of a peer-to-peer approach to everyday family life.

At the same time, setting the story in Mongolia also foreshadows a change in the film's style from its previous subtle and repressive approach.

The wind and sand of the northern frontier give the film a more unrestrained style, and in terms of emotional handling, it puts the constraints of Eastern ethics aside, focusing more on the desire for survival and primal emotions.

These are the advantages.

As a sixth-generation director who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy, even though Wang Quan'an studied acting, he still inherited the "advantages" of directors from the Beijing Film Academy and specially set up a grand background for this story.

The grassland in the film is not the grassland of yesteryear that people imagine with "blue skies, green lakes, and galloping horses..." but rather a grassland that has suffered from severe water shortages and desertification due to industrialization.

The herders in the film are not the carefree herders of the past, but herders struggling to survive after failing to dig a well. In the absence of water, their lives become unsustainable...

To put it bluntly, it's still about revealing the truth and expressing compassion, only from a more subtle and "rational" angle.

Furthermore, fearing that the Berlin Film Festival and Western audiences might not understand his subtlety, he even gave an interview.

He said, "The filming location was severely desertified due to brutal industrial development. When the government forced the local Mongolian herders to move away from the pastoral area, I decided to make a film to record it all before it disappeared."

Tuya's unique marriage story is also based on a true local event.

I wanted to make this film beautiful and powerful. The main filming location was the home of the last Mongolian herder who had not yet moved away, and the actors were mostly local Mongolian herders.

When the movie was finished, the houses and people in the movie disappeared.

They were no longer the proud Mongols riding on horseback, but had become farmers scattered in the fields on the outskirts of the city or fruit vendors selling fruit in the corners of the city…

These words, coupled with the story in the movie—the desire to dig a well, the desire for water—are the root of all suffering.

This is definitely a movie story that Westerners enjoy, and it aligns more closely with their political correctness; it is absolutely politically correct.

Why did Western countries take the lead in launching environmental initiatives in the 1990s and early 21st century?
Because they are already industrialized compared to developing countries, and developing countries that want to industrialize and develop must inevitably sacrifice the environment in the short term.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, environmental issues have become increasingly prominent, and Western countries have further strengthened energy conservation and emission reduction by promoting policies such as carbon emission agreements and carbon taxes.

From the West's perspective, these tactics have precisely hit the weak points of developing countries, making it impossible for them to develop industrialization!
In later generations, after experiencing some failures and lessons, China changed its approach and, under the strict constraints of environmental protection, eventually became the world's largest industrial nation.

In contrast, Germany, which initially embraced Industry 4.0, ultimately reverted to Industry 0.4 after a series of internal conflicts and compromises…

They also demolished the Mohrburg power plant, which cost 30 billion euros to build and had only been in use for 6 years. It was Germany's most advanced power plant.

This bombing probably shattered any remaining hope Germany had of fighting back.

Germany, which actively embraced environmental protection, especially extreme environmentalism, ultimately shot itself in the foot.

We've digressed a bit. In short, environmental issues, especially those concerning China, are currently the most politically correct, even more so than the "scars" series that reflect the plight of the grassroots.

Wang Quan'an was indeed a very clever director. He not only knew how to be flexible—by only looking at the film, there was nothing prohibited, so it was very easy to pass the censorship.

Moreover, they have a very keen eye – almost all directors in China haven't realized that environmental issues are also one of the most politically correct topics.

Cao Yang also realized at this moment that if this movie were to be "pushed" a little, it should be able to win the Golden Bear Award.

But is such a Golden Bear award worth it?
If this movie didn't have those big background events, and if Wang Quan's interview remarks hadn't been made, Cao Yang would definitely support him winning the Golden Bear Award.

(End of this chapter)