This director lacks vision.

Chapter 322 The Triple Structure of Youth

On the afternoon of June 10th, a beautiful girl of about fourteen or fifteen years old stood by the roadside waiting for a car downstairs at the Guomao Apartment building.

Her face was still very youthful and immature, but she was well-developed, and her mouth was already swollen.

This contrast between youthful innocence and mature maturity attracted the attention of many passersby.

A red BMW 3 Series drove up, and Cheng Xiao immediately waved to signal it.

As she jumped and waved, a wave of energy emanated from her, causing several men to involuntarily stop in their tracks.

The car stopped, and Cheng Xiao saw that Tian Qianwei was sitting in the front seat, so he opened the car door and sat in the back seat.

Meng Ziyi, who was driving, joked, "Xiaoxiao, with your talent, you're sure to shine in this season of Produce 101. You could be the next He Na."

You two are so alike! Not only do you both have big breasts, but you're also both great dancers!

Cheng Xiao and Tian Qianwei became friends during the Fanghua training camp.

Liu Jicun, on the other hand, hung out with Song Zuer and took the opportunity to join Liu Yifei and Shu Chang's faction.

Through Tian Qianwei's introduction, Cheng Xiao also became acquainted with Meng Ziyi and Nazha.

Last time, Tian Qianwei won the witch role and defeated Song Zuer, while Nazha's side won a great victory.

Liu Haocun won the Best Actress award at Cannes this time, while Liu Yifei and Shu Chang won another victory.

The two sides engaged in open and covert struggles both offline and online, gradually forming small cliques.

Meng Ziyi, this cousin, has completely abandoned her principle of permanent neutrality and sided with Naza because Naza has been caught red-handed.

Hearing Meng Ziyi's words, Cheng Xiao shook his head and said, "I don't want to be He Na, she has no presence at all!"

He Na had no fame in her previous life; it was only by chance that she said on the Produce 101 show, "Are you blind, Da D!"

Then he became a sensation, relying on his genuine personality and a pair of outrageous items to make it all the way to his debut.

Among the members of Produce 101, He Na and Zhang Yuxi have had the worst development, with lower popularity and attention.

Cheng Xiao was still young at the time and had high aspirations. She wanted to occupy the center position and become the absolute focus of the girl group, so of course she wouldn't take He Na as her role model.

As the car started moving, Cheng Xiao asked, "Isn't Sister Zha coming today?"

Before Meng Ziyi could answer, Tian Qianwei in the passenger seat said, "Then Sister Zha has seen Youth, she's seen it six times, and she said she doesn't want to watch it again."

"We'll meet up with her for dinner after the movie."

Cheng Xiao is preparing for Produce 101, Tian Qianwei is preparing for her role as a witch, and Meng Ziyi is preparing for the college entrance examination.

The three women have been very busy these days and haven't had a chance to see "Youth".

"Youth" has been released for 10 days and its total box office has reached 9 million yuan, although its box office performance during the same period was slightly worse than that of "John Wick".

However, the movie has generated a lot of buzz, sparking heated discussions across the internet and even the whole society!

Moreover, the total box office of Youth was lower than that of John Wick, partly because the ticket price was lower.

In fact, the number of viewers was even higher, and the film had a strong staying power.

After finishing her exams, Meng Ziyi immediately went to Yanjing. She invited Tian Qianwei and Cheng Xiao to watch "Youth" together.

The three women arrived at the movie theater and found it packed with people, with long queues at the ticket windows and self-service ticket machines.

Today is the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which is also a peak period for cinema traffic.
A poster of the movie "Youth" was displayed at the entrance of the cinema, with Liu Miaomiao and He Qingfang standing opposite each other in the same dance pose.

Further inside, there are posters for "The Secret of the Fuchun Mountains" and "Jurassic Park 3D".

These are the three most popular movies right now.

Among them, "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains" was only released yesterday, and its reputation as a terrible movie has not yet spread. It is still in the stage of defrauding the box office.

The pairing of Andy Lau and Akira Kurosawa, coupled with the promotional hype of a blockbuster film, still has some appeal.

After seeing Meng Ziyi finish queuing to exchange his tickets, Tian Qianwei asked in confusion, "Why are there six tickets?"

Meng Ziyi explained, "Nazha told me that you need to watch Fanghua at least twice to understand it."

So I bought tickets for both shows online.

