A kind of level-headed writing of the underclass
Whether it is Chi Zijian's original book or film, it is written with a level-headed gaze at the bottom, which is where its value lies. It is not written from the perspective of a sympathetic intellectual from on high, nor is it a judgement of two ordinary workers in 1996 with the values of 2024.
The film basically restores the original, so there's really quite a lot of backbone and very much room for interpretation. Some people say that Chi Zijian's writing is "sad but not desperate", and I think that can be applied to this film as well.
Background
In reality, even the dumbest couple wouldn't miss it for the second time, but the reason why Chi Zijian made them miss it was probably more of an artistic representation of her mindset at the time. The film is basically based on the original, and in reality the author's husband, who was estranged from her, died unexpectedly at the time. She wrote it in this context, and it feels a bit semi-autobiographical. They kept missing each other, and in the end, although they only saw each other once, that's all, they were content.
Why did Lin Xiushan give the harmonica to the prisoner?
It was a very touching point for me both when I read the original and the film. On the one hand, I felt the equality and humanistic care. On the other hand, it reflects Lin Xiushan's awareness and growth in life and death. She is afraid that her husband Wang Rui will fall from the construction site, and she is also afraid that the living smile in front of her will disappear. But life is always full of accidents, and I don't know when it's a matter of life and death, so let's play one more song and embrace one more time before the accident comes.
That's what love looks like in another way, life and death in love. The prisoner is ready to die, his girlfriend in the carriage comes to see him off for the last time, and the prisoner has nothing to offer in return but to play the harmonica one last time.
Performance
There is a detail that I really like, Lin Xiushan went to the construction site and found that her husband was not there, her first reaction was to think that something had happened to her husband, and then later repeatedly confirmed that her husband had in fact just gone to Guangzhou to look for herself, and at that moment the sudden suspension of the heart to put down and smiled and cried was very touching to me, exactly the same as my mother when she was worried about my father.
Lin Xiushan's performance of crying and laughing at the end of the film completely interpreted Chi Zijian's line "Sometimes when I want to cry, my heart is also beautiful", and I had to sigh with emotion that the words have been visualised since then.
