After walking into the cinema again after half a year of absence, I watched Wang Lina's debut film "The First Parting". The "first encounter" of coming back and parting added some different feelings to the movie. When the last line of subtitles rolled quietly in front of my eyes, I was still immersed in the sad and beautiful parting in the movie - this small-cost children's film, through the children's first parting to reflect the normal and eternal theme of life, like a mournful but not sad hazy poem, bringing us unlimited taste space.
"Everyone must learn to part", and they embarked on the road of "growing up" without understanding
Parting is an extremely complex word with emotional meanings, but most of it is related to helplessness and sadness, so the ancients said that parting is depressing. But in a child's world, what does parting mean? Boy Isa and girl Kelly Binur are good friends and they live in a small village in Xinjiang. There is no desert in sight, but there are also thousands of years of immortal poplars and green grape racks. They live happily here. They even have a lamb that is still nursing, and each one takes turns feeding for a while. In school, they studied the text "The First Parting" together, and also recited Wang Wei's poem aloud together: "Alone in a foreign land for strangers, every festive season to think of relatives." ”
This is clearly an intertextual metaphor in a story. Isa has been living in an atmosphere of possible parting. His mother was mentally ill, and when she fell ill, she had to go to the hospital, and when she was delirious, she would occasionally go out and disappear. Isa loves her mother dearly and is willing to take care of her like a lamb, but he is powerless to prevent this possible parting from becoming a reality. My mother was sent by my father to live in a nursing home, while my brother had to leave home to go to a technical school. Isa, who was once scolded by her brother for "when will you grow up" because her mother was missing, has begun to grow up in the confusion of this "first" parting. Kelly is a cheerful and kind little girl who has gone through the process of her parents' divorce and reunion. She loves her village and her friends. Together they raised lambs, crossed the desert together in search of Isa's mother, and climbed into the poplar trees together to see the scenery. She also likes her parents. She enjoyed picking cotton with them and listening to her father's love songs to her mother. She is carefree and happy. However, just as she tasted the spicy taste of the leaves eaten by lambs in the poplar forest, she had to experience the first parting of her life. Mom and Dad want to take her to school in Kuqa City, and when Kelly asks Her Mom if she can take her friend Isa with her? Mom told her that no one is indistinguishable, "everyone must learn to part." ”
Learn to part, what a common and earth-shattering sentence. Yes, parting is commonplace for us, but for children, parting is sudden and earth-shattering, no one can stop it, and no one will care. In this way, they embarked on the road of "growing up" without understanding. In fact, parting is a hazy poem of growth, it cannot be learned, it does not have to be learned, and it comes unexpectedly. Only when you grow up and look back at all this, you know that it is parting, and you know that you grew up in parting. It's like the end of the film, where Isa rides a donkey in search of lambs in the snow. At this time, the picture was hazy, and we could not see his face clearly, only to hear him anxiously calling out, "Where are you?" "We know that there will be no answer, and there will be no answer in the movie, because the lamb has grown up and no longer needs him to feed, or even sacrifice as a sacrifice. He also grew up and couldn't go back. One day, we will say goodbye to our relatives, friends, hometown, and grow up in the wider world. What is a foreign land? Who is a stranger? Why miss your relatives? These deep parting thoughts condensed in the poetry of the ancients can only be truly touched and experienced in their real and sensual daily lives. The melancholy and pain of that moment quietly opened the valve of growing up.
A unique and charming film style, full of poetry and expressing ideas
If parting is the rule set by growing up, then how do we get this warm touch in the movie? This is due to the pure and rich story and image appeal provided by the director to the audience.
This film is a life epic dedicated by the director to his hometown Shaya and childhood life, so it is full of his strong hometown thoughts. But the concentration of this thought does not overflow freely, on the contrary, it is restrained and calm in the film.
The film creates a home between heaven and earth in the world of images.
