"Drunken country ballads", this is a very poetic name.

But in fact, this is a derivative interpretation of the Chinese translation, and the original English title of the film was "About Inside-Lleyn-Davis", as the Coen brothers said, the title comes from an album by Dave Van Punk.

Compared with the original English name, Lan Li prefers the translation of the name in Chinese, with a sense of frustration and wandering gloom and casualness.

The film takes place in New York in the 60s, and the male protagonist is called Levian Davis, a little-known folk singer who lives in poverty, is homeless, and even has no regular job, and has to rely on friends for handouts every night. Despite his embarrassment, the stubborn Levine's refusal to compromise in order to conform to popular preferences makes his life more difficult, and the path of chasing his dream of a ballad never ends in sight.

When the Coen brothers-directed film was officially released, it received very mixed feedback.

Film critics ushered in a frenzy of praise, not only receiving a super high evaluation of 93 points from the media, but also winning the title of the best film of the year in 2013 from three authoritative professional media outlets, including "Film Review", "The New York Times" and "Village Voice", and also appeared frequently on the annual top ten lists of other professional magazines.

The audience generally didn't buy it, they thought that this movie was unspeakably brilliant, not only not as good as classic masterpieces such as "Ice Storm" and "No Country for Old Men", but even compared to the Coen Brothers' previous work "Earth Thunder" is several grades behind, from the box office to word-of-mouth performance is mediocre, even IMDB's score is only 7.5 points.

Actually, it's not hard to understand.

"Drunken Country Ballad" is not a typical American film, but more like a European film, the work does not tell a complete story: there is no cause, no effect, not even a plot advancement, but in a reincarnation loop, telling a state, a wave and an era.

The whole film is just a slice of Levine's life, telling the trivial things he experienced over the course of four or five days, showing his current situation, and that's it.

The beginning and end are almost the same picture, connected by Levien's live performance in the small bar, the lines and the plot are almost exactly the same, there are not many changes, only the camera angle changes slightly; the story has no beginning and end, the characters have no growth and epiphany, and even the core idea has not been sublimated and refined, vividly interpreting the mystery of "shooting is equal not shooting".

What's more, Levine was a frustrated. It's not an inspirational story, it's not a dreamer's story, it's a loser's story that goes around and around and is still a loser. At the beginning of the story, there is no hope, and at the end, it is still the same.

In Europe, this kind of film is very common, telling a state of life, reflecting the general environment of society, leaving the space for philosophical speculation for the audience to savor slowly, but in the United States, such art films are too high and low to win the audience's echo. The difference between the artistic heritage and connotation of the two lands can be seen from this.

The Coen brothers, who were nominated for Best Picture three times in four years for "No Country for Old Men", "Serious Man" and "Earth Thunder", have become the darlings of the academy, but "Drunken Country Folk" only received two nominations for Best Cinematography and Best Sound Effects, and even did not have nominations for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.

Of course, objectively speaking, compared to the deep meaning of the social reality reflected in the other works of the Coen brothers, this work does seem too pediatric, but as far as Lan Li is concerned, this is his favorite Coen brothers.

Greenwich Village in the 60s has now become a legendary history, and countless music fans talk about it, discussing every move that happened here in those years, pushing history forward and laying the footnotes of history, but at that time, it was the arduous process of a whole generation of people to find themselves, dig themselves, and strengthen themselves.

Under the call of the whole wave of the times, countless people have thrown themselves into the flood of ballads, as Ethan just said, "It doesn't matter who you are, what matters is that you are part of this wave of ballads", but the problem is that there may be only one successful person in a million people, and all the rest are struggling to live on the poverty line, with no future in sight and no hope in sight.

Everyone aspires to be Bob Dylan, but Bob Dylan has only one.

So, everybody is faced with a choice, to persevere, to change, or to give up, and it is as it is now, and it was the same before. Time flies, and the contradiction between dreams and reality has never changed.

In the story of "Drunken Country Ballad", several such characters appear. Justin Timberlake as Jim, Carey Mulligan as Jane, and Oscar-Isaac as Levion.

