As a director who emphasizes "feelings" over the plot itself, Bi Gan also gave the actors a new challenge this time. Yi Yang Qianxi, the lead actor of "Wild Times", said, "In fact, I didn't know what my character went through until the end of the performance."
On the evening of May 22, local time, the only Chinese-language film in the main competition unit of the 78th Cannes Film Festival, "Wild Times", completed its world premiere in the Lumiere Hall, and received mixed responses after the screening. The next day, director Bi Gan and starring actors Yi Yangqianxi and Shu Qi attended a press conference to interpret the story behind the film's creation.
Yi Yangqianxi, Bi Gan, Shu Qi
The setting of "Wild Times" is a near future world where humans no longer dream. Shu Qi plays a neurosurgeon who falls into the abyss of consciousness during surgery and finds the remains of a bionic man. Yi Yangqianxi plays a bionic man who travels through different time and space in five rebirths. The host asked Bi Gan why he created a dream-like design, and Bi Gan humorously said, "This is my job."
As a director with a unique style in the Chinese film industry, Bi Gan has a unique control over the language of the lens. In "Roadside Picnic", the 40-minute classic long shot, like a flowing river of time, immerses the audience in the humid fog and memory fragments of Kaili. Through the movement and rotation of the lens, the fate and emotions of the characters are delicately laid out; and in "The Last Night on Earth", the 3D long shot breaks the boundary between reality and dreams, and uses a very poetic image narrative to tell the complex emotions and philosophical thinking. These works make the audience remember the charm of Bi Gan's long shot, and also make the long shot a distinctive personal identity in his film creation.
Stills from Wild Times
In "Wild Times", there is also a 30-minute long shot. Talking about the shooting of this scene, Bi Gan said: "The long shot is a relatively easy part of the shooting process. The main creators and I are very familiar with long shots. The preparation work of the entire crew has more past experience to follow. On the contrary, the new segment has no experience and needs more exploration."
When talking about the shooting process of this long shot, Yi Yang Qianxi revealed that it took more than half a month to shoot. "When I first joined the crew, I asked the director for the script. The director said that there was only a general route, and the specific content needed to be walked out on the scene with the actors over and over again." He recalled: "It took more than half a month to shoot. I could only shoot one shot in one night, from evening to sunrise in the morning. On the last day of shooting, various coincidences appeared in a perfect destiny." This on-site creation method gave the actors ample room to play, and also made the filming of the film full of unknowns and surprises.
Li Gengxi, the rival actor who experienced the "long night" with Yi Yang Qianxi, also talked about how, because every scene was shot at night until it was finished, "every day was like a dream."
In terms of character design, Bi Gan elaborated on his thoughts: "Qian Xi represents a crazy state, and Shu Qi represents the ideal creative perspective." Their characters form a unique tension, driving the development of the story in the conscious world.
Yi Yang Qianxi plays five roles in the film. As a "monster", he has undergone changes in different forms over a century. He shared the process of shaping the characters: "There is no commonality in imagination. The more distinct the better. When entering each section, the director will give some rough temperaments of the characters he wants. This is more difficult to grasp. We will constantly look for the temperaments that are easiest to distinguish at the moment, such as loneliness, and having the right to speak..."
Yi Yang Qianxi talks about playing five roles
After the premiere, many viewers and media were impressed by the imaginative and metaphorical expressions in the film, but the "abstract" plot also confused many viewers. As a director who emphasizes "feelings" over the plot itself, Bi Gan also faced new challenges for the actors this time. Yi Yang Qianxi said, "In fact, I didn't know what my character had experienced until the end of the performance. The director kept revising each small role and story in each cycle. I might be quite confused. What I need to do is to stabilize the temperament of each character."
Regarding her understanding of the film, Shu Qi said: "Different people have different understandings of the film, which is a magical thing when the director handles this film." The film's unique narrative and expression techniques give the audience room for multiple interpretations.
Stills from Shu Qi's "Wild Times"
This year marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of film. The various tributes and expressions to film in "Wild Times" allow people who love and are familiar with film to read a very high concentration of "good intentions" in it. Facing the huge changes in the situation of the medium of film in the current era, Bi Gan also responded at the meeting, "The external changes in the world have a very big impact on creation - if the world does not change that much, I will continue to shoot what I am interested in; if the world changes a lot, is there a movie that can comfort everyone. My idea is very simple." This answer also received warm applause at the scene.
