news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

"Reverse Life" has a warm and realistic temperament. It cares deeply about the life pressures faced by ordinary people and demonstrates a profound humanitarian sentiment. However, after in-depth analysis, it is not difficult to find that it is actually a commercial blockbuster that is proficient in emotional algorithms. The film uses excellent filmmaking techniques, integrates various realistic elements, weaves a compact narrative flow and dense touching details, and accurately perceives the emotional vulnerabilities of the audience. It can be called a tear-jerking blockbuster.

As written in the end credits - "This film is dedicated to everyone who works hard to live", the film does pay tribute to those who work tirelessly, but in the process, based on various considerations, it simplifies the complexity of reality, making the criticism of reality remain at a relatively rough level.

Poster of "Reverse Life"

The perspective of “urban elites” creates multiple identities

"Reverse Life" is like a wide-angle lens, capturing the living conditions and psychological states of different social classes, outlining the multiple faces of the world. Among them, the middle-aged crisis of the urban middle class and the hardship of the food delivery riders are fully revealed in a documentary style, but the film also demonstrates the high optimism, tenacity and calmness of life in bitter humor and witty ridicule.

The film begins with the scene of Gao Zhilei's family getting up in the morning, giving the audience a glimpse of the true face behind this glamorous family. Through simple daily details, it quietly shows Gao Zhilei's career, family structure and the life pressure he faces. After Gao Zhilei was laid off, the warm and stable state of his family was broken, and the plight of middle-aged people after losing their jobs was heartbreaking. In the end, Gao Zhilei was forced to join the army of food delivery riders due to the pressure of survival.

Through Gao Zhilei's perspective, the film leads the audience to have an in-depth understanding of the life of food delivery riders, which is equivalent to creating a unique observation perspective, allowing the audience to follow Gao Zhilei to complete a social investigation and life adventure. This choice of perspective is extremely clever. It can break through people's numbness of "taking it for granted" and give the audience a shock caused by strangeness and curiosity. This has been verified in "Dream of Red Mansions". Cao Xueqin shows the life of Rongguo Mansion through Liu Laolao's perspective, which strengthens the narrative effect between the extreme gap between the rich and the poor. Back to "Retrograde Life", the work status of those food delivery riders who race against time, the grievances and fatigue that follow them are familiar to them. Daily, but for the "urban elite" Gao Zhilei, these details seem to be shocking and carry a huge emotional impact.

The film pays tribute to the delivery riders affectionately, but the protagonist is not a real delivery rider. This seems a bit ironic, but it actually reflects an extremely sophisticated artistic strategy. Because the main audience of the film is definitely not the delivery riders, but the urban middle class with a similar educational background and job nature to Gao Zhilei. With Gao Zhilei as the protagonist, the film can quickly establish an empathy channel with the audience. Moreover, as an "outsider", Gao Zhilei is not familiar with people like Lao Kou and Dahei. He can guide the audience to understand their life difficulties step by step and touch their inner pain and longing. This not only effectively sets up the suspense of the plot, but also completes the portrayal of the delivery riders "from the outside to the inside". What's more, the audience, like Gao Zhilei, ultimately has a certain realistic barrier and emotional distance from the group of delivery riders. This distance not only arouses the audience's curiosity, but also allows the audience to withdraw at any time, secretly feel fortunate that they are not delivery riders, and can safely pour out sympathy and compassion.

Of course, the cost of using Gao Zhilei as the narrative point of view cannot be avoided. The audience wants to reach the life of the food delivery rider, through Gao Zhilei's eyes, resulting in a double alienation of emotions. This hides a narrative risk. The life of the food delivery rider must be sufficiently "spectacular" so as not to weaken the emotional attenuation caused by the long transmission chain. This is understandable. The food delivery riders in the film present two extremes of joy and sorrow: Yang Dashan is enthusiastic and sunny, has mastered the traffic password of the intelligent era, and lives a relaxed and arbitrary life; Dakou has many children and a daughter suffering from leukemia; Dahei caused a colleague to lose a leg because of a transfer order, and he was trapped in ethical guilt and wanted to pay off the 400,000 debt for his colleague; Lao Zhang, who is still delivering food at the age of 57, has to follow his old path as his son; Xiaomin, a single mother who lives with her daughter, is destined to stumble on the road of life. These food delivery riders have life prototypes, and the film is also portrayed in a more realistic and touching way, but they certainly cannot represent this group of tens of millions of people. The reason why the film focuses on them is that the emotional intensity of these characters can offset the energy reduction brought about by narrative transmission.

