"Old Things in the South of the City" is an autobiographical sketch of the famous female writer Lin Haiyin. It is a novel based on her life between the ages of seven and thirteen, and can also be regarded as her masterpiece. It describes that in the 1920s, in a courtyard in the south of Beijing, Yingzi's warm and happy family lived. Through the childish eyes of the protagonist Yingzi, it shows the world the joys and sorrows of the adult world. There is a kind of innocence that cannot be expressed, but it expresses the complex emotions of the world. "Old Things in the South of the City" was once selected as one of the "Top 100 Chinese Novels of the 20th Century" by Asia Weekly. It was also put on the screen in the 1980s and won many awards such as the "China Film Golden Rooster Award", touching a generation. It is full of nostalgic tone and expresses the multi-layered emotional colors it contains in a natural and traceless way. Everything in the book is so orderly, the slow flowing water, the slow camel caravan, the slowly passing people, the slowly passing years... Scenery, objects, people, things, and feelings are perfectly combined, like a poem. An elegant and subtle poem. More than half a century ago, the little girl Lin Yingzi followed her parents across the ocean from Taiwan to Beijing and lived in an alley in the south of the city. The decaying battlements of the ancient capital, the bells of camels in the setting sun, and the secluded alleys of the busy city... all of this made Yingzi feel novel and fascinated by it. The crazy woman in front of the guild hall, the little friend Niu'er who was covered with whip marks, the thief who haunted the grass, the wet nurse Song Ma who accompanied him day and night, the loving father who was seriously ill and slept underground... They all played with Yingzi. They passed, talked and laughed, and lived together. Their voices, faces, and smiles were still there, but they all quietly left one by one. Why is the world so miserable? The ignorant Yingzi thought deeply but couldn't figure it out.

More than 50 years have passed, and those who are far away from Beijing are still fond of all this. That hint of sadness and deep lovesickness are deeply imprinted in her childish memory, and they will never fade away, and they also deeply moved me.

When I read "Old Things in the South of the City", I felt a little warm in my heart, because it is rare to see such exquisite things, because she does not deliberately express anything, she just calmly depicts a child scene by scene. The old Beijing in my eyes is like life talking about itself. So unhurried and gentle, so pure and indifferent, so long-lasting and fragrant, so full of the smell of human fireworks, but without any pursuit of fame and fortune.

More than half a century ago, the little girl Lin Yingzi followed her parents across the ocean from Taiwan to Beijing and lived in an alley in the south of the city. The decaying battlements of the ancient capital, the bells of camels in the setting sun, and the secluded alleys of the busy city... all of this made Yingzi feel novel and fascinated by it. The crazy woman in front of the guild hall, the little friend Niu'er who was covered with whip marks, the thief who haunted the grass, the wet nurse Song Ma who accompanied him day and night, the loving father who was seriously ill and slept underground... They all played with Yingzi. They passed, talked and laughed, and lived together. Their voices, faces, and smiles were still there, but they all quietly left one by one. Why is the world so miserable? The ignorant Yingzi thought deeply but couldn't figure it out.

More than 50 years have passed, and those who are far away from Beijing are still fond of all this. That wisp of sadness, that deep touch of lovesickness, is deeply imprinted in her childish memory and will never fade away...

Adapted from the autobiographical novel of the famous female writer Lin Haiyin The movie "Old Things in the South" is full of nostalgic tone, and it expresses its own multi-layered emotional colors in a natural and subtle way. Everything in the film is so orderly, the slow flowing water, the slow camel caravan, the slowly passing people, the slowly passing years... the scenery, objects, people, things, and emotions are perfectly combined, like a song An elegant and subtle poem.

The 25 years I spent in Beijing can be said to be my golden years, which can be compared with the glazed tiles of the Forbidden City. The alleys and courtyards in the south of Beijing, the donkeys at the foot of the West Mountain, and the camels with bells around their necks... these all give me endless creative inspiration.

