I only learned about such a special documentary after I accidentally heard that Weiqi Fan composed the theme song of the same name for the movie "That Silent Sunshine Afternoon".
After some understanding, I found the video resources with great anxiety, but after watching it, I was a little surprised.
At the beginning of the film, Lin Huizong was talking to his daughter about his wife's upcoming whereabouts.
The daughter hesitated and said: "I don't really want to put her there."
The father asked with questions: "Mom, did you tell me where she is now?" ?"
The daughter thought for a while and said, "It should be a good place."
The father said, "I want to say that mom is very good."
Daughter. In the end, I started to have some doubts, and then turned to affirmation: "It should be, right? Yes."
Yes, my mother is about to transcend the physical body and go to a nice place.
The father and daughter's conversation was not too heavy or sad, and was even casual, as if they were talking about the destination where the hostess of the family was about to travel.
As early as more than ten years ago, swimming coach Lin Huizong and his wife Xu Yu'e*** signed a body donation letter together. After his wife died of illness in 2012, Lin Huizong donated her body to Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan in accordance with his wife's last wish. Working as a "general body teacher" in a university medical school.
When the body is sent to the medical school, it must first be embalmed and then stored until conditions are mature before it can be used for dissection.
During the period of storage, Lin Huizong drove more than 250 kilometers from Chiayi to Taipei to visit his wife Xu Yu'e every one or two months.
Even in the cold storage room, he always loved to stroke his wife's head through the storage bag and call her "wife" softly over and over again. Tell her about trivial matters at home: about his son, daughter, himself, and other things...
He seems to be used to having conversations with his wife in this way, and is used to it. The wife exists in a "general" form.
This is not an ordinary documentary. It allows the audience to understand for the first time that it is possible to gaze at life from such a perspective.
There are two versions of "That Silent Sunshine Afternoon".
The short version of the film is 15 minutes long. It won the CCDF4 Best International Potential Award and the ASD Special Recommendation Award in 2013. It came second in the New Taipei City Documentary Award in 2014.
On March 24, 2017, the 73-minute long version of the film was released in Taiwan, with a Douban score of 8.3.
The purpose of this documentary is to lead the audience to stare at death and think deeply about the meaning of life through the perspectives of the family members of the "anatomy teacher" and medical students in the anatomy class.
The thought-provoking life story in the film has led to the film being selected for the largest Canadian International Documentary Film Festival (Hot Docs) in North America.
The film allows the audience to change their impression of narrative documentaries being straightforward, serious, and even cold. It has a large number of aesthetic perspectives and perfect compositions, as well as highly saturated warm colors and even soothing and ethereal background music. These elements will make the audience have the illusion that they are watching a Taiwanese style literary film at certain moments, and they can also feel that the director seems to be deliberately weakening the heaviness of the topic of "life and death" and the sadness caused by death.
Some people say that this is a documentary about farewell, while others say that this is a documentary to promote body donation.
Actually, not really.
The origin of the film was the celebration planning of Taiwan's Daai TV station. The TV station gave several title options, one of which was "The Story of Teacher Da Ti".
Originally, many people just thought that the anatomy teacher was a "teacher" who taught anatomy classes. They did not know that the "anatomy teacher" was actually a corpse lying there using his own body to teach students.
Perhaps because Chinese people are influenced by traditional concepts, there are very few people in society who are willing to donate their bodies for teaching after death. Therefore, there is a serious shortage of teachers in medical school teaching.
Chen Zhihan felt that this subject was very attractive, so he went to Tzu Chi Medical College to investigate and found an interview subject. However, the cooperation ended in failure because Tzu Chi decided to film it on its own.
However, Chen Zhihan studied it in depth for a long time and felt that it would be a pity to give up, so he decided to continue shooting by himself. So he called medical schools one after another and finally found it through Fu Jen Catholic University School of Medicine. Lin Huizong, the protagonist interviewed in the documentary, conducted a long-term follow-up shooting, and gave a profound interpretation of Mr. Lin’s family’s journey of body donation and their outlook on life.
Although the film unfolds a heavy topic about life and death, it uses the artistic expression of a literary film to reflect as much "warmth" as possible.