To avoid spoilers, Meng Ziyi didn't read online comments but instead consulted Nazha.

Although Cheng Xiao played the role of the bullying older sister in "Youth", she was completely unaware of the movie's plot.

The three women waited for a while before entering the theater.

When they first watched Youth, they only thought Liu Miaomiao was very inspiring.

Especially Tian Qianwei and Cheng Xiao, who train hard every day, can naturally empathize with Liu Miaomiao's perspective.

They were extremely excited to see Liu Miaomiao practice dancing with such passion and finally achieve success.

When Liu Miaomiao won the Taoli Cup Gold Award, many audience members cheered in the theater.

All I can say is that Jiang Yifeng's filming is superb, and the emotional shifts are handled perfectly.

It allowed everyone to feel the passion and joy of success.

Regarding the upcoming plot twists, and the fact that Liu Miaomiao might be male and burned He Qingfang's diary, only Meng Ziyi understood some of it and felt that there was still more to learn.

That feeling is like seeing the bottom cards, only to discover that there was something fishy about the previous dealing, and you have to find out the truth.

Seeing that Tian Qianwei and Cheng Xiao didn't quite understand, Meng Ziyi explained: "The inspirational stories at the beginning of the movie are all Liu Miaomiao writing her own biographical novel."

He embellished his image and lied in his novel, but I don't know exactly where he lied.

After hearing the explanation, Tian Qianwei and Cheng Xiao still seemed to understand but not quite.

The three women waited until the next showing and watched the movie again.

This time, Meng Ziyi discovered more details and had a very different feeling, but there were still many things she didn't understand.

Tian Qianwei and Cheng Xiao were still completely clueless.

The two girls are not very intelligent, and they are only fourteen or fifteen years old, so it is normal that they don't quite understand Youth.

Hearing the heated discussion in the theater, the three women became even more puzzled. In the end, they unanimously decided to go to a dessert shop to eat while watching the film reviews and analyses.

Meng Ziyi said, "Luckily, I was prepared in advance. Naza had already told me which analyses to look at."

Naza herself didn't understand Youth, so she read a lot of film reviews and analyses.

The film reviews and analyses she recommended to Meng Ziyi were quite reliable.

These were recommended by Jiang Yifeng when Nazar sought "in-depth communication" with him.

Meng Ziyi first opened Weibo and found a blogger named "Watching Movies Every Day".

This person's Weibo profile identifies them as a small-town youth and avid movie enthusiast with over a million followers.

The blog post pinned to the top of the "Watch Movies Every Day" page reads: "One article to help you understand Youth, the Palme d'Or is well-deserved."

Five days after its publication, this blog post has garnered over 8 million likes, over 4 million shares, and 120 million views.

This is an astonishing figure, demonstrating the immense popularity of the film "Youth".

Meng Ziyi clicked on the blog post.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!
This article is a plot analysis of Youth, attempting to recreate director Jiang Yifeng's ingenious concept. It contains a lot of spoilers, so viewers who haven't seen the movie should proceed with caution!

I strongly recommend that everyone go to the cinema to watch Youth first, and then read this article after watching it, so that you will have a deeper understanding.

The more times you watch it, the deeper your understanding will become.

Actually, this article isn't really a film review or analysis; it's just my personal viewing experience.

On May 31st, I watched Youth for the first time.

The first 75 minutes were exhilarating; I felt it was an inspirational movie.

Jiang Yifeng's filming technique was superb. He used various camera techniques and background music to constantly suppress and pull at my emotions, ultimately allowing those emotions to be completely released when Liu Miaomiao won the Taoli Cup Gold Award.

At the 76-minute mark, the film takes its first turn when the passionate and resolute Comrade He Qingfang suddenly falls into depravity, leading to a long, repressive, and anti-official recollection.

When I saw this, I felt very uncomfortable. I felt that the most beautiful thing in the world had been tainted, and at the same time, I felt that it was illogical.

He Qingfang's right hand is broken; can she really cover it up with just a sleeve? Isn't this a major plot hole?

He Qingfang was just an ordinary middle school teacher, a loner with no friends. How did she suddenly have connections to help Liu Miaomiao get in through connections?
This doesn't make sense either.

Filled with doubt and resentment, the film came to an end.

When I saw that Liu Miaomiao was writing her biography, I was immediately startled!
When I saw He Qingfang's message to Liu Miaomiao, calling him a real man, I was completely stunned!

