Abstract: In 2017, "Buddha Plus" won the Golden Horse Award for Best Director as a dark horse, and is known as a new force in Taiwanese films. Through the perspective of several people at the bottom of society, the film uses black humor and relatively rare interventional narrative techniques to break the audience's conventional viewing experience and present a black-and-white, oppressive and socially hierarchical society in southern Taiwan.
Keywords: "Buddha Plus"; black and white film; interventional narrative; soundtrack
"Buddha Plus" is a 2017 film by Taiwanese director Huang Xinyao based on his 2014 film A feature film created by the short film "Big Buddha", it tells the story of night shift security guard Cai Pu and his friend Du Cai in a sculpture factory called "Globo" who accidentally discovered their boss Huang Qiwen's driving recorder while peeking at him. secret, triggering a series of local comedy stories with chain reactions.
The film has made audio-visual innovations, including the cross-use of black and white images and color images; the use of driving recorder images and sounds to tell the story; the director’s narration in Taiwanese dialect; the characters and narration jumping from the film Come out and talk directly to the audience, etc. This article analyzes the audio-visual language of the film "Buddha Plaza" to reveal the core of the film.
1. The colorful colors in black and white life
In a world where color movies are rampant, a group of people suddenly went back and began to explore the world of black and white movies, such as the Golden Horse Award winner The best film "August", the Chinese literary film "No Problem", etc. Directors always have their reasons for choosing black and white, either because of the era or because of the tone of the film. The black and white movie lacks some magnificent colors and seems to cover up a little bit of reality, but it is more simple. In this film, the director always uses various methods to remind you: this is just a story, separate from reality. This is probably why he chose large areas of black and white.
But the film is not just black and white. When all the realistic passages are in black and white, the world in the driving recorder is colorful. "Look at the lives of rich people, they are indeed colorful." When Du Cai sighed like this, many viewers couldn't help laughing. This kind of self-deprecation echoes the absurd black humor of the film.
Although "Buddha Plaza" is set in the Tainan countryside, the director does not show the beautiful mountains and rivers in the countryside's external space. Instead, he focuses the camera content on indoor spaces, such as sculptures. factories, convenience stores, hospitals, etc. These closed black and white spaces do not have the poetry of pastoral pastoral scenes in traditional Taiwanese local films. Instead, they appear simple and dilapidated. This is also a true replica of the living space of local people. The group portraits of local people's lives, as the physical space where the whole story takes place, are dark and depressing, and they also set the realistic tone of the film. From the audience's perspective, the movie is in black and white, but for the people at the bottom of society in the film, perhaps their lives are in black and white, with no bright colors and no hope of life. Through metaphorical colors, the director presents the bleakness and desolation of the poor's life and the arrogance and luxury of the rich's life, giving people an intuitive and strong contrast and impact. The black and white images in the film are simple, while the color images appear a bit rough because they are from a driving recorder. Through the contrast between these two aspects, the director reflects from the side that although the world of the poor is black and white, their souls are not corroded, while the luxurious and luxurious life of the rich has already turned their souls into filthy.
The story of the film is actually very simple. It is just that two poor people witnessed the process of a rich man killing someone, but what is reflected in the details is that the poor people are mottled and dark, and the rich people are sensual and violent. There are four characters at the bottom of society in the film: Caipu, a ragpicker, Cai Pu, a doorman who works part-time as a drummer in a funeral procession, Sakya, a homeless man, and Potato from a grocery store. The four of them have the sadness of those at the bottom, but at the same time they also reveal a kind of optimism and cuteness. The film creatively uses the driving recorder as a medium to tell stories and show human nature from a voyeuristic perspective. The poor life limits the imagination of Du Cai and Cai Pu. Perhaps the colorful world in the driving recorder is what they yearn for.
2. The humorous narration of a chaotic and scoundrel person
In the 1990s, the "spatial turn" that emerged in the West transformed the originally objective and real space into a cultural code. As a film, the narrative space is the activity place or existence space used by the creator to carry the plot and elements to be narrated. It is often presented in the form of pictures and sounds and exists in the film as an integral part of the narrative discourse. “From the perspective of the functional form of space, the narrative space of a film is generally composed of four components: material space, social space, psychological space and spiritual space.” ① The four kinds of space on the one hand introduce the narrative framework and story development, on the other hand they serve as Imagery conveys rich connotations.
One of the construction methods in Metz’s film mechanism is defined as “the production process of the psychological mechanism that satisfies the audience’s viewing needs by simulating the subject’s psychological process”②. In other words, in the current film production process, the audience's acceptance psychology is placed in an important position. Most previous films used techniques such as smooth editing, front and back shots, and stitching systems to build a film narrative space that is in line with the audience's psychology, so that the film can become a "good object" and the audience can have a better viewing experience. movie experience.