All three are folk singers, friends with each other, and they are all small characters who rise and fall in the tide of the times in Greenwich Village.

Jim is a warm-hearted and kind man, and after pursuing his dream to no avail, he chooses to compromise and begins to sing some cliché commercial songs, and also begins to compose some saliva songs in accordance with social trends. This is not what his dream originally looked like, but it allowed him to gain a firm foothold in society and have a relatively stable life.

Jane is a woman who grew up in a hippie culture, with a more open attitude towards "sex" and no baggage, while music is just a hobby for her, and when the interest is no longer sustainable, she makes her own choice - to be with Jim, so that her life gradually stabilizes.

Levine, on the other hand, was the only one who was stubborn.

Jim chose to change, Jane chose to give up, and Levine chose to persevere. Different choices lead their destinies to different paths.

In these three characters, what is hidden is the Coen brothers' reflection on dreams, art, and even the entire industry and the whole era, and among these three characters, the Coen brothers chose Levine as the protagonist, and all the attention is focused on this persevering loser, showing the state of being trapped between dreams and reality in a circular structure, sad and lost.

This state is beyond the comprehension and comprehension of the audience, but it is exactly what the Coen brothers hope to express and present.

One is that the dreamers are trapped in an inexplicable lonely place where they cannot move forward or retreat, as if they are banished, isolated and lost, they cannot see the future, but they are unwilling to give up, just with a passion in their hearts, persistently and stupidly rampage through this lonely land, hitting their heads and bleeding.

The second is that in the era of innocence that has passed, those talented and young and impulsive artists are now gradually drowning in the torrent of the era of profit and entertainment to death, losing themselves and silently giving up their favorite careers;

For most viewers, this seems to be a work that is not necessarily filmed, no one cares about the stories of losers, no one remembers the years of the folk era, no one cares about the struggles of dreamers, the state that the Coen brothers have worked so hard to capture, in the age of fast food culture and the Internet, has become superficial and pompous, no one cares about it, and no one understands it.

But this is not the case for Lan Li.

Levine Davis of "Drunken Folk" is like the old Frank in the nameless bar.

Next to the cemetery where Heather Cross slept, in the nameless bar, the old Frank who whispered "Cleopatra", the old Frank who never tired of performing even for free, the old Frank who gave up his dream under the weight of reality but persevered in his own way.

From any point of view of social reality, old Frank, like Levine, is a loser, a complete failure, and may even become the object of ridicule and ridicule by others, or it may become a negative teaching material for parents to educate their children, but in the dead of night and alone, the flame of dreams in their hearts is still burning, but it illuminates their lives.

It's a story about perseverance, it's about dreams, it's a story about life, it's a story about George Slander and Heather Cross, it's a story about Chu Jiashu and Lan Li Hall.

This was true when he was trapped in a hospital bed for the rest of his life, when he came to New York alone to pursue his dream of being an actor, when he was writing and making Don Quixote, and when Heather Cross stopped before the threshold of his dream came true.

On the road of dreams, it is not difficult to give up, everyone can choose to give up, just let go of their hands, dreams will be like a hydrogen balloon, quickly fly into the sky, disappear in a blink of an eye; change, some difficult, but as long as you get through the struggle of compromise and bowing your head, everything will become logical, and then self-comfort, most people above the society are like this.

It is always easy to choose Sunshine Avenue, choose the mainstream of society, choose to go with the flow, hidden in the vast sea of people, no need to think, no need to struggle, no need to struggle, just follow the vein of the predecessors and waves, blindly moving forward, this is enough. Under the huge social machine, everyone gradually wears off the edges and corners and becomes the same.

Choosing to insist on oneself, choosing to chase freedom, and choosing to maintain the edges and corners requires courage and perseverance. Because they don't have a reference object, they have to explore it on their own and find a path of their own, a path that is unique.

In the story of "Drunken Country Ballad", in the body of Levine-Davis, Lan Li can glimpse his own shadow and his own story.