In 2021, the documentary "Children of Yunling", which was created by the Economic Life Channel of Anhui Radio and Television Station, is a capture of the people's seemingly ordinary and long-term life stories, and it is precisely by approaching the people that they have discovered the deep greatness behind them, discovered the deep friendship of the people for the party and the people's army, and discovered the inheritance of the red spirit from generation to generation, so it has the background of good works. ——Ma Mei: Researcher of Anhui Normal University Research Base of Anhui Provincial Research Center for Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, Deputy Dean, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of School of Journalism and Communication of Anhui Normal University.
Desperately guarding and gratefully feeding the fish water deeply
Zhan Shunzi and Zhan Liu in "The Children of Yunling", the desperate protection of the children of the New Fourth Army and the stoic sacrifices in the process of raising the children of the New Fourth Army, sacrificing their lives for righteousness and sacrificing themselves for others, are the source of all follow-up and the focus of the documentary performance. Zhan Shunzi and Zhan Liushi desperately guarded the children left behind by the cadres of the New Fourth Army who were transferred away; this is not only the great spirit and love for the people shown by the New Fourth Army under the leadership of the party in working, living, and fighting against the enemy, but also a reflection of the heartfelt support of the masses of the people, and it is also the due righteousness of the Chinese people's spirit of kindness and trustworthiness, and it is also the concrete expression of traditional Chinese virtues, Chinese culture, and Chinese spirit -- if you agree to raise other people's children, you must do what you can and do with all your might, which is the faithfulness, the ultimate goodness, and the beauty of the Chinese.
The documentary does not stay in a Zhan family, but cleverly does a point and face treatment, it takes the story of Meng Wanliu and her adoptive parents as the main line, so that the children of the New Fourth Army soldiers who have the same experience as her also speak in a timely manner, they have also been left in the homes of the people, desperately guarded by the people in the countryside, and many people have been killed for protecting them. In this way, the audience can understand: This is a desperate guardianship of the children of the New Fourth Army by an ordinary poor peasant couple in southern Anhui, and this is not only the protection of a child by a couple, but through this couple and the children of the New Fourth Army raised, what we see is the reflection and condensation of the New Fourth Army and even the entire People's Army, the Communist Party of China and the broad masses of the people.
Plain storytelling and the writing of legendary stories
"The Children of Yunling" strictly adheres to the true and sincere principle of documentary creation, not fiction or exaggeration.
The desperate protection and affectionate nurturing of the Zhan family couple, as well as the gratitude and feedback of the elderly Meng Wanliu, the representative of the "Children of Yunling", are the core facts of the documentary, which mainly adopts the multi-dimensional interweaving and mutual complementarity of the parties, insiders and researchers to objectively present. Of course, in order to make the performance elements more diverse and increase the audiovisual expression effect, scene reproduction is also used in some key information, but this scene reproduction does not allow the reproducer to appear in the front, there is no specific camera of communication and interaction between the characters, and there is no deliberate increase in dramatic effect. The audience saw Meng Wanliu's parents, who were cadres of the New Fourth Army, holding her in the village to find villagers who could breastfeed, and then arrived at zhan's house, on the one hand, the child was willing to eat Zhan Liu's milk and no longer cry, on the other hand, Zhan Liu's had just died a child, the child made her temporarily forget the grief, here the parents walked in the village holding the child, using the back shot taken from behind, the child suckling shot, only a close-up of the baby's small flower quilt wrapped in a lightly shaken dark background... Everything is plain and natural, not too stimulating to the audience's senses, only allowing the narration and this implicit indicative shot to be aligned, so that the audience can expand their own associations and imaginations to supplement the information chain.
In "Children of Yunling", the Zhan family and his wife are ordinary rural people, illiterate, and mistakenly wrote the good name "Anhui Liu", which is full of the friendship of the new fourth army generals for southern Anhui and a pair of parents who have to stay in southern Anhui, and recorded the common big livestock "cattle" in the countryside of southern Anhui, or "ten thousand cattle", thinking that this name is good, implying that sick and weak children can grow strong. This seemingly ironic mistake of goodwill reflects the affection of a pair of rural parents who do not have much education level, and they are more affectionate to their children than their own children. The documentary gave a more detailed account of this misrememberment of the name and the twists and turns it caused to Meng Wanliu and his mother's recognition. This misrememberment also precisely reflects the linguistic situation that the vowel n and l in the southern dialect area of Anhui are not distinguished, and it is even more credible that the misrememberment is credible, and it quietly names the geographical spatial and cultural characteristics such as the customs and customs of Jing County.