Because it is heaven, everything is good. The film abandons the usual dramatic conflict structure, and completely focuses the story on the perspective of children, to show their panic in the face of the first parting, its delicate psychological portrayal and emotional expression wipe away the rust of the audience's soul, and awaken the rich memories of the initial parting of life in their hearts, it turns out that our growth is so careless and vigorous. As a force to promote the development of the plot, the adults in the film are not obstacles to the growth of children, but provide help within their power when children are confused, to soothe the children's turbulent hearts due to "parting". Kelly's mother told her daughter that she could paint a painting in which she and her friends would never be separated. This is the wisdom of a mother to teach her daughter to cope with parting.
Because it is heaven, it must all be beautiful. We see the cinematic language of cinema. Xinjiang's ever-changing regional landscapes and its vast geographical landscape have brought extremely rich choices to film shooting. Scenes such as the desert reflected by the backlight of the sun, the scene of the little friend sitting on the poplar tree, the dance of Kelly in the cotton field, etc., the gaze of the fixed lens reaches the audience's heart. This is obviously the result of the artistic construction of cinema. It further purifies the story world and focuses the audience's experience on emotions.
But the world is not monotonous, and it actually extends many complex social realities. In the film, we see the current situation of survival in some places in ethnic minority areas: life is not easy, but it is being changed, people can get timely medical treatment when they are sick, and families with difficulties can also get help from the government. We also see the difference between urban and rural areas. The primary school teachers in the village do not speak Standard Mandarin, and the students' learning is also affected. That's why Kelly's parents insisted on taking her to Kucha to school. Young people generally want to go out and work in the outside world, while older people are opposed to this. More importantly, we see a change of perception in the film. From her own experience, Kelly's mother concluded that Mandarin must be learned well, and practiced it in her children's education. The family upbringing, the birth and death of the elderly, the study and education of their children, and the pursuit of a prosperous life are the same as the people in any other part of China. Therefore, this children's film that seems to be a minority theme actually has the possibility of transcending the minority and merging into the modernity picture of contemporary China's development.
The director has a background in documentary creation, and the films also use local actors. According to director Wang Lina herself, many paragraphs themselves are not "filmed", but "recorded". And the two young actors themselves have experienced the approximate "parting" in the movie in their lives. The parents of the little girl who played Kelly did divorce. When her mother met her on the street after her divorce, she didn't know whether to say hello to her, and she looked dirty like a little orphan, and then remarried. The little boy who plays Isa is also dependent on his mother, but his mother also suffers from an illness. This kind of reflection inside and outside the play makes the actor's emotional expression gain a valuable sense of reality, they are experiencing rather than performing, which to some extent makes the film have a documentary quality. When these are combined with the image and composition with strong design intentions, they do not give the audience any sense of incongruity, forming a unique and charming film style, full of poetry and expressing ideas. Wang Lina believes that if she has anything in common with Abbas, it lies in the recognition that "poetic storytelling can make the audience no longer rely on the development of the plot itself and become a participant in cognitive life." ”
A very important image in the film is the train, which is constantly mentioned by several children. On her way to Kucha, Carrie writes to Isa, telling him that the train is not quite what she imagined, and in a tone of excitement, she introduces Isa to the new discoveries on the train. As Aisa read the letter, she had a look of longing. The outside world is different from the hometown, and there are unexpected trains that can take children to distant places. But is the outside world really as good as others say? Who knows for sure? It is only when the children talk about their ideals when they grow up that you know that Isa, who wants to be a doctor to treat her mother, and Isa, who wants to be a cadre to serve the village, have long been deeply tied to their hometown and can never be separated, even if they are parted countless times. Just like the picture of Kelly leaving her hometown for kucha school, the van is moving forward, and Kelly's gaze is with a hint of melancholy, and the glass through the rear window is sprinkled on the distant hometown.
Author: Zhang Bin (Professor, Shanghai Film Academy, Shanghai University) Editor: Xu Yang Responsible Editor: Shao Ling