Compared with other movies, "Buddha Plaza" presents a different style and content in the narrative space. Throughout the film, the director always uses Taiwanese to narrate the film with humorous narrations. The narration appears directly with the opening credits, which is rare in previous films, making it surprising and unexpected from the beginning. Moreover, the director's narration has a very personal style. He seems to be in the film talking to the audience and the characters in the film. This is very similar to the commentary track that distributors added to the film during the heyday of discs. Commentary tracks are usually recorded by directors or critics to satisfy the curiosity of movie fans. In this film, the director seems to intentionally imitate the commentary track, using amusing lines to attract and guide the audience, achieving powerful satire.
In this film, the director becomes a storyteller in the theater, and the film’s images are like props for the director’s storytelling. When the film opens, the director tears down all four walls around the characters. While narrating the plot of the story and the characteristics of the characters, he guides the audience to look here and there. The audience, like onlookers, followed the director's guidance and pointed and commented on the characters' behavior and the development of the plot.
Interventional narrative breaks the "fourth wall" between the creator and the audience, removes the audience from the narrative situation, and allows the audience to watch the movie "consciously" - "You are You are watching a movie, you are outside the movie.”
3. The melody that rises when language is extinguished
"Buddha Plus" won the Golden Horse Award for Best Score. Lin Shengxiang and his old band were responsible for the score. The band is comfortable using hollowbody guitar, classical guitar, bass and drums. "To Have or Not" is the ending theme of the movie, a melancholy and imaginary slow ballad. Lin Shengxiang sings the melancholy of this black and white movie. It creates a sparse and elegant musical atmosphere. Wang Zhaohua, who has been composing Taiwanese ballads for a long time, twists and turns in the lyrics, as if he is freely switching between reality and fiction. Those meek characters who have no choice but to face their fate are even more powerless under the rendering of the music. .
Take Du Cai’s three theme soundtracks as an example. At the beginning, when Du Cai and Cai Pu peeked at Huang Qiwen’s driving recorder in the two-square-meter guard room, there was no shadow of the cheerful and humorous melody. In the song "Peeping at Tung Tsai Piao", the electric guitar plays the role of the lively Du Cai, and the electric yueqin is the dull and stupid preserved vegetable. The two pianos tiptoe towards the chairman's driving recorder. This is similar to the first half of the film. The overall tone is consistent. Later, when Du Cai was eating his last meal, the melody sounded when we learned that Du Cai died unexpectedly. The piano, six-string lute, whistle and hollow guitar were extremely gentle, and the human scene that finally fell into his eyes - The boundless wheat fields were blown gently by the wind. In the end, the melody that sounded from the flying saucer that Cai Pu was sitting in Du Cai's home gave people a sense of power. Together with Lin Shengxiang's singing, it gave people a shocking beauty. The sound of the harmonica that sounded at the end came with the dim light of the morning.
The submissive Cai Pu's only concern is his mother. The last scene he leaves for the audience is the silhouette of his mother riding a motorcycle. The harmonica and piano play the leading roles in "The Difficulties of Preserved Cai". It is quiet and slow and makes people feel sad after listening to it. Calm and heart-wrenching. The mysterious Sakyamuni is like a person who is so faint that he is about to disappear. The melodious sound of the mouth organ sounds and disappears just like himself. As for the factory owner Huang Qiwen, he is a fake artist, a lecher, and a murderer. The soundtrack Lin Shengxiang prepared for him has a western cowboy feel. The song is called "Follow the Chairman to Surf", which is an extremely sensual pleasure. The irony of hypocritical people is evident under the background of music.
The soundtrack of this film accurately captures the positioning of each character, and integrates each person's personality, life background and final encounter into the music. It is extremely powerful in rendering and makes the film more full and full. There is power.
4. Conclusion
In "Buddha Plus", the presentation of black and white images, humorous director's monologues and other techniques will surround traditional narrative films and create an important basis for illusion. ——The "fourth wall" is broken. The "camera" that has always been hidden in the classic film principles is exposed to the audience, and the audience is placed outside the film through an interventional narrative method, thus forming a calm and silent viewing experience. Through these unique techniques, the film presents the living conditions and psychological state of the bottom characters to the audience, and in this way arouses the audience's attention to the bottom characters and reflection on the real society.
To borrow a sentence from the director: "Although you are outside the movie, you are actually inside the Buddha. We can never escape from this human whirlpool. You will feel like you are watching someone else. Life, but in fact you are still in life. Everyone is knocking in the Buddha, everyone is shouting, but everyone can never escape your fate.