So that's how it is! It turns out Liu Miaomiao was telling a story! All the plot holes from before now make sense.

But what followed was even more doubt!
How many lies are there in Liu Miaomiao's biography? How many are true?

With these questions in mind, I quickly bought a ticket and watched "Youth" again. This time, I felt no inspiration, only utter irony!

In fact, director Jiang Yifeng told us at the beginning of the movie that Liu Miaomiao had a problem.

At the beginning of the movie, Liu Miaomiao is drinking water from a water tank, and then she scoops a cup of water and brings it to her grandfather.

After drinking the liquor, my grandfather accidentally fell and died while climbing the roof beam.

Pay attention to the details: before Grandpa fell to his death, he clutched his stomach, and it was this action that caused him to lose his footing and fall.

Why is he clutching his stomach?

The old man had a stomachache because Liu Miaomiao gave him unclean cold water to drink on a hot day.

Grandpa was actually killed by Liu Miaomiao.

This can also be found in a shot at 38 minutes and 17 seconds in the movie, which is He Qingfang's diary.

One passage in it says this:

“Niu Miao, your teacher knows about what happened to you.”

Grandpa's death has nothing to do with you, so don't be sad.

Although you may not be the most talented, your teacher will definitely teach you well.

As long as you are willing to work hard to learn, you will definitely achieve something!

It's okay if your dad doesn't agree with you learning to dance. Your dance teacher will buy you the clothes and shoes you need.

You are all the hope and future of our motherland; you must not lose the vigor of youth!

When director Jiang Yifeng gave his acceptance speech at Cannes, he said that what Comrade Zuo Yi wanted to say could only be kept in his diary.

This suggests that the diary entries in the movie "Youth" are based on real events.

This also corroborates my point that Liu Miaomiao killed her maternal grandfather.

At the very beginning of the film, director Jiang foreshadowed that Liu Miaomiao was a person who was good at lying and shirking responsibility.

As for the fact that Liu Miaomiao's maternal grandfather died next to Weiren's portrait, there are many interpretations and no single answer. You can interpret it for yourselves.

In short, after watching Youth again, I was deeply moved and felt it was utterly absurd.

It turns out that Liu Miaomiao is such a shameless person, actually slandering a comrade with firm beliefs and even using He Qingfang to question the authorities.

But upon closer reflection, reality seems to be quite the same. How many shameless "Liu Miaomiao"s are there online? Everyone can carefully discern the truth.

In order to record more material, I watched Youth several more times and finally figured out the truth of the matter.

In the film "Youth," the diary appears a total of nine times.

I memorized the contents of my diary and pieced together the true story.

Liu Miaomiao is a rural child abandoned by his father, an educated youth. Due to his unintentional mistake that led to the accidental death of his grandfather, he came to the city to seek refuge with his father.

Seeing Liu Miaomiao's pitiful state, He Qingfang kindly helped him, not only teaching him to dance but also buying him many things and even taking care of his daily needs.

He Qingfang devoted a lot of time and money to Liu Miaomiao, helping him like a teacher and a mother, supporting him all the way to the Taoli Cup Gold Award, and even getting him the opportunity to study abroad.

Unexpectedly, Liu Miaomiao changed after going abroad. Not only did she have surgery, but she also slandered and defamed her teacher, who was like a mother to her, and embellished her experience as an inspirational story.

After understanding the storyline of "Youth," I thought I understood the movie. On the surface, it's inspirational, but it's actually satirical.

However, when I looked through the reports, I found that Dina, the editor-in-chief of the Cannes Film Festival program, once said that the film "Youth" has a triple structure, and that watching the film three times would give you three different feelings.

But I only have two insights.

With this question in mind, I went to the cinema again to watch the movie.

After watching it, I cried in the theater for more than ten minutes until the cleaning lady urged me to come back to my senses!
The movie "Youth" tells the story of a generation's passionate youth, and also their failures!
The name He Qingfang means "how to celebrate youthful beauty".

There is a line of poetry in the diary: "How can we celebrate our youth? Banners reflect the morning glow. Only because of the people's suffering, our blood has been spilled in every household."

He Qingfang can be used as a substitute for Wei Ren.

Because the movie opens with an argument between Liu Miaomiao and her grandfather, where Liu Miaomiao says that he is to blame for many things.

