Editor’s Note
On April 14, the 42nd Hong Kong Film Awards ceremony was held. Zhuo Yiqian won the Best New Director Award for his film "Diary of a Young Boy". The film had previously received 12 nominations for this year's Academy Awards and will be released in mainland China on April 19.
When accepting the award, Zhuo Yiqian thanked producer Derek Yee, saying that it was an unforgettable experience to work with him for the first time as a director. In line with the line in "Diary of a Young Man" "Become the adult you want to be", he also called out to his future self at the scene:
"You will definitely encounter failures and lows in the future, but don't forget how lucky you were when you were filming. You met such a good group of people to move forward together. They accompanied you, helped you, and believed in you. They made you want to be a better self, so please continue to believe in yourself."
"I'll Be With You" poster
Note: This article contains spoilers
Several works shortlisted for the Best Film at this year's Hong Kong Film Awards tell stories of many people's struggle - "Justice" which fights for wrongly accused people, "Under the Day" which fights for disabled people who are struggling to survive under a difficult system, and "Young Boys" which fights for depressed students who suffer from domestic violence and attempt suicide.
Poster of "Diary of Youth", "To you who have never been loved".
An anonymous suicide note, a group of students who turned a blind eye, and beneath the seemingly calm surface of the lake, there are hidden tormenting stories.
"Diary of a Young Man" is told from the perspective of a senior high school teacher, Zheng Sir (played by Lu Zhenye). It begins with a yellowed diary and uses a dual narrative method of adulthood and adolescence to reveal the various domestic violence memories of Zheng Sir's childhood and connect the tragic realities of several students he encountered as a teacher. He has to face the departure of his wife, the serious illness of his father, and the thorough investigation of students who committed suicide... He is not idle at all.
Lo Chun-yip as Zheng Sir
The story is told calmly and restrainedly, except for the intermittent mania of the father played by Zheng Zhongji, most of the time, the narrative atmosphere is light. However, the audience can follow the perspective of the head teacher, step into the situation step by step, empathize with him, and shed tears.
The film has a strong staying power. After the preview, the film's Douban score rose from 8.5 to 8.6 (10,000 people rated it). I often heard intermittent sobbing during the preview. It was not until the end song and subtitles were finished that the theater staff came to remind everyone to leave. It was a long-lost film festival-like viewing experience.
Zheng Zhongji as Zheng's father
The first half of the story starts off on a high note, but the second half slowly reverses with hidden plots. The A-character in your eyes is actually the B-character hiding in the corner. The power of "Diary of a Young Boy" lies in the fact that it does not have completely good people, nor does it have 100% bad people. Everyone is just an ordinary person whose edges have been smoothed by time, with good and evil, cowardly and helpless.
Some people choose to shout on the rooftop, while others can only shout in their hearts. As ordinary people are mediocre, not every shout can get a positive response. Like a needle, it falls to the ground, too light to be heard. In "Diary of Youth", it was the lack of response from the school, teachers, classmates, and parents to these shouts that ultimately led to an irreparable tragedy. No one is the first person responsible, but everyone pushed on the rooftop. But who says that the voices of ordinary people are not worth being heard? Should the criteria for judging good and bad children be to engrave grades on the pillar of shame?
In the film, there are two brothers who serve as a control group for each other, Youjie and Youjun.
In a seemingly calm tone, the film tells the story of a suicide on campus. Zhuo Yiqian deserves a like whether for his camera language as a director, his dialogue skills as the original screenwriter, or his technical methods of interweaving across time as an editor.
Among the actors, two are particularly outstanding, one is Lu Zhenye who plays the class teacher, and the other is Huang Zile, a child actor who plays the young owner of the diary. The acting skills of the children are not inferior to those of adults. Many supporting roles also played well, and no one's acting skills were dragged down, and the granularity was very well matched.
The little actor’s crying scene is very good.
I like the English name of the film, "Time Still Turns The Pages". After many years, the bloody wounds left by the original family, the scars that I thought time could heal, were just torn open silently. It still hurts after a glance. It did not disappear with the age. Instead, it made Zheng Sir cowardly when facing marriage and family. The harm brought to his partner is precisely the unspeakable sequelae left by this scar in his heart. The person who desperately shouts "I'm fine, I'm not affected" is often the one who can't let go and has to spend his whole life pulling.
People often say that because they have been caught in the rain, they can't help but want to hold an umbrella for others. Some people, because they were upset that they couldn't hold an umbrella for someone last time, decided to hold an umbrella for others in the future. Zheng Sir's various decisions at the end of the film are also a response to the diary in his youth. Pain may not necessarily disappear, but it is good to stop the pain.
After all, isn't the B-character in someone else's story the A-character in your own story? Only by taking that crucial step can you free yourself. This is something that others cannot do for you, and this is true for the A-character as well as the B-character.
Stills from Teenage Diary
"Become the adult you want to be", such chicken soup is warm, but in the adult world, it is okay to keep some scars. It will make people grow vigilant and remind themselves not to go back to the lost path.
