The best year/最棒的一个年
This film is the fifth one in the artist's long-term documentary series, which focuses on family values, the relationship between individuals and family culture, and the conflict between family generations. Unlike several of the artist's previous documentaries, the first half of the film takes place in a hotel in front of a train station in a strange city from the artist's hometown - due to his father's work, the artist and his parents spent the Chinese New Year on the top floor of this hotel, and this state lasted for about a week starting from the Chinese New Year's Eve.
In the film, the artist continues the previous shooting method - only holding an iPhone to record the family events in front of him, and in post-processing, these footages were spliced together to form a film. In the repeated pictures that have appeared, the scenery outside the window seems familiar, and the outside world seems to be the same every day, but if you look closely, there are many differences through the records. In the indoor environment, the previous scene of a large group of family members in former films, suddenly disappears, and what appears in the shot is only the artist's parents, as well as the activities and conversations of the two people in a small space. Compared with previous films, in such a peaceful rhythm, there are less conflicts and no quarrels of the past. It can be seen in some details that, although the artist's life still does not follow the trajectory the family had hoped, the atmosphere of the entire film unfolds in a quiet, tender mood until the end.
Although the whole film is composed of many scattered fragments, they are interrelated and combined into a complete story. This complete story, unknowingly, seems to have become a day-to-day story. These scattered contents are recorded, organized, and edited, and the real moment is infinitely magnified. Through the smiles, dialogues, and scene changes in the film, the artist is constantly showing the topics of ordinary life: culture, love, and identity. For the artist, the photographer, this film is a process of exploring the world, but this time it is a process for the artist and his parents to explore the whole world together. Their observations and thoughts are affecting each other at the same time, and the individuals are like one person, interacting with the familiar and the unfamiliar in this world. At the same time, the artist's self-observation is also reflected in the characters of the film - everything that happens to his family is like his own shadow, and he even finds that his sense of humor comes from his parents. A year later, the artist calls these discoveries and his long-term immersion in the series of films as identity nostalgia, and the discovery changes the artist's perception of the series as a whole.
这部影片是艺术家长期系列纪录片的第五部,该系列纪录片主要围绕家庭价值观、个体和家庭文化的关系以及家庭隔代之间的矛盾而展开。与艺术家之前的几部纪录片迥然不同的是,该部影片的上半部分内容发生的环境由艺术家的故乡变成了一个陌生城市的火车站前的宾馆里——由于父亲工作的缘故,艺术家和其父母在这个宾馆顶层过年,从大年三十开始,这种状态持续了一周左右的时间。
在影片中,艺术家延续着以往的拍摄手法——仅手持iPhone对面前的家庭事件进行录制,并在后期处理中,把这些素材片段拼接在一起组合成一部影片。在出现过的反反复复的画面里,窗外的风景似曾相识,外面的世界好像每天都一样,但是仔细一看,通过记录又有很多不同的地方。在室内环境中,以往的大范围家庭成员集体出现的场景突然消失,镜头中出现的仅仅是艺术家的父母,以及这两个人在一个狭小空间中的活动和对话场面。跟以往的片子相比,在如此平和的节奏中,少了很多冲突,也没有了往日的争吵。在某些细节中可以看出,虽然艺术家的生活还是没有按照家人们希望的轨迹进行,但是整部影片的氛围在一种安静的、温柔的情绪中展开,直到结束。
整部影片虽然是由很多零散的片段组成,但是它们相互关联,组合成了一段段完整的故事。这一段段完整的故事,不知不觉中,好像变成了一天天的故事。这些零散的内容被记录、整理、和编辑出来,真实的瞬间随之被无限放大。通过影片中的微笑、对话、和场景的转换,艺术家在不断展示着平凡生活中的话题:文化、爱、以及身份认知。这部影片对于艺术家这位拍摄者来说,是一个探索世界的过程,只不过这一次是艺术家和他的父母共同探索世界的一个过程,他们的观察和思考都在同时相互影响着彼此,三个人好像一个人,与这个世界中的熟悉的和不熟悉的发生着互动。与此同时,艺术家的自我观察也被映射到了影片的人物当中——发生在家人身上的一切就像是自己的影子,甚至他发现连自己的幽默感都来源于父母那里。在一年之后,艺术家把这些发现和他长期以来沉浸于该系列影片拍摄中的体验称作一种身份怀旧(identity nostalgia),并且这个发现改变了艺术家对于整部系列影片的看法。
If you watch it in China, please follow this link. 作品观看链接:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1KF411W7bR/
If you watch it in other places, please follow this link.