"border water memories": uneven narrative images of southeast asia
2024-09-19
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"walking up the mountains, collecting water, and making a living"
among the generally disappointing domestic online dramas this summer, "past events by the water" directed by "suan" and produced by cao baoping is one of the few works that left a deep impression on the audience.
audiences have always had a stable demand for crime-related and suspense-related films and tv shows. in recent years, some unstable regions in southeast asia have gradually become geographical and cultural spaces that carry crime narratives and images in the creation and production of domestic crime and suspense films and tv shows. in the past decade, a series of crime-related films with "southeast asia" as the background, such as "operation mekong" and "all or nothing", have achieved impressive box office results in china.
hollywood had already formed the basic routine of shooting "exotic" in its golden age, and domestic film and television drama creators would naturally not ignore these experiences that can be learned from. however, many domestic practitioners often inadvertently incorporate the logic of "western centrism" into the texts and images they construct when presenting southeast asian images, while drawing on hollywood's experience in constructing "exotic" images, simplifying southeast asia into a dangerous landscape for viewing "southeast asia". however, how to present "exotic" equally from the perspective of the global south without losing the watchability of the work is not a problem that can be ignored by chinese film and television industry practitioners.
the first half of "border water memories" gives a brilliant response to this. the play combines the narrative features of a serial drama and a series. while maintaining the narrative continuity between episodes, 2 to 3 episodes are set as a narrative unit focusing on a specific story, introducing a new narrative space and perspective.
for example, at the beginning of the second episode, the director recounted the carjacking and murder case in which shen xing was passively involved in the first episode from the perspective of dan tuo (played by jiang qilin), a subordinate of uncle cai (played by wu zhenyu) and a local. the change of narrative perspective has multiple effects here. first, the integration of different perspectives completes the plot twist, introduces a new narrative dynamic for the second episode (the interaction between shen xing and the characters of uncle cai's forces), and also paves the way for dan tuo's change in attitude towards shen xing, which improves the watchability of the series. more importantly, the presentation of the narrative perspective of others impacts the regional and cultural stereotypes constructed by a single perspective. dan tuo in the second episode has changed from the villain image in the first episode to have a real life, desires and emotions that can be understood and felt. in other words, the change of narrative perspective in "border water past" not only constructs a dramatic viewing experience for the audience, but also makes it possible for the complex experiences under multiple perspectives to be expressed.
dialects from all over the world
the clever use of multiple narrative perspectives is only the possibility condition for the series to introduce the diverse experiences of "sanbianpo" to the audience. the experiential content filled by the director for different narrative perspectives is the key to giving "sanbianpo" a real body.
the authenticity that "bianshui past" gives to "sanbianpo" is obviously not an empirical authenticity, but a set of credible perceptual experiences. the creative team asked linguistics experts to create the bomo language for the fictional bomo federation in the series. although the audience cannot understand bomo language, the auditory experience brought by this fictional language undoubtedly plays a constructive role in the audience's experience of reality.
in addition to the fictional bomo language, the chinese dialects used by the actors in the play are also worth noting. most of the actors who play the local people of bomo in the play use a southwestern dialect to read chinese lines, which fits the setting that the bomo federation borders china's southwestern border. however, the dialects used by the actors are not uniform when examined in detail. some characters obviously have a northeastern yunnan accent, and some characters' accents are closer to the dialects of western yunnan and even sichuan, guizhou, and guangxi dialects. hong kong actor wu zhenyu even uses cantonese as uncle cai. but the confusion of accents not only does not make the play, but effectively builds an impression for the audience that the sources of chinese immigrants in bomo are different in time and region. in other words, the mixed tones give the fictional country of bomo federation a layer of history in time and space, connecting mixed desires, beliefs, and demands. the lead actor guo qilin's fluent beijing-tianjin accent forms a sharp contrast with the accents in these marginal areas, which to a certain extent makes the young actors' immature performances seem appropriate. the "natural" differences in the characters' behavior patterns and thoughts in the two environments are presented at the audience's auditory experience level rather than the consciousness and conceptual level, and some shortcomings in the polishing of the lines are effectively concealed.
