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Three Wishes

AIFF caught up with deeply insightful writer director, Zhong Ermao, in Shenzhen, China, to discuss his debut film, Three Wishes. The story follows a woman who embarks on a journey to experience her late husband’s fantasies.

AIFF - Can you talk about why you wanted to bring your short story to the screen and how that process evolved?
您为什么将短篇故事改编成了电影,如何将其改编成了电影?

Zhong Ermao - Three Wishes is adopted from my short novel. Before I entered the film industry, I was a novelist. I wrote a lot of novels and won many literary awards. However, with the popularization of the Internet, Chinese people’s entertainment has become more diversified, such as watching movies, watching TV, playing video games and indulging social media. At the same time, literature, especially serious literature, has been neglected, and the number of people who read literature has been decreasing. 

The question is, how do I make the story I wrote become accessible to more people? My answer is by making a film, and adapting the novel into a film can ensure more people learn about my writing. This is the starting point for me, to study film and turn my stories into films. 

This story is very suitable for adapting into a film, because it has a very clever story that is filled with suspense and curiosity: A countryside woman did three things in a big city: eat lobster, live in a presidential suite of a five-star hotel and hire a prostitute. Why? I told this story to more than a hundred listeners. They were all astonished and moved. 

The filming went very well and smoothly because I adopted a documentary style of filming during production. There aren’t many specialized shots. Most crew members are students who I met at Beijing Film Academy. They are very professional and dedicated. However, there are also some regrets, for instance, the presidential suite. We could not afford to rent a real presidential suite because of a tight budget. Therefore, it does not look so luxurious in that picture. 

是的,《三个愿望》改编自我的短篇小说《死鬼的微笑》。

在涉足电影之前,我是一个小说家。我写了很多小说,也获得了不少文学奖项。但是,随着互联网的普及,中国人的娱乐方式越来越多样化,比如看电影、看电视、玩电子游戏、沉迷社交媒体等。这些年,文学阅读,尤其是严肃文学被冷落,爱看文学书的读者在减少。

如何让自己写作的故事能够被更多人知道,我想到了电影。把小说改编成电影,可以让我的写作被更多人知道,这是我学习电影、把自己的小说改编成电影的出发点。

这个故事非常适合改编成电影,因为它有一个非常巧妙和充满悬念的故事:一个农村妇女在大城市里做了三件事:吃龙虾、住五星级酒店的总统套房、找小姐。为什么?我先后把这个故事讲给了一百位听众听,他们听完都震惊了,并且很感动。

拍摄工作十分顺利,因为我采用的是一种偏纪实风格的手法,没有太多花哨的镜头。大部分工作人员都是我在北京电影学院认识的同学,他们都很专业,也很敬业。

但是也有一些遗憾,比如住总统套房的那个段落。因为资金不够的原因,我们租不起真正的总统套房。结果出现在镜头里的画面,看起来不是那么豪华。

AIFF - Your main actor, Wang Yajun, gives a very soulful performance in the film. What type of direction did you give to help her find her character?
影片里,女一号王亚军的演技有声有色,淋漓尽致地将主角的灵魂展现了出来,您是怎样指导帮助她发掘角色性格的?

 Zhong Ermao - The leading actor of my film is a well-known actor from the National Theatre of China. She didn’t need my help at all. All I did was to tell her the reason that I wrote this story, what I want to explore, and my understanding of people and art. I am very lucky to have Ms. Wang act in my film.
女一号王亚军老师是中国国家话剧院的著名演员!她根本不需要我指导!我只需要跟她谈论我为什么要写这个故事,以及我在这个故事里想探讨什么、我对人的理解、我对艺术的理解。王亚军老师参演这个电影,是我的幸运。

AIFF - Because of the challenges Chinese filmmakers have, is it difficult to make films that have foreign appeal or does it force you to be more creative in how you tell stories.
在中国,拍电影面临很多现实的挑战和阻碍,因此,若是想拍出符合外国观众口味的电影是不是很困难? 或者说是不是得更具创造性才行?

Zhong Ermao - When I shot this film, my purpose was not to appeal to a foreign audience or a Chinese audience. I just wanted to make a film that I am happy about. This is not for commercial purposes; therefore, I don’t need to think of appealing to an audience per se. Even if I shoot movies for commercial purposes in the future, appealing to audience is not the most important thing for me because the ultimate mission of art is to provide a new experience.
我拍摄这部电影的时候,并没有考虑要符合外国观众或者中国观众的口味。我只想拍出我自己满意的电影。这个电影的定位并不是商业片,我不需要研究观众的口味。即使以后拍摄商业片,观众的口味也不是最重要的,因为艺术的终极使命还是为受众提供新的体验。

AIFF - Have you considered making this into a feature length film?
您考虑过将这部电影拍成一部长篇叙事电影吗?

Zhong Ermao - Yes, I will consider to make this into a feature length movie when the right time arrives.
当时机成熟的时候,我会考虑把它拍成一部长片。

AIFF - What do you hope your foreign audiences take away from your film?
您希望外国的观众在看完这部作品后得到什么样的信息或是启迪?

Zhong Ermao - I do not want foreign audiences to connect this movie with the reality of China too much. I hope that foreign audiences will see this as a "human" story, a wife's story, a family story, and a love story. Only the story of a "human" can make the film become art.
我不希望国外的观众过多地将这部电影跟中国现实联系在一起。我更希望国外的观众看到的是一个“人”的故事、一个妻子的故事、一个家庭的故事、一个表达爱的故事。只有“人”的故事,才能让电影成为艺术。