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a group portrait of deliverymen "reverse life" pays tribute to every struggler

after one month of release, the daily box office dropped to less than one million.xu zhengthe reality-themed film "reverse life", which he directed and acted in, has basically completed its mission in theaters.

as of september 5, the film's cumulative box office was approximately 350 million yuan, which is not bad in the overall sluggish summer season, and could even rank eighth at the summer box office. however, it is far from the blockbuster expectations of many media before its release.

compared with the mediocre box office, the collapse of word of mouth disappointed the creators even more. the douban score was 6.8 points, which was obviously comparable to "i'm not a drug god》's score of 9.0 is a far cry from the previous one.

what are the main problems with "reverse life"?

the audience's comments are all over the social platform. apart from the emotional complaints, thethe problems of "reverse life" are objective and clearthere are two main ones:

first, as a realistic subject,the presentation of "reality" is superficial, and the characters and plot settings are clichéd.. "no criticism, no reality" is not painful and itchy and cannot arouse the resonance of "you understand me".

the second is the use ofthe entry point of "the decline of the middle class" is difficult to resonate witheven if we are careful, the audience's cognitive thresholds are very different, so it is still difficult to avoid the doubts of "elite perspective" and "bottom-level consumption".

from this point of view, the reputation crisis of "reverse life" is not without source. although he is an "all-round" player in the field of entertainment, "reverse life" is only xu zheng's fourth full-length feature film after the three comedies "lost in thailand", "lost in hong kong" and "lost in russia". whether it is the control of serious themes or the technical level of directing ability, there is a lot of room for improvement.

but it is obviously biased to think that "retrograde" is completely useless. christopher nolan's point of view during the promotion of "oppenheimer" is quite instructive: "the job of cinema is to raise questions, not pretend to have answers。”

for artists,choosing realistic themes and letting more people see the "elephant in the room" has accomplished its mission to a certain extent.; and analyzing problems with surgical sharpness and even proposing solutions to the problems is obviously an unbearable burden for literary and artistic creation.

andwhat can we “see” through “reverse life”?

first,for the first time in many years, the basic living conditions and life details of grassroots workers, represented by deliverymen, were "seen" in bold and colorful ways on tens of thousands of big screens.they are full of flesh and blood, vivid and lively, and like most people, they are displaced in the five flavors of life while unyieldingly "going against the tide". the single king who rolls to the extreme to earn a few more copper coins, the young students whose clarity is so clear that it makes people feel distressed, and the single mother who "fights her way out" among the powerful men...

maybe their character settings and curves are not full or too gentle, but through "reverse life", they are no longer the protagonists of traffic lights in social news and the invisible people behind statistics in the eyes of more audiences. in fact, "reverse life" is not a mirror story for the group of food deliverymen. the rushing people on the road are not in the mood to stop and appreciate their daily hard work.

secondly, through the rapid fall of gao zhilei, played by xu zheng,different groups that originally had little intersection were able to break through the barriers and see each other, and reflect on their true selves."i don't know the true face of mount lu because i am in it." as a child of destiny, gao zhilei, even if he passes by the deliverymen countless times every day, there will be no substantial intersection and understanding. however, "reverse life" allows the audience groups represented by these two to use people as a mirror for the first time.

following gao zhilei's steps and perspectives in exploring a brand new industry, many viewers may realize for the first time that although people's living environments and life paths vary greatly, these originally distant and conceptual individuals actually have the same emotions as themselves, are kind and enterprising, and have different expressions but the same difficult choices in life...

third, "reverse life" still carefully provides a perspective:in a situation where external factors cannot be changed, how should a person complete the war with himself?. the sixth patriarch huineng said in "the liberation song of the true buddha of self-nature": "if you can see the truth in your heart, then the truth is the cause of becoming a buddha. if you do not seek the truth and look for the buddha outside, you are a fool." although the theme is about buddha, it also refers to the situation and response of the protagonist gao zhilei. "the world is a huge makeshift team", so aren't the coordinates and curves of life a kind of accident? there is no choice of good or bad, only the subjective initiative of the individual can be exerted.

for the movie, failing to touch upon the deeper contradictions and the crueler truths of life will undoubtedly make the already experienced audience feel that it is just scratching an itch and being indoctrinated with chicken soup. however, chicken soup is always better than arsenic. in the film, the bright yellow color that symbolizes hope is moving forward in the hustle and bustle of traffic. aren't they also silhouettes of "you and me" who are either moving forward or moving backward on the road of life?

"reverse life" is an imperfect and profound realistic film, but at least it allows part of the reality to be "seen" and resonates with part of life. it has an irreplaceable value in the current chinese-language film industry. we also look forward to more and better and more profound realistic films shining in the chinese-language film industry in the future, which will live up to the expectations of the audience and the original responsibility of the creators.