body and skin
the presentation of the actors' body and hair in "past events by the edge" is the highlight of the series in terms of visuals. the visual presentation of the two characters wang anquan (played by jiang qiming) and liu jincui is unforgettable.
liu jincui, played by qi xi, is a victim of "sanbianpo" and has successfully found her own space in this jungle society. in the early stages of her relationship with the protagonist shen xing, liu jincui always tried to take the initiative in both physical and linguistic dimensions, and even actively displayed her desires through her body. liu jincui's body image highlights her lack of security, while also showing the arrangement and performance of her body posture, which is an important medium for her to gain space for action in "sanbianpo". liu jincui in "bianshui past" will certainly intentionally shape herself into an "object" to seduce men's eyes in terms of clothing and body, but her control of body posture can always interrupt the men's one-sided gaze and objectification of her. in other words, liu jincui interrupts or manipulates the projection of desires of the men around her through the display of desires by her body, so the body with desires counteracts the projection of desires. liu jincui's body is placed in the richly detailed social, economic, and cultural practice space of sanbianpo, and is full of flesh and blood.
in "new dragon inn", maggie cheung's jin xiangyu can be regarded as the image predecessor of liu jincui, but female characters like jin xiangyu and liu jincui are still rare in domestic tv series. many male-dominated tv series often fail to effectively present the authenticity of female characters' desires, and always portray female characters who show desires as villains and prostitutes in stereotypes. in order to highlight the subjectivity of women at the conceptual level, many domestic feminist tv series intentionally or unintentionally avoid creating female images like liu jincui who are morally flawed and have explicit desires. liu jincui is certainly not a feminist model, but the neglect of the experience and emotions of such characters will limit the possibility of visual expression of female experience.
wang anquan, played by jiang qiming, is a "dog" and a gambling agent who makes a living in "sanbianpo" according to the setting of the play. he appears in two narrative units, "the puppet's resurrection" with the grinding mine as the background and "the casino counterattack" with the casino as the main story location. compared with shen xing, played by guo qilin, who is tense all over, jiang qiming's body is usually very relaxed, which potentially explains the shaping ability of different growth environments on the image of the character. but wang anquan's body has subtle changes in different situations. in the section "the puppet's resurrection", wang anquan and shen xing cooperated to pretend to be monks to transport gems. in order to keep the gems for himself, he didn't even clean the hair dye on his hair, and rode a motorcycle alone to the gem burial site he had found out. the messy monk's robe, unwashed hair and the actor jiang qiming's desperately stretched neck formed a ridiculous picture, accurately depicting the shaping effect of greed on the character's image. in the section "casino counterattack", wang anquan, a stacker, carefully designed his image in order to hook up with a wealthy woman and leave "sanbianpo", but his body movements clearly showed a posture of relying on and showing weakness, with feminine characteristics.
the bodies of wang anquan and liu jincui are the products of the "three-slope" jungle law.
return north
the reputation of the second half of "the past by the edge of water" is far inferior to that of the first half. after the casino line in the 16th episode, the narrative units such as "the shooting in the jungle", "saving drug addicts", and "escape from the big drug den" are generally boring. in particular, the two narrative units of "the shooting in the jungle" (episodes 17-18) and "saving drug addicts" (episodes 19-20) are almost entirely narratives dominated by shen xing's perspective. the encounters between the protagonist and the new characters (such as justin, a westerner who came to "sanbianpo" to teach foreign languages, and the two sisters in the tattoo shop) all seem like events that the screenwriter forced shen xing to encounter. the new characters lack an organic connection with "sanbianpo" and shen xing.