Stills

Trapped Algorithms, Join Algorithms

The main plot of "Reverse Life" is relatively clear, and the narrative density is high, but the theme of the film seems to be somewhat vague. According to Greimas's dynamic model analysis, Gao Zhilei's "object" is to get rid of the economic difficulties, quickly pay off the overdue mortgage and pay for his father's rehabilitation expenses, which means earning at least 15,000 yuan per month.

In order to achieve this goal, Gao Zhilei faced many "opponents": unfamiliarity with the routes, lack of close relationships with the stores, unfamiliarity with the structures of various buildings and communities, lack of understanding of the food delivery procedures, as well as bad weather, poor physical condition, and frequent traffic accidents. These "opponents" are actually more external and superficial, and seem to be overcome with time or enough caution. This undoubtedly downplays the real difficulties and challenges of the food delivery industry, and carefully conceals the deeper physical and mental destruction of the industry on riders.

In the process of pursuing the "object", Gao Zhilei certainly had "assistants", namely his family and colleagues. In the end, Gao Zhilei successfully reached the top of the "single king" with his intelligence, as well as the encouragement and help of his family and colleagues, and pocketed 15,000 yuan. This seems to be an inspirational story, singing the confidence, wisdom and perseverance of a person in the face of difficult challenges. However, unlike ordinary inspirational films, Gao Zhilei's peak of life is unsustainable, lacking lasting glory and rewards. It is a humble and bitter success, full of bitterness and powerlessness.

The film did not follow the classic realism approach, but quietly avoided the heaviness of reality and the bleakness of life, and instead used a mythological approach to allow the audience to experience an exciting heroic coronation ceremony.

What is the real "opponent" of Gao Zhilei in his pursuit of the "object"? When Gao Zhilei was laid off, his boss mockingly mentioned a management program developed by Gao Zhilei and advised him to respect the algorithm. Therefore, the real "opponent" in the film is the "algorithm". In this cold and precise system, everything has become cold data and rigorous calculation of interests. The connotation of "people" and the warmth of humanity are taken away, the moral feelings of individuals become dull, and the emotional connection between individuals becomes fragile. Everyone becomes a code, and the trajectory and speed of this code are strictly controlled.

When algorithms penetrated into our lives in every possible way, the whole society was rectified in the name of science and efficiency. In this context, Gao Zhilei was laid off in the algorithm, thus saving costs for the company. Also because of the algorithm, Gao Zhilei submitted more than 1,000 resumes but no one was interested, because he became a negative value in big data because of his age. In the food delivery industry, there is also a set of sophisticated algorithms, which are composed of factors such as unit price, mileage, number of orders delivered, and rate of negative reviews. Every food delivery rider is manipulated by this algorithm at all times, and their bodies and souls become empty and pale, transformed into data on the manager's computer screen. For food delivery riders, what is really chilling is not the traffic accident, but the voice prompts lingering in their ears: "You have a new order", "Your order is about to time out", "It's over, your order has timed out", "Your order has been canceled by the user", "You received a bad review"...

The film attributes Gao Zhilei's difficulties as a food delivery rider to the complexity of the industry itself, or the low moral quality of the customers. This is an extremely clever way of dealing with the problem, but it seems to be somewhat evasive. The film does not want to make an art film in a furious way with sharp and penetrating ideas, but through the "algorithm" of market investment, using the unemployment of the middle-aged middle class and the hardship of food delivery riders as selling points to achieve a commercial triumph. The film constantly magnifies the embarrassment, bitterness, and humiliation of Gao Zhilei in the process of delivering food. It is not that it is really unclear where the crux of the problem lies, but that the creator is clearly aware of and follows the value logic of commercial films.

