With the increase of life experience, Xie Fei's films have become more and more mature. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

From the idealism in "Our Field" to the background of life in "The Year of Birth", Xie Fei's understanding of human nature and society has gone further, and by the time of "Black Horse", he has returned to the basics and returned to his poetic spiritual home.

From 1986 to 1987, Xie Fei was a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California Film School for one year. In addition to broadening his horizons, he also began to recognize the complexity of human nature and the multifaceted nature of things.

After returning to China, Xie Fei encountered the market economy and cultural transformation head-on, and the literary and film worlds began to focus on this social change. Xie Fei reflected that the characters in his first two works were too thin, and he began to dig deeper into the richer and more real human nature.

So, Xie Fei put Liu Heng's novel "Black Snow" on the screen, that is, the 1988 movie "Natal Year".

The film shows the distressed and meaningless life of Li Huiquan, a self-employed young man, and depicts a life tragedy after losing his ideals and beliefs. Xie Fei wants to use this to "create a biography for a generation of young people", showing the reflection of social changes in urban ordinary people and the changes in social values.

Compared with "Our Field", "Natal Year" also focuses on young people, and it is also a call for sincerity, ideals, and beauty, but the gloomy ending of Izumiko's meaningless death is very different from the idealism in "Our Field".

This kind of objective and cold presentation just shows that Xie Fei's understanding of life is more sober and mature.

In addition, the addition of "fifth-generation" young filmmakers such as actor Jiang Wen, photographer Xiao Feng (Zhang Yimou's classmate), and sound engineer Wu Ling (all of Tianzhuangzhuang and Jiang Wen's films were recorded by her) also makes this film quite modern.

After that, Xie Fei continued to think about human nature and filmed "Fragrant Soul Girl" (1993). The film shows a complex female image, in which she not only reflects the misfortune of the fate of rural women in China, shows their purity, hard work and strong nature, but also gently criticizes their ignorance and unawakening.

In February 1993, the films "Soul Girl" and "The Wedding Banquet" both won the Golden Bear Award at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. In contrast, Li An's "The Wedding Banquet" is more from the standpoint of Western values and affirms the inclusiveness of culture, while Xie Fei's "Fragrant Soul Girl" is more of a collective unconscious critique of the lack of spiritual and cultural concepts in the Eastern vernacular society.

The film also won the 1993 Government Outstanding Film Honor Award, the Best Actress Award at the Chicago Film Festival, the Top Ten Chinese Film Awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and the Public Award at the 1999 French Asian Film Festival.

In the 90s of the 20th century, the rapidly developing Chinese society was swept into the surging tide of commercialization.

Although Xie Fei's shooting speed has slowed down, he still finds another way in the dilemma.

Using the stories of ethnic minorities as a starting point, he tried to continue to explore human nature through different customs, calling for idealism – the Black Horse (1995), based on Zhang Chengzhi's novel of the same name, came into being. And writer Liang Xiaosheng said that choosing to shoot "Black Horse" is a very tragic thing in itself.

This film is like a lyric poem in praise of the mother of the vast steppe, and the magical black horses, long and graceful pastoral songs, and the vast and boundless grasslands in the film have all become a symbol of the spirit of the Mongolian people. The male protagonist returned to the grassland where he grew up, completed a spiritual journey home, and was able to find the lost human warmth.

In the binary opposition between the "steppe nomadic culture" represented by Somya and others and the "modern urban culture" represented by Baiyin Baolige, Xie Fei tried to return to the spiritual home of mankind. The gentle and generous image of the film has also become an excellent sample of the poetic mirror language of the "fourth generation".

"Black Horse" won the Best Director and Best Musical and Artistic Achievement Award at the 1995 Montreal International Film Festival, the Best Film Award and Best Director Award at the Magic City Film Critics Awards, and the Special Award of the Organizing Committee of the 5th St. Petersburg Film Festival in Russia.

In addition to his directorship, Xie Fei is a teacher, a manager, an advocate, and an activist.

