Chinanews.com, Beijing, November 11 (Reporter Wang Shiyao) "What a pioneer movie, I'm 'crazy' first!" The film "Mistake by the River", adapted from the novel of the same name by the famous writer Yu Hua, has exceeded 4 million yuan at the box office so far, setting the best result for the same type of film this year.

The original work of "Mistake by the River" was published in 1988 and is one of Yu Hua's pioneering masterpieces. It is reported that the film and television rights of "The Mistake by the River" have been sold many times, and Zhang Yimou has also bought the copyright plan to adapt it into a thriller. After Yu Hua saw the adapted script, he turned his head and recommended his novel "Alive", which had not been officially published at that time, to Zhang Yimou. In this way, "Alive" appeared on the big screen nearly 30 years earlier than "The Mistake by the River".

The movie "Mistake by the River" is set in the 90s of the last century, when a homicide by the river breaks the tranquility of the town. With the in-depth investigation of the policeman Ma Zhe (played by Zhu Yilong), the suspect locked on the madman (played by Kang Chunlei) adopted by the victim's fourth mother-in-law. However, during the investigation, a number of witnesses who had appeared by the river were killed one after another, which caused Ma Zhe's mental state to change drastically. Reality alternates with illusion, the story comes to an abrupt end, and the truth is unknown.

After the film ended, the first reaction of many viewers was to be stunned, "This is the end?" "Do you understand?" "So who's the murderer?" ...... The audience looked at each other, then locked their eyes on the rolling subtitles on the big screen, expecting an ending easter egg to be told the final ending. After the last line disappeared from the screen, everyone had to pick up their mobile phones and start searching for movie analysis and the content of the original novel.

Previously, Yu Hua introduced at the film premiere of the Pingyao International Film Festival that what this film wants to express is a kind of openness, it is unfinished, and the audience's viewing allows the work to continue to be completed.

Of course, the main creative team has already informed the audience on the poster that this is a movie with "no answers". And another slogan on the poster, "It's better to go crazy", also hints at the direction of the whole story.

Poster image of the movie "Mistake by the River". Image source: The official Weibo of the movie "Mistake by the River".

Can the "wrong" answer be the truth?

Although they have been told that there is "no answer", many viewers will still subconsciously want to explore - what mistakes were made in "Mistakes by the River"?

First of all, the name of the film seems to give away the answer, and the place where the error happened is by the river. The fourth mother-in-law who is addicted to being abused and beaten, the poet whose feelings are not accepted by the world, the "transvestite" hairdresser who has been framed, and even the child who has a strong desire to peep...

The never-ending river bears witness to everyone's "mistakes" but is "indifferent" to their tragic end. Just like the English title of the movie was changed from "Only the River Knows" to "Only the River Flows", it doesn't matter what the truth is. Because the river is always flowing, errors are found and covered with new ones, and there is no such thing as a "right" answer.

However, Ma Zhe, who is obsessed with finding the "right" answer, cannot turn a blind eye to these "mistakes". Even if the evidence is conclusive, why did the docile madman in the mouth of outsiders suddenly kill the fourth mother-in-law, the motive of the crime is not enough to convince Ma Zhe and make him refuse to close the case. So he followed other clues and discovered the secret of Wang Hong and Qian Ling hiding on the B side of the tape, and at the same time uncovered the "transvestite" that Xu Liang did not want to be made public...

Ma Zhe's "pursuit of justice" did not get the imaginary truth, but made more people go to a tragic end. At the same time, the unbearable Ma Zhe is trapped in the swamp of reality and fantasy, and gradually "goes crazy".

"People can't understand fate, so I disguised myself as fate, and I put on the confused and unfathomable face of the gods." In the opening credits of the film, the director left the audience with the famous words of Albert Camus, a representative of the "philosophy of the absurd". An incomprehensible fate, just like a life without the right answer, is how you understand the world.

Poster image of the movie "Mistake by the River". Image source: The official Weibo of the movie "Mistake by the River".