From the scene of feeding stray dogs at the beginning of the film, it can be seen that Lin Huizong must be a caring and warm person, but when his wife was alive, she took care of the housework and took care of the children, while he was busy with work and worldly relations. He neglected to communicate with his wife. After his wife passed away, his life suddenly changed. Only then did he realize that there were still many things he had not said to his wife.
In more than two years, the pain caused by his wife’s death seems to have calmed down. In front of the camera, he was chatting and laughing with his friends, and even laughed in front of his friends and teased his wife for being a general education teacher. This matter, but the close-up shot revealed his facial micro-expressions after smiling, which still revealed the bitterness in his heart.
As her daughter Lin Yingru recalled her mother, she had a big shock after she left. She had to get used to life without her, and suddenly realized that our life had always been so well taken care of. , after she left, these things never happened again.
Because the whole family was busy on the day my mother passed away, no one was sad. It was not until after the body was sent to the Medical College of Fuzhou University that my life returned to peace. There was one person missing from my family, and I suddenly felt lost. Only then did I realize that I had a lot to say that I had not had time to say to my mother.
The delayed funeral because the entire process was not completed made the family feel as if something had not been completed, but Lin Huizong seemed to have temporarily adapted to the current living situation.
The daughter is somewhat resentful of her father, so she does not appreciate many of her father's actions. The way she, her brother, and her father are usually at home seems a bit incredible to outsiders. They never eat together, and they all work on their own things under the same roof, and there is not much language exchange.
When the daughter has something to discuss with her father, she actually expresses it by writing a letter.
But as the storage period of the mother’s body has passed and the gross anatomy teacher is about to be used in the anatomy class, Lin Huizong’s family begins to think about where the end of life is? What does "alive" mean? Mrs. Lin's departure and the series of problems surrounding her becoming a general education teacher actually provided an opportunity to ease the relationship between father and daughter.
Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan is a pontifical university founded by the Roman Catholic Church and directly under the Ministry of Education of the Vatican.
The unique Catholic church background of this university makes the donation of "General Teacher" even more sacred. Every step of the entire process strictly follows Catholic rituals, allowing the audience to perceive these aspects of the medical school through the lens. The beneficiary group shows piety and respect for life.
Nearly a quarter of the people in Taiwan believe in Buddhism, and the Hungry Ghost Festival ceremony is very grand in Taiwan. Church members of the medical school will sacrifice the body teachers and some dead animals on the Hungry Ghost Festival. Say a prayer.
They said: "This is the part where we think we can use our beliefs to integrate some of the ideas of ordinary people."
Therefore, in the camera, you will see church personnel and ordinary believers singing hymns with crosses. There are also crosses with the image of Jesus and traditional Buddhist tributes on the table, and there are even people standing next to them. Burning incense candles, this kind of shot looks completely out of place.
Similarly, the grand ceremony before the dissection by the "General Teacher" also completed the entire process of burning incense and worshiping in a Catholic ritual atmosphere.
The essence of Catholic teaching is "self-sacrifice and dedication, allowing human beings to escape suffering and sin and achieve eternal life", a kind of "great love". What the "General Teacher" has accomplished is exactly such a "great love" that is in line with Catholic teachings.
This collision of Eastern and Western cultural beliefs has completed the integration and unity in "great love".
"Anatomy teacher" needs to have a very grand ceremony before dissection, so the anatomy teacher has begun to provide students with ideological education and guidance before anatomy class very early. She teaches students how to follow " Communicate with the family members of "Teacher General" in order to understand the family's mental journey, and also to understand what kind of person "Teacher General" was during his lifetime, so that he can make such a contribution.
The purpose is to let students understand that what you are about to dissect is not just a cold corpse, but a living person who contributed his body to them as a teaching aid, so that students can understand The value of life, otherwise, even if you go to the dissecting table, it will be "no different from the pork in the vegetable market."
This was Chen Zhihan’s thinking at the beginning of filming this film: “People generally have to be alive to make some contribution to the world, but generally teachers begin to have an impact only after they are dead. This is amazing. And these Medical students do not know the anatomy teacher, but according to regulations, students must visit the anatomy teacher’s family during the summer vacation before taking anatomy classes. So when the anatomy teacher becomes a family member of someone you know, what mentality will you use to go there? Look at him? This just fits my thinking about the relationship between doctors and patients."