After graduating, he stayed on to teach, and later went to the United States to study the Western education system. He holds many important positions in film institutions, and also personally organizes international student film and television exhibitions, and his multiple identities are intertwined to form a "complex" appearance.

In 1965, Xie Fei, who was in his prime, graduated and stayed in school to teach, and just when he was full of joy and ready to make a big difference, "Wenge" began. In 1969, Xie Fei went to a cadre school near Baiyangdian in Baoding. In 1974, he was transferred back to the "Wuqi Art School" and began his career as a teacher. From 1980 to 1988, he served as the vice president of the Peking Film Academy, managing teaching.

In the early days, Xie Fei's focus was on the practice of filmmaking: "In the first ten years of my career, I was both a teacher and a student, because I had to make up for the art practice class, because only through the practice of filming in person, can I gain real skills, real experience, and teach students well." ”

Ni Zheng, a professor at Peking Film Academy, once disclosed an anecdote: At the beginning, when Xie Fei instructed the 78 class to shoot his graduation work, he did not avoid the suspicion of overstepping the suspicion of acting on behalf of the company, and there was a dispute between teachers and students, which was actually caused by the fact that his creativity was suppressed by the catastrophe of "Wenge" for too long.

Teaching and learning go hand in hand, and the identity of a scholar also influences Xie Fei's creation: "Some people say that making movies and teaching movies are two different things, the former requires enthusiasm and the latter needs reason. I thought they were actually two complementary aspects of the same thing. As a "professor director", Xie Fei has a gentle and elegant Confucian style, and his films have always run through serious thinking and humanistic spirit.

In the 21st century, after the filming of the movie "Yixi Zhuoma", Xie Fei's focus began to turn to education. As he said, "20 to 50 years old is the prime time for artists to create, and 50 to 70 years old, or even older, is the best time for an art teacher." My own decades of juggling between filming and teaching also proves this pattern. ”

During this period, Xie Fei filmed two TV series "Sunrise" and "Dream of the Rich", the main purpose of which was to gain first-hand practical experience in the teaching of TV drama directing. During this period, Xie Fei also personally cultivated the "fifth generation" directors Cheng Kaige, Lu Jun, Tian Zhuangzhuang and Huang Jianxing, etc., and the "new generation" directors Jia Kezhang, Lu Chuan, Guan Yu, Wang Xiaoshuai, etc. have also been guided by this senior.

As early as the 80s of the 20th century, Xie Fei has become a representative of Chinese filmmakers in line with the international film industry.

He has served as a jury member of the Montreal International Film Festival and the 4th International Student Film Festival of Tel Aviv University in Israel, and has used the opportunity of the exhibition and jury to graft advanced foreign film and television resources to China and teach students the latest creative concepts in the international film industry. During his lecture in the United States, he used his savings to purchase more than 200 foreign films of different periods and genres for the college.

In recent years, Xie Fei has founded the "Peking Film Academy International Student Film and Television Exhibition", and almost all of the domestic films submitted for review are reviewed by him alone.

After 2010, Xie Fei directed the filming of three films as an art consultant, namely "Ten Thousand Arrows Pierce the Heart" adapted from Fang Fan's novel of the same name, "The Legend of Xiangyangpo" directed by Jin Ke and starring Wang Jingchun, and the film "Blue Bones" directed by rock singer Cui Jian.

Xie Fei advocated the establishment of art cinemas to find more outlets for literary films. He himself has always adhered to art films, but with an objective and open attitude, he encourages students to go into the mainstream commercial market and express their strengths.

The years are impetuous, and it is easier to see a person's true character and true temperament. Although Xie Fei wears many hats, he is low-key and calm. Lao Ji's ambition comes from a lifelong love.

Today, Xie Fei is no longer filming, but looking through his film history, the brilliance may be a dazzling moment in the process of this era, and the splendor of that time has not returned to silence today.

The memory of an era is still in the beam of light projected by Xie Fei's films, illuminating the hearts and eyes of generations of audiences.