the overall narrative of the series "bianshui past" can be divided into two parts, with the rescue of shen xing's uncle (played by you yongzhi) as the watershed. before that, shen xing's motivation to stay in "sanbianpo" was to rescue his trapped uncle. in the process of rescuing his uncle, he deeply participated in the interaction between the uncle cai group and other local forces. in it, he found a sense of gain from being recognized by his own efforts. therefore, after his uncle was rescued, he did not listen to the voice of reason, and decided to stay in "sanbianpo" in a half-hearted situation. the stories in the second half of the series are actually to present the reasons for leaving "sanbianpo" to the character shen xing and the audience. but these stories obviously did not achieve the purpose of the director.
the shooting of foreign teacher justin was the most direct reason that prompted the author to leave "golden side slope" in the original book. but in the series, it is difficult to say that this incident is truly touching. there are many reasons. first of all, the portrayal of the western foreign teacher role in the series itself is stereotypical, so his death, although unexpected, lacks emotional persuasion for chinese audiences. in the final analysis, is justin's murder and other incidents really more terrifying, bloody, and desperate than the carjacking and murder that shen xing encountered in the first episode?
the simplification of the narrative form significantly affects the audience's perception. in the first half of the series, different narrative units have implicit or explicit connections while introducing multiple experiences. in the story of "the puppet's resurrection" that takes place in the grinding mine, the series introduces the description of the local people's beliefs. while paying tribute to movies such as "blood diamond" (2006), the story of this narrative unit also created an original story that implicitly conforms to the buddhist theory of cause and effect: shen xing's good thoughts and good deeds, by accident, enabled him to successfully escape the entanglement of various forces with the gems and escape from the grinding mine. the narrative unit "the horror of ma niu town" that follows "the puppet's resurrection" presents this belief from another perspective with a perspective close to historical materialism: it cannot be separated from the local gray industry, and is even an important part of its chain. it can be seen that the transformation of narrative and narrative perspective constantly presents the audience with fresh but real "sanbianpo" experience. in the second half of the series, the connection between narrative units becomes loose, and the relationship between narrative units such as "jungle shooting case" and "saving drug addicts" is very fragile. however, the "three slopes" from the perspective of characters such as justin and susu were not effectively presented.
the dullness of the second half of "past events by the edgewater" does more than just expose the problems of the play's technical writing.
the series has an important adaptation of the original novel. in the original novel, when shen xingxing went to "phnom penh", he already knew that he would be involved in the black and gray industries, but in order to make money, he "voluntarily" went to "phnom penh" to a certain extent. so when he saw drug dealers forcibly killing foreign teachers in order to wipe out the local people's hope of changing their fate, he finally realized his own powerlessness and decided to leave the area and return to china to surrender.
shen xing in the series is different. when shen xing arrived at "sanbianpo" in the series, he was no different from most hardworking chinese workers. although he was naive and did not listen to the old man, he was kind-hearted and wanted to make a fortune through his legal labor. he joined uncle cai's team because he felt that he survived by his own efforts and had a sense of gain. his kindness even constituted an important premise for his foothold in "sanbianpo" in the first half of the series. so after rescuing his uncle, he was reluctant to leave. the second half of the series tried to return to the route of the original work and "persuaded" the audience and shen xing to leave, but if it were not for wu zhenyu, who played uncle cai, relying on his rich film history and solid acting skills, it would lack emotional and experiential persuasiveness. the presentation of shen xing's escape from the "sanbianpo" magic cave in the second half of the series largely dispelled the global south perspective constructed in the first half of the series.
can the tv series "the past by the waterside" really not break away from the limitations of the original work? can the series really not try to present the possibility that shen xing stayed in the local area and transformed the fate of "sanbianpo" with dantuo and everyone else? the series did not explore this narrative direction, so we have no way of knowing the answer to the above question. however, it must be pointed out that the departure of shen xing in the series actually also means that the labor and efforts of the uncle in the local area have completely come to nothing. in this sense, there is no essential difference between the departure of shen xing in the play and the death of justin for "sanbianpo".
but as pointed out earlier, how to present the "exotic" equally from the perspective of the global south without losing the watchability of the work is not a difficult problem that can be circumvented by practitioners in the chinese film and television industry.