As a result, the meaning of education has changed from the pursuit of knowledge to the reverence of life. The "general teacher" under the scalpel is not. It was no longer just a cold corpse, but an acquaintance or a relative of a friend. This stimulated students to think about the "doctor-patient relationship" in their future work.
As the person closest to the anatomy teacher besides the medical students, the in-depth filming of the anatomy class of the medical school was an extremely impactful life education for the photographers. During the filming, they discovered There is a cabinet in the corner of the anatomy room filled with various tools, including electric drills, saws, hammers...
"It's hard to believe that five or six young people have not seen it." It took a lot of effort to saw through a skull, and they had to use so much force to cut open the body, it looked like a car mechanic."
"Standing next to the dissection table, the biggest shock is to see a dead person lying on the dissection table and vulnerable to the mercy of many people." They sincerely lamented: "It turns out that in the end, life can only But this is the ultimate influence that this body can exert."
After filming this film, Chen Zhihan's outlook on life has changed a lot. He said frankly: "In the face of setbacks. Sometimes, I will think, no matter how hard life is, I will think, when I am relaxed, how can I live a more profound life? ”
Details determine success or failure, this sentence is reflected in this movie. fully reflected.
There are no classic images or shocking shots. This film just follows Lin Huizong’s family as they experience an incident. However, a large number of details support the entire movie.
About the title:
The title of "That Silent Sunshine Afternoon" comes from when Chen Zhihan went to Fu Jen Catholic University School of Medicine to investigate in the summer. The anatomy class of the Department of Medicine was held every Monday. In the afternoon, every time he passed by the Chinese and American Hall in front of the medical school, he could see the entire campus with a large area of ??sunlight shining down, shrouded in a quiet atmosphere. The feeling was similar to the atmosphere in an anatomy class. At that time, he felt It was so great that I later named the movie "That Silent Sunshine Afternoon."
The English name seems more appropriate, "The Silent Teacher", translated into Chinese - the silent teacher.
About language:
Taiwanese sounds slow and has a soft and waxy feel, and is occasionally mixed with some southern Fujian dialects, including Lin Huizong, including Lin Yuru, including medical The anatomy teachers and students in the hospital give the audience the feeling that the person face to face is telling you a story about life using his or her experience in detail.
Even if it is a topic related to "death", there are no words such as "death", "passing away" or "departure" in the whole film. Instead, the Buddhist term "passion" is used instead of straightforward words. of "death".
It seems to have alleviated the depression caused by "death" in a roundabout way, and replaced it with people's yearning for the "afterlife".
Regarding montages and close-ups:
Celebration shots with traditional Chinese elements, including incense burning, tributes, and various elements and rituals of Catholicism mixed in.
The exterior scenes of swaying weeds, the dusk with birds flying over, the rain on the car windows, the blue sky at the seaside...
These shots interspersed throughout the story allow the audience to watch As the years pass, it seems as if time is flowing slowly, and at a certain moment, I suddenly forget the sadness of the story itself.
Montages in movies can always arouse the audience's imagination through fast cuts of the camera, and inadvertently enhance the appeal of the film.
The day before Mrs. Lin’s body was about to be dissected, Lin Huizong, who had always been optimistic and humorous, finally couldn’t help crying. What echoed his tears was the close-up shot of the water in the storage bag of Mrs. Lin’s body. beads, causing the audience to roar with emotion.
After the dissection of the "General Body Teacher" was completed, the lonely threads on the gauze-wrapped body floated in front of the blurred background, which inevitably gave the audience a sense of sadness about the fate of the "General Body Teacher".
About the characters:
The film’s detailed treatment of the characters is also an important element in expressing emotions.
For example, the lyrics of the song Lin Huizong sang with his friends at KTV: "My lover, I really love you, please help us reunite as soon as possible." The song was sung with sincerity and was completely in Lin Huizong's heart A true portrayal of.
In the film, there is a top-view shot of Xu Yu'e's face on the autopsy table. It can be seen that the face is somewhat sunken and the skin has turned gray. It gives a realistic feeling of "face as gray as death". It makes people feel a tremor in their hearts.
Just like the director's original intention of shooting this scene: It's hard to watch a person being dismembered like this. I know that her face will be dissected in the end, so I want to keep her last complete look, Because I have been interviewing her family for a long time and have heard many stories about her. Although I have never spoken to her, I seem to regard her as a friend. So, the only thing I could do for her was to keep his face intact in the film.
