Special feature of 1905 film network "I played a special crowd, which changed from appearance to inner. I spent a month experiencing life and gained more than 30 kilograms."
On June 16th, the finalists of the main competition unit of Golden Goblet Awards Film Festival were officially unveiled. At the press conference, the leading actor described his role in the play like this.
Directed by the high-profile new generation director (), the film tells the story of Una (Huang Xiaoming), a son with mental retardation, who takes his mother () on a journey to find "sunshine" after she is seriously ill.
Wei Shujun said that "Sunshine Club" tells the joys and sorrows of a family, and it is a simple story related to everyone’s life. Another star is even more blunt: it is moving, but not cruel.
What kind of special role makes Huang Xiaoming "reinvent himself"? What style changes have been made in this new work brought by director Wei Shujun after The Mistakes by the River?
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He was shortlisted for Cannes Film Festival for four times, and The Mistake by the River won 309 million box office in one fell swoop. These past achievements made Wei Shujun one of the most watched Chinese directors of the new generation.
If we say that from "Yong ‘an Town Tales Collection" to "Errors by the River", Wei Shujun has realized the transformation from "telling his own story" and "telling the story of a movie" to facing a wider audience, and his techniques are more mature. Then this time, we can see his different explorations in theme and style in Sunshine Club.
Compared with the previous film, the whole film is small in size, and the story mainly revolves around the daily interaction between the mother and her two sons.
Faced with the great blow of the mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, the doctor’s brother chose to seek medical advice actively, while the younger brother with less intelligence than ordinary people insisted that the "success" he learned in the sunshine club, such as optimism and embracing the sunshine, was the best way to cure his mother.
And the mother in the center of the whirlpool, facing the dying life and the returning old love, what kind of waves will her heart set off? Can you still be optimistic and elegant?
Although it discusses such a heavy topic as disease and death, the film abandons the fierce drama conflict and puts the complex and surging life emotions under the daily narrative. Whether it is the deep affection between mother and child or the old love, they have not fallen into the stereotype, and they are calm and delicate without losing their warmth.
At the same time, Sunshine Club, a "successful organization", is in full swing, and my brother’s unreasonable and unconstrained operation invisibly adds humor and absurdity to the calm daily life.
The film is mainly shot in Moganshan, Hangzhou, with a large lush forest as the main visual element. The 1:33:1 frame is full of retro flavor, and together with exquisite photography and composition, it forms a delicate, romantic, humorous and simple lyric sketch, which also makes Sunshine Club a different work of Wei Shujun.
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Wei Shujun began to try to cooperate with star actors from "Tales of Yong ‘an Town", first, and this time, Huang Xiaoming.
It is not difficult to see Huang Xiaoming’s determination to seek a breakthrough in performance from his film choices in recent years. Una in Sunshine Club is also a type of character he has never tried, a mentally handicapped person who has reached the age of no doubt but has a mind like a child.
Huang Xiaoming also once again mobilized the Methodist technique, gaining more than 30 kilograms for the characters, and making special treatments for their hair and teeth. The change of appearance not only adds a sense of simplicity and simplicity, but also achieves the effect of "de-star", from the outside and the mainland to "another person"
What’s more worth mentioning is that when portraying people with mental retardation, he didn’t take it for granted to choose exaggerated and uncomfortable ways, but spent a month observing the daily life of people with mental retardation and their families, highlighting the childishness and innocence of the characters in the performance, making the whole character very cute and lovable.
Guest appearances by well-known directors are equally surprising. The "Master of Success" he played became the humor of the whole film, and his Shanxi accent, loose English, golden sentences that broke out from time to time, and even his fascination with retro songs all had Jia Dao’s personal imprint.
Needless to say, the other two powerful actors, Lu Xiaofen and Zu Feng, are very familiar with such themes and roles, and their calm and restrained performances complement each other with the overall style.
Another "protagonist" of the film is the old "magic" song that appears repeatedly in various forms — — Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin is also the English title of the film.
The most crucial sentence in the lyrics goes like this: When you are worried, the difficulties will be doubled /don’t worry, be happy.
This kind of idealism, even idealistic optimism, is the "creed" of Sunshine Club, a successful organization, and it is also the way for Una to get along with the world. Intellectual disability is a defect for him, but it has also become his "protective cover" to some extent, keeping him with a free soul and naive nature that has not been "domesticated" by society.
The Wu’s two brothers, one named Wu Di and the other named Una, one is a respected doctor, and the other is a group of people with low intelligence outside the mainstream of society. They seem to be "competing with each other". But as the story unfolds, we gradually seem to see the lovely side behind Una’s awkward and clumsy actions. Especially after the mother’s cancer exceeded the medical category, Wu Di was no longer invincible, and "worry-free" seemed to be the antidote to life.
Perhaps this is what Wei Shujun hasn’t changed, because the seemingly comic shell is wrapped with a sad core. In the face of the inevitable decline and disappearance of life, what attitude can we face, and can we really "don’t worry, be happy"?