Liu Miaomiao's later slander against He Qingfang was actually a group of people slandering him!
He Qingfang can also be a general term for a generation, representing former comrades and the people.

At the 76-minute mark, when Liu Miaomiao has achieved success and the audience is at their most emotionally charged, the film suddenly introduces a plot about He Qingfang's corruption and depravity, which is not simply a satire of Liu Miaomiao.

Instead, it makes people feel uncomfortable, sad, and feel the pain and resentment of having their ideals and beliefs crushed!

One second everyone was immersed in the joy of success, and the next second they had to face this sadness!
This emotional gap may be the reason why our comrades felt so unwilling back then!
They almost succeeded!
Only when the audience feels the pain and resentment can they empathize with their failure and feel tears when they think of Wei Ren and their former comrades!
Only then will we realize that our destiny has not yet been fulfilled, and we must continue to work hard!

Although decades have passed, it is unknown how much of the gains from the struggles of that time remain.

But we must remain steadfast in our beliefs and keep going!
Just like the "Youth" that burns in the flames at the end of the movie!
We want to be the little kids who dance with He Qingfang when the movie ends!
This was also a clever arrangement by Director Jiang, who placed the scene of He Qingfang dancing with the children during the curtain call.

This symbolizes a happy ending and echoes the Internationale's line, "The Internationale will surely be realized."

I finally understand that "Youth" has a three-part structure: from inspiration to satire to encouragement. This is the complete "Youth"!

Of course, there are many other metaphors in this movie, such as He Qingfang losing her right hand, but I won't go into those. You can read other people's analyses.

Here, I have transcribed a complete diary entry written by He Qingfang in the movie and am sharing it with you.

I hope everyone can feel the beliefs of that generation of comrades and be inspired by them.

January 2, 1976.

Today, during rehearsals for the new dance, I was a beat too slow again.

Teacher Wang frowned and said, "He Qingfang, you need to pay more attention!"

Several comrades chuckled secretly.

I know I have a poor foundation, I come from the countryside, and my hands and feet are not as dexterous as others.

But I don't blame anyone, and I certainly don't blame the teacher.

The teacher's strict requirements are for the sake of the nation's literary and artistic endeavors, so it's normal for comrades to have a laugh.

I need to put my strength into the right place, just like hammering a nail, and work twice as hard!
It was late at night, and I was practicing alone in the practice room in front of the mirror.

My clothes were soaked with sweat, and I wasn't afraid of getting bruises on my knees.

I am reminded of Comrade Lei Feng's words: "Difficulties are like springs; the stronger you are, the weaker they become, and the weaker you are, the stronger they become."

I jumped over and over again until my steps were steady and my movements were nimble.

The body suffers a little, but the mind is bright—what is a little hardship compared to honing skills for the sake of destiny?
When I got back, I saw Xiao Zhao still working overtime mending performance costumes. She had laughed at me during the day.

I quickly went over and helped her sew on the buttons.

She seemed a little embarrassed, so I said, "We're comrades in the same regiment, it's only right that we help each other out!"

She blushed and grabbed my hand: "Sister Qingfang, I'll help you practice dancing from now on."

My heart suddenly felt warm.

My comrades' progress is my progress, and the collective's honor is my honor.

I want to be a screw forever, shining wherever I am screwed in.

As long as it benefits the nation and the people, I am willing to endure any hardship or fatigue!

—He Qingfang.

After reading this analysis, Meng Ziyi breathed a sigh of relief.

She exclaimed, "My cousin is really amazing. He has a triple structure in one movie and hides so many clever ideas and meanings. After reading this analysis, I feel like I wasted my time watching the movie."

Tian Qianwei and Cheng Xiao nodded as well.

Clearly, the three women only thought Jiang Yifeng was impressive, without any deep feeling about the film's content, let alone any emotional resonance with the simple words in He Qingfang's final diary.

this is the truth.

Those without sufficient life experience are destined to only see the spectacle of the film "Youth".

But excitement is always a good thing, at least it generates publicity and buzz.

And there were quite a few surprises.

Meng Ziyi left the "Watch Movies Every Day" blog and then saw the top trending topic on Weibo—#RealLifeLiuMiaomiao:GaoXiaosong#.

Gao Xiaosong is quite popular now; his talk show, Xiaoshuo, has a very high viewership.

Meng Ziyi immediately became curious and, instead of reading other film reviews, clicked on this trending topic.

(End of this chapter)