During the gross anatomy, a burst of laughter broke out from the students in the anatomy room. Many people thought it was the director who did it deliberately, which made the audience have some questions about this: on the one hand, they thought it might be It reflects that some people are not too serious about anatomy. Another angle is that under the depressing work of dissecting the human body, students need some emotional adjustment, and they do not have to be serious at all times. attitude to the end.
Not many people can get over the death of a loved one in a short period of time and still have good weather every day.
As for the matter of donating the body of a loved one to be a "general body teacher", even if this is the last wish of the deceased relative, even if the consent form has been signed, when the body of the loved one is about to be The moment they become a "general teacher", many people will regret it.
Because of reluctance, because I can’t get over the hurdle in my heart.
Even the anatomy teacher in the film spoke frankly about her inner thoughts in front of the camera. Her father proposed to her before his death that she wanted to be an "anatomy teacher" in her college. She expressed her gratitude to her father. Said: "I can't help it, your daughter is not that great", "I have been a teacher for so long, and I will still feel sad when I see the general education teacher. If you, father, want to become the general education teacher under the students I teach, I will still touch (contact) ), so I can’t accept it.”
When her mother raised the same topic with her, she tried to avoid it.
This problem is very realistic and cruel. Basically everyone cannot get over the hurdle in their heart. Their loved ones have left, but the lives of the living have to go on. We cannot live our lives while thinking about what we once did. The bodies of their loved ones were sent to the medical school’s autopsy table and cut into pieces that were beyond recognition.
When talking about his family, Chen Zhihan said: "I found that I can't do it either! Then I realized that it is really difficult to let go when people don't really face death, so when I photographed Mr. Lin Huizong , I’m very worried about whether he and his family have really given up.”
In 2017, there was a short film with the same theme, "Teacher in General".
The 15-minute film tells the story of an ordinary family in Jiading District, Shanghai, whose old mother was seriously ill and planned to donate her body after her death. The eldest son believed that the old mother’s wishes should be respected, while the second son I don’t agree. My daughter is a doctor and she is dealing with a dilemma. The volunteers came several times with the agreement and left several times. The final resolution is not clear in the film, but the answer may be in the conversation between the granddaughter and her mother: "Grandma is so courageous." No matter how old her children are, the old mother still takes charge of herself and makes the final arrangements for her body.
In Wuhan during the COVID-19 epidemic, girl A-Nian’s grandmother, whom many netizens were concerned about, also passed away. After her grandmother passed away, A-Nian’s mother became the first family member to donate a patient’s body. It was precisely because of her This first one was followed by the second and third ones. Until April 5, Huoshenshan Hospital had 28 body donors in one day. These donors, because they themselves have suffered the pain of losing a loved one, do not want anyone to be like them again.
A-Nian once said that after the donation, her mother felt guilty, painful and relieved.
However, it is precisely because of these selfless anatomy teachers, their families, and medical researchers that the speculations of many cases have been confirmed, the use of artificial lungs has been advanced, and the skills and skills of intubation have been improved. The method is improved. It is precisely in this way that the seventh edition of the "Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for Pneumonia Infected by Novel Coronavirus" was produced, allowing the new coronavirus epidemic to be most effectively controlled in our country.
Relevant survey data show that only 56.29% of netizens are willing to comply with the last wishes of relatives to donate bodies or organs, and 41.2% of netizens believe that deep-rooted traditional cultural concepts are the main reason that prevents people from donating bodies or organs.
Perhaps, it was precisely because of all this that Chen Zhihan’s original intention of making this film was:
“I want to use this film to talk about what is real life. ? Is a living body with breathing, heartbeat, and pulse really alive?
The continuation of life does not depend on breath and blood, but on spirit and influence. > Should doctors thank patients for their experience, and should patients thank doctors for their contributions to society?
Death is an issue that everyone will encounter. In the face of death, everyone is at a loss. .
I also hope that the audience can think carefully about the right to use their own bodies during this period when they are still very rational, and also tell everyone around them who cares about them to make the most correct decision. "
"That Silent Sunshine Afternoon" is such a documentary that can make people rethink: how to view "life" and how to understand "death".
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