Song Of The Phoenix Movie Analysis

The film in the poster, released in 2016, is called Song of the Phoenix. And the social context in this poster is in modern China where tremendous changes have taken place in all aspects, including folk arts. Significantly, plenty of Chinese folk arts have been qualified to appear on the Intangible Cultural Heritages list because of their high artistic standards, long histories, and irresistible cultural influences. However, the survival conditions of these ancient folk arts in modern Chinese society are not optimistic. In my opinion, the poster is a reminder to save the declining folk arts. To be more detailed explanation, in the following contexts, there are two perspectives of this poster will be mentioned: the collocation of images and
In the poster, the old master's face is thin, his cheekbones are prominent, and his skin was marked by many wrinkles that bore witness to the vicissitudes of his own experiences. Additionally, the old master’s dark, bushy eyebrows show a kind of emotion that contains sorrow and melancholy, rather than cheer or solemnity. Hence, what horrible thing makes this folk artisan so tired and gloomy? In fact, the horrible thing is livelihood. Further to say, because not all folk arts can be translated into economic benefits, it seems more match with the inheritors’ personal interests to lay the inheritance of their skills aside and pursue other careers. And this personnel change will prompt the decline of folk arts. Oppositely, like this old suona master, if inheritors stick to inherit the folk arts which are handed down from their ancestors, the thing waiting for them is probably a relatively poor material life. They are painfully sandwiched between the pursuit of material life and the inheritance of culture. And they are unable to escape from both individuals’ basic material desire and the specific mission of history. Therefore, this is probably the reason why this master’s emotion is full of
In this poster, the only master is teaching the only young student how to perform the suona, and the only background is the lifeless mountains. Except the two characters, there is no one else who presents in the poster and even undertakes relative actions about suona arts with the two lonely men. From this, we can infer that the inheritance chain of their suona arts is quite fragile. The main cause is that a lot of folk arts like suona arts have been set various of severe requirements and high standards by ancestors to select next generation inheritors. For example, some intangible cultural heritages which inherit mainly rely on oral and behavioral ways have difficulty to find a qualified inheritor (Yang, 2016); some intangible cultural heritages are only prevalent in particular regions or occasions, such as Chuanjiang Haozi (a folk work song sung along the Chuanjiang River). Accordingly, they have distinct endemicity, but they are lack of enough universality at the same time. Back to the poster, the grand scene that hundreds of birds flying to phoenix is generated and supported via only a small suona which is earnestly played by a little boy. And the only person who has qualification to instruct him is an old man who has experienced the rise and fall of suona arts. The little boy is so naive and industrious that he may have not tasted the sufferings from