With the "Lulutong" program he developed, Gao Zhilei may eventually enter the algorithm center of the food delivery company. At this point, Gao Zhilei has returned to his original class and will contribute to the algorithm of the food delivery company. Although the film comforts the audience that Gao Zhilei's algorithm is full of goodwill, after "Lulutong" is incorporated into a huge algorithm system, it may eventually become a rope around the food delivery riders. Just like Dahei, because of his fast delivery speed, the platform will require all riders to deliver at this speed. Once "Lulutong" greatly improves the efficiency of food delivery, this efficiency will become the industry standard.

Gao Zhilei is like a tour guide, taking the audience to observe the living conditions of food delivery riders up close, and then returning to the elite class. This is an extremely inspiring and encouraging struggle. But for most real food delivery riders, their all-out struggle is just to survive, and their half-life efforts may be destroyed by an accident.

Stills

There are flaws, but also warmth and humanity

Although "Reverse Life" has a core plot line, the film is keen on completing the emotional bombardment of the audience through fast editing and the superposition of a large number of details. For example, as a 45-year-old programmer and a middle-level manager, Gao Zhilei should have a certain amount of savings. However, the film uses an almost exaggerated way to quickly put the characters into a desperate situation: he was laid off without warning, his wife is a full-time housewife, his daughter wants to go to an international school, the mortgage has not been paid off, the family's savings have vanished because of the P2P explosion, and his father had a stroke and spent all the company's compensation. The film imposes all the "three-piece set of middle-class bankruptcy" circulating on the Internet on Gao Zhilei, which is somewhat forced.

In Gao Zhilei's career as a food deliveryman, the film also piles up a lot of details related to "accidents". These details are like emotional tear gas bombs, saturating the audience, destroying the audience's heart dam with powerful explosive force, and unable to control themselves in the flood of moral emotions. For example, the customer insulted people wantonly, the customer did not answer the phone, the customer asked to take away the garbage, the flowers bought for the customer were returned, Gao Zhilei took the order just when he was about to eat, Gao Zhilei fainted due to hypoglycemia, Gao Zhilei was banned for 3 days for failing to complete the company's smile punch card, Gao Zhilei curled up in a corner and fell asleep in the pouring rain... The film pursues the number of details, and the meticulousness of each detail, and uses close-ups to magnify the helplessness, frustration, unwillingness, and pain in the characters' expressions. It can indeed accumulate a certain emotional intensity, but it loses its aim in the fullness and solidity of the narrative, and also gives up letting the audience's emotions grow naturally in the restrained and implicit narrative rhythm. This is understandable. After Gao Zhilei learned his lesson, the film used a series of quick montages to show how Gao Zhilei broke through himself, how he got help from his colleagues, how he had more intimate exchanges with customers, and how he got closer to the store owners... This can also explain why the film's portrayal of Gao Zhilei and Xiao Ni is quite superficial, especially Xiao Ni. She is always so calm, determined, fearless, considerate and generous, but it is difficult for the audience to truly understand the reason for her inner strength, and of course there is no way to capture her inner confusion, pain, and struggle.

Stills

The film does not want to complete the meticulous portrayal of the characters in solid details, nor does it want to let the plot develop smoothly in a leisurely narrative rhythm. Instead, it rushes through the airtight emotions, leaving the audience no time to think, and they can only constantly switch between sadness and encouragement. This fast-paced, fragmented narrative method is undoubtedly intimate and useful for viewers immersed in short videos, because it allows the audience to complete an emotional response in a very short time.

Although "Reverse Life" has certain shortcomings in the drama, it focuses on real problems, pays attention to the group of food delivery riders and the mid-life crisis in the workplace from a warm perspective, and conveys humanistic care and positive energy, which is still admirable. In addition, from Gao Zhilei and those food delivery riders, the film extracts a positive and optimistic attitude towards life, encouraging us to move forward indomitable when facing adversity and lows in life, walk out of the haze of decadence and despair, and manage our own lives with a calm and optimistic attitude. This kind of inspirational motto seems a bit cliché, but those who are still brave enough to move forward in the difficult mode of life in the film interpret it in a simple and touching way, with great emotional appeal and spiritual inspiration.

(Gong Jinping, Professor of Art Education Center of Fudan University, Deputy Director of Film Art Research Center of Fudan University)