--Famous female writer Lin Haiyin

I was deeply moved by the deep lovesickness and light sadness in the novel "Old Things in the South of the City". The whole novel is full of simplicity, Warm thoughts and feelings. When this film was released, this emotion also touched countless audiences.

--Wu Yigong, the director of this film

Watching "Old Things in the South of the City", my heart felt a little warm, because it is rare to see such exquisite things, because she does not deliberately express anything , only one scene after another calmly depicts old Beijing in a child's eyes, as if life is talking about itself. So unhurried and gentle, so pure and indifferent, so long-lasting and fragrant, so full of the smell of human fireworks, but without any pursuit of fame and fortune.

--Film critic Ling Meng

In the 1920s, the little girl Lin Yingzi followed her parents across the ocean from Taiwan to Beijing, and went to the Hui'an Guild Hall in the south of Beijing. In a small courtyard nearby. Her father is a university professor, and there is a little brother and a wet nurse at home. Yingzi spent her childhood in this carefree atmosphere.

When Yingzi was playing in the alley, he would always see the "crazy woman" Xiuzhen standing in front of the guild hall. Gradually, they became familiar with each other. Xiuzhen liked Yingzi very much, and Yingzi also liked her very much. From Xiuzhen's mouth, Xiao Yingzi learned that her lover was a Peking University student who was arrested by the reactionary military police for participating in the student movement and his whereabouts are unknown.

And their daughter "Xiao Guizi" was also thrown under the Qihuamen City. Her life and death are still uncertain, and Xiuzhen became the crazy person she is now. Xiaoyingzi sympathized with Xiuzhen and promised to help her find Xiaoguizi.

There is also a singing family living in the alley. The little singing girl Niuer is a friend who plays with Yingzi. Niuer is an abandoned child. She is honest by nature and is abused by her adoptive father and mother. Yingzi always felt aggrieved by outsiders' bullying.

On a night of heavy rain, Niuer was beaten and ran to Yingzi's house and told her her life experience. Yingzi accidentally discovered that there was a mole behind Niuer's ear. She remembered that Xiuzhen had said that her daughter Xiaoguizi also had such a mole behind her ear. It turned out that her friend Niuer was Xiaoguizi! Yingzi immediately took Niuer to Xiuzhen's house to reunite mother and daughter. On this night, Xiuzhen took Niuer to find Xiao Guizi's biological father, and their figures disappeared into the rainy night...

< p>On the night when Xiuzhen and her daughter were sent away, Yingzi fell ill. After recovering from the illness, Yingzi's family moved. She has also reached the age of going to school. In class, she followed the teacher and recited "The country is broken by mountains and rivers, and the city is springy and has deep vegetation...". In a shabby yard overgrown with grass not far from Eiko's home, Eiko met a new friend. He was always hiding something in the grass. They often chatted together, and Yingzi learned that he also had a younger brother who was very good at studying.

Unexpectedly, the man turned out to be a thief. Soon, he was captured by the police. However, Yingzi did not think he was a bad person, because he once said that he "had no choice but to take this step to go to work and support his younger brother in school." This friend also "left".

Song Ma, the wet nurse of the Yingzi family, left her children and family behind to work as a servant in the Lin family, working hard to make money to support the men and children in the countryside. Her man sometimes came to see her. Yingzi's younger brother grew up sucking Mother Song's milk. Mother Song was diligent and honest. She liked little Yingzi and her brother very much.

One day, Yingzi came back from school and saw Song’s mother sitting blankly under the eaves. It turns out that her son, Xiao Shuanzi, drowned, and her daughter was sold to someone unknown by her husband...

Yingzi has a very kind and amiable father. He likes books, flowers, and birds. I love Yingzi and my younger brother. There are often some progressive students gathered around him, and they discuss revolutionary principles together.

