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The movie "Negatives Make Positive" was released on the Chinese Valentine's Day. Compared with the past market appeal of the lead actor Zhu Yilong, this literary and artistic love movie was not very successful. It also caused some couples in the audience who "went to the wrong set" to experience the embarrassment of misalignment like "Another Night on Earth".

But it is still a very unique Chinese-language love movie. It is light, free, psychedelic and absurd, but it allows people to read the real loneliness and heartbeat. It breaks away from the framework of festival restrictions and does not cater to people's expectations of sweetness and romance. Instead, it explores loneliness and interpersonal relationships in modern cities in a unique way.

Poster of "Negatives Make Positives"

The story of Huang Zhenkai and Li Xiaole was shrouded in a faint sense of alienation from the beginning. The beautiful lights of the city are intertwined with the busy life. Huang Zhenkai realized from a young age that he seemed to be living in a framed script, and when he grew up, he repeated the life of a social animal day after day. His blue hair became his weak resistance to ordinary life, and then no matter how eye-catching the blue was, no one cared, and everything remained the same. Only Li Xiaole gave him an OK gesture for his new hair color.

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

The appearance of Li Xiaole is like a ray of light, illuminating his monotonous life. She is quirky, passionate and alienated, carrying the trauma of growing up, and her protective color makes her a chameleon. Lies are the way of survival taught to her by her liar father since she was a child, and it is also the refuge she imagined because she hated her life. Similarly, it is also because of this "lying" setting that makes the plot of the film more confusing, and the audience can fill in more interpretation space by their own imagination.

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

Two strangers live together, and then what? Of course, love.

In such love stories, the story is not even the most important thing. The trivial feelings and the human heart reflected behind these feelings have become the most attractive and touching part. To use today's popular words, the hero and heroine can be regarded as two "crispy" young people. Their encounter is not a love script in the traditional sense, but a more complex emotional exploration process.

Those abstract emotions are presented by the director in concrete visual language, such as the pink bubbles rising in the eyes of the characters while watching the "Fried Rice with Egg" teaching program on TV on the sofa, or the peace of mind gained from the company of a cigarette lit across the bed. The audience seems to be able to touch the characters' elusive emotions through the screen and feel their struggles and desires deep in their hearts.

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

"Love doesn't require two identical people, it just requires two people who have the need for love." The film frankly expresses this "need", from the spirit to the body, without evasion or deliberate sublimation. Everything can happen naturally and end quietly. Just like the encounters and partings that happen every day in the city, there is not so much fanfare.

One thing worth affirming is that in this movie that explores love, the expression of sex is very frank and clean, and the animation is pleasing and accurate, without any concealment or deliberate gaze.

There are no sweet words, no vows of love. The love in "Negatives Make Positives" is two lonely people getting close to each other for warmth. They are not sure about each other, but they can imagine going anywhere when they turn off the lights. They travel back to each other's childhood. I help you fight off the bad kids who bully you, and I help you deal with the rude and indifferent parents. After becoming an adult, the inner child who was once powerless to take care of is seen and comforted. This is the most healing part in the movie.

"I've begun to hate you" and "I hate you too", in fact, what they are saying is "I've begun to understand you" and "I understand you too". But if you really get close to the other person, you can't help wanting to escape and hide, and after you miss each other, you will realize the sadness and helplessness that you were caught off guard. This is the unspeakable pain of many adults.

"How can a person live alone without feeling lonely?" This is a question raised in the movie. You may still have no answer after watching the movie, but if you can resonate with the world on the screen, you may also feel a little optimistic about your loneliness. Li Xiaole said, "If you hate yourself, then don't be yourself." If someone is willing to hug the you who hates you, do you have the courage to hug yourself?

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

"Negatives Make Positives" is a very "good-looking" movie in terms of visual experience. The male and female protagonists are pleasing to the eye, even beautiful enough to stand out. Unlike the delicate soft light filters of the protagonists in traditional idol dramas, the exquisite lighting and composition create an atmosphere that is both realistic and surreal.

It would be hard for audiences who have seen the movie not to associate the visual style of this film with Wong Kar-wai. Qiu Tian's appearance and behavior style are very similar to Faye Wong in "Chungking Express", and the male and female protagonists being in the same space is also so similar to the setting of "Chungking Express"; the yearning for Buenos Aires continues the regret of not being able to start over in "Happy Together"; the setting of aliens making a movie and the robots whose origins are unclear on the train in "2046" are similar in style and imagination.

In addition to Wong Kar-wai, the film also features many classic romantic movies. The soft science fiction setting of chasing after the girl's traces is like the softness of "Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"; the indistinguishable truth and falsehood in lies is also like the questioning and obsession of pursuing unwillingness in "Suzhou River"; through Wang Yitong's linkage with "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department", the missing romantic verses have also become a tacit laugh point among fans...

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

For movie fans, there is room for endless enjoyment in the plot of "Negatives Make Positives", and the audience can even find their own emotional outlet in the repeated aftertaste. However, the overly dense collage seems to blur the director's own aesthetic expression, and the mixed emotional puzzle always lacks a bit of original purity.

The film's strengths and weaknesses are obvious, but the most regrettable part is that it could have been a light and free projection of a group of people with urban autism, but it had to set up an overly extreme family of origin, which made the plot bloody. When the protagonist's various motives and choices must be based on the background of his parents' cheating, deception, abandonment, and blood debt, the commonalities and resonances of alienation and insecurity are reduced, and instead it brings deliberateness.

The interesting setting of the aliens ultimately falls on the protagonist's resistance to fate. The ambiguous and lingering feelings in the adult world suddenly turn into the "my destiny is in my own hands" in the boys' comics. Such a forced inspirational and perfect theme, like the chicken soup ending of regaining childhood dreams and embracing loved ones again, has become another stereotypical script paradigm.

Stills from "Negative Negatives Make Positives"

Compared with the past special schedules such as the "Valentine's Day", "Chinese Valentine's Day" and "520" schedules, which can break 100 million yuan in one day, but no one cares about them after the expiration, "Negative Negatives Make Positive" is worthy of recognition. There is no standard answer to love, maybe it's just one person's illusion. Such a "love movie" does not have to have a couple to give you sensational tears, nor does it have to miss the youth that is gone and the person you missed when you were young and frivolous.

Loneliness and understanding may be the issues that more adults need to face. On the market, it may not be suitable for couples who need to be affectionate on a certain day, but perhaps in the future, when more people need "a glass of red wine with a movie", they can open it and nestle comfortably on the sofa.