"A Thousand Spectators, One Million Hamlets"

The movie "Mistake by the River" takes place in the 90s of the last century, and the whole film is shot on 16mm film, and there will be a rough and hazy effect on the picture, and the director explained that he hopes to restore the real situation of the times from a realistic point of view.

In fact, this low-quality, blurry lens looks back at the past from the perspective of an observer. If the audience wants to substitute for the story itself, no matter how old the era is, the eyes of the witnesses will always be real and clear.

But as the plot deepens, you will gradually understand the director's intentions. Ma Zhe's office was moved to the stage of the cinema, the slides that constantly played the suspect's picture, the burning projector... The director has built another "life stage" in the real world, which seems to be illusory, and Ma Zhe, who collided in reality, can only get the answer to the truth he is striving for.

The third-class skills that "disappeared", the puzzles that couldn't be washed away, the bullets left in the bullet casings, and the 10% possible defective children, these plots that made Ma Zhe fall into madness also pushed the audience's desire to discuss to the top.

After the movie was released, a group of "river scientists" emerged, and the hot search topic on Weibo was "100 million Hamlets with a thousand viewers". They can't wait to find the original books to read, from music to movies, from forensics, sociology to psychology, all kinds of opinions collide and diverge.

Because the main creative team has stated that "there is no answer", it brings infinite imagination and discussion space to the ending of the story, and with the continuous fermentation of social word-of-mouth, this batch of "tap water" has successfully helped the movie break the circle.

Poster image of the movie "It's worth the trip". Image source: The official Weibo of the movie "It's Worth the Trip".

The threshold of literary and artistic films has been transformed into a slope?

In the past, literary films were often accompanied by strong artistry and outstanding style, with niche themes and contents, and relatively high viewing thresholds, resulting in disadvantages such as small audiences and low commercial value.

More than a month ago, the literary film "It's Worth the Trip" starring Hu Ge was released. He once shouted to the audience at a roadshow: "Maybe in the market, this is not a particularly commercial film, but we also need the box office, and we need more people to see what Chinese films should look like now." "Judging from the results, there was little effect, and the movie only got less than 3000 million box office in the end.

Before the release of "It's Not Worth the Trip", it won two awards for Best Director (Liu Jiayin) and Best Actor (Hu Ge) at the 25th Shanghai International Film Festival.

After the release of the film, the evaluation was polarized, some people were able to empathize with the feelings about life and death in the film, and some people commented that the film was the director's "self-touched", too literary tone, and insufficient sense of storytelling.

Similarly, there is the movie "Burning Winter" starring Liu Haoran, Zhou Dongyu, and Qu Chuxiao. The movie was released on the day of the Qixi Festival, and the focus of the early short video marketing was on the intricate love, which caused the audience who rushed to watch romance films to call themselves "cheated".

Even if the feelings can be explained by "inexplicable", the core of the story and the relationship between the characters must always have basic logic. What are the three young people confused and confused about, and what is the true yearning in their hearts, they want the audience to "make up for their brains" by themselves, but there are few clues, empty and boring.

Before the release of "Mistake by the River", the highest-grossing literary film this year was "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department", although there was no blessing from big-name stars, but the pleasing theme of comedy + science fiction diluted the temperament of literary films "high and low", and the form of "pseudo-documentary" was more innovative and realistic, and finally won more than 6700 million yuan at the box office.

The box office of the movie "The Mistake by the River" exceeded 3 million yuan within 2 days of its release, and it has exceeded <> million yuan so far, setting the best result for a film of the same type so far this year. Some netizens commented that "The Mistake by the River" left a slope while locking the group, welcoming all audiences.

In fact, the tone of the movie is still a literary film, which vaguely portrays the unknown marginal life of a small group of people, but consciously transforms the threshold for watching the movie, leaving the audience with a break that can go up as long as they want, and gives the right of interpretation to the audience through an open ending.

Nowadays, if literary films want to attract more audiences, it will be even more difficult to rely on the blessing of traffic stars or the "miserable" and "fraudulent" publicity and distribution. The requirements of the new audience for literary films have changed, and the creators should not be trapped in self-touching and ask the audience to understand you, but should take the initiative to build the "slope" that connects the audience. (ENDS)