But the good times did not last long. Her father died of lung disease. Yingzi, her mother and younger brother buried her father in a Taiwan cemetery in the mountains on the outskirts of Beijing. They were going back to their hometown in Taiwan. Song's mother was carried away by her husband in the countryside on a donkey. Yingzi looked at Song Ma in despair, as if everything she had in Beijing had left her forever...

A touch of sadness, a deep sense of lovesickness

Directed by Wu Yigong "Old Things in the South of the City" shows the social scene of old Beijing in the 1920s through the innocent eyes of a little girl, leading people to relive the life shrouded in gloom and mist. The film is still original in structure. The director eliminated the plot clues consisting of beginning, development, climax, and ending, and used "a touch of sadness, a deep sense of lovesickness" as the keynote, and adopted a bead-like structure to connect the film. Yingzi and the crazy girl Xiuzhen, Yingzi and the thief, Yingzi and the wet nurse Song Ma are three stories that have no causal relationship. This structure makes the film have the function of a multi-prism, reflecting the specific historical features of the society at that time from different angles, forming a prose film with psychological emotions as the main content and pictures and sound modeling as the form of expression.

In "Old Things in the South of the City", the director's selection and use of actors are appropriate. Yingzi (Shen Jie)'s bright, innocent, charming and exploratory eyes are enough to make the language inferior; Song Ma's simplicity , implicit and superb performances bring people into that painful era. The director did not deliberately pursue a direct so-called "dramatic" effect, but instead focused on the silent ending of the film. In fact, the film only expresses two words "parting" - characters met by chance and became familiar with each other in the course of life, but in the end they all left one by one. Xiuzhen and Niuer are like that, the thief is like that, Song Ma is like that, and finally, even the father is like that. In the last five minutes of the film, there is not a single line of dialogue, and the picture is mainly static, with no big movements and no plot. However, it uses color (large red leaves) and the rhythm of the picture (a group of fast, moving in opposite directions). Close-up shot of red leaves), using appropriate music and dissolving techniques that can create a sense of melancholy at this moment, etc., fully convey the emotions of the characters and form an emotional climax. Under the impact of this emotion, the audience will naturally summarize the feelings given to them by the whole film, thus reaching a climax of feeling. This "climax" is not given directly to the audience by the director, but is naturally formed in the audience's mind.

Liang Tingnan, a writer of the Qing Dynasty, said in "Qu Hua": "The emotion is in the mind, the meaning is in the words, and it is implicit. This is the wonderful truth." The film "Old Things in the South" pursues the correct form of artistic expression. It is the highest realm in Chinese aesthetic tradition. (Anonymous)

☆"This movie is some of my childhood memories, especially the impression of my father..." This is the opening line of the movie "Once Upon a Time in Childhood". "Once Upon a Time in Childhood" is an autobiographical film by the famous Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien. The film is set in the Fengshan Community District where Hou Hsiao-hsien grew up, and records every aspect of his life from elementary school to before he became a soldier.

Here, Hou Hsiao-hsien used his unique documentary techniques, through the spatial sense of fixed lenses and frames, and the interweaving of images and narration, to not only record his growth, but also the generational changes in certain corners of Taiwan at that time. No matter how many different discussions there are on politics or historical reality, this film does record the disappearance of some people and the growth of others in this land in the past, just like the English title of the film "THE TIME" TO LIVE AND THE TIME TO DIE》.

☆The movie "Girl in Red" is a very innovative film. It is adapted from the novel "Red Shirt without Buttons" by female writer Tie Ning, through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl An Ran It is of far-reaching significance to appreciate and show the society and life in the changing era.

The film criticizes a large number of outdated secular concepts with feudal overtones that exist in contemporary society, and reveals a thought-provoking major issue with the characteristics of the times: In a period of change, what kind of people do the older generations want the next generation to be, and what kind of people do the young people want the next generation to be? What kind of person do people require themselves to be?

Answer: laoyaojing