As we all know, in the early 1940s, under the situation of the White Terror Revolution in southern Anhui, the Kuomintang reactionaries frantically searched and persecuted the New Fourth Army and its families. Through the narration of the insiders around the elderly Meng Wanliu, the documentary details the danger to the lives encountered by the Zhan family and his wife in order to save XiaoWanliu. The Kuomintang reactionaries arrested Zhan Shunzi and used all kinds of torture, even hanging him through the collarbone for two days and two nights... In order to save her husband and save her children, Zhan Liushi made an unprecedented appearance, going door to door to kowtow to the villagers to ask for guarantees...
The white terror era was desperately guarded, and in a relatively peaceful life, the adoptive parents always favored Meng Wanliu in the case of hardship, and there was a little better food always left for Meng Wanliu, not to their own children; in the contradictions of the children, the adoptive parents always blamed the biological children first, but favored Meng Wanliu; when Meng Wanliu was ill, the adoptive mother took care of them for thirty or forty consecutive days; when they could not raise the children at home, the adoptive parents sent their biological eldest daughters to others as child bridesmaids, and left Meng Wanliu... It is precisely these ordinary private histories that have shaped for us the great spirit of sacrifice of the ordinary people, and it is precisely this spirit that has hatched the daughter's gratitude and feedback, and it is also countless such people who have protected the descendants of the New Fourth Army left in the masses, and only then have today's red bloodline and the pursuit and inheritance of the red spirit.
The oriental charm of the scene reproduction and poetic lens
The story of such affection, not only the narrator's simple words, but also as far as possible to make it more beautiful in expression, so that more people remember and spread the inheritance. "The Child of Yunling" strives to achieve the unity of the value of beauty and the art of beauty. The documentary uses restrained bokeh scene reproduction, image-like restoration of historical events, and at the same time, through the dot dyeing and repeated presentation of empty lenses, realizes the beautiful poetic expression of the East.
In terms of artistic expression techniques, in addition to restoring the facts with plain and simple interviews and a small number of scene reproductions, "Children of Yunling" dyes one or two empty shots of scenery every few minutes, using magnificent landscapes and elegant Jiangnan grass and trees to alleviate the audience's acceptance fatigue, stimulate aesthetic understanding, and optimize the communication effect of the documentary. For example, at the beginning of the documentary, the blooming Yanhong rhododendron is used to show the beauty and red revolutionary spirit of Yunling, Jing County, Anhui Province, the former site of the New Fourth Army; the little baby is sent to the peasant's home, can eat milk, there is hope for survival, at this time, the green stem powder lotus with buds is used, and the pavilion stands in the visual center of the camera, beautiful and hopeful; it tells the story of the death of the Zhan Liu couple's own child, and the appearance is a dry brown lotus close-up of the withered lotus stem that is broken and shrugged on one side; life is bitter, But the family is happy and harmonious, and the narration is matched by the delicate pink flowers on the green leaves; the eldest daughter is sent out as a child bridesmaid, and the shots that appear are withered lotus leaves; when they are found by the organization to go back to school after the founding of New China, there are cute birds with branches jumping happily... These are warm and elegant scenes of daily life, with the role of figurative montage and accumulation of montage. And the performance to Nanjing school, the adoptive father to pick her up every week, at this time there is a high-altitude overhead shot, a boat leaning against the green trees by the thick green water; showing the landscape of Anhui Nanjing County, a very high and far-reaching vision, a distant boat, paddling in the depths of the green landscape map of the big long-range scenery, slowly walking in the green mountains and green waters; there are also distant villages under the sky that shows the clouds and mist rushing between the South Anhui Mountains, the rice grass, the fields are thousands of miles, and the white walls and red tiles are high... The realm is vast and lofty, with the beauty of mountains and rivers, and the beauty of fireworks in the world. It is the psychological arousal of "ascending to the heights makes people's hearts relax, and the current makes people feel far away". This scene is beautiful, or subtle, or deep, or magnificent, poetic, and the emotions are slowly evoked, overflowing, and gathering, which fully demonstrates the Chinese aesthetic interest.
Those scenes are also restrained and subtle, using back shadows, sides, backlights, and shadows, only giving people hints of some scenes, not sitting realistic to the point of craftsmanship, and having the effect of "leaving blank" in the real thing.
"The Children of Yunling" reflects the deep feelings of the Communist Party of China, the people's army and the masses of the people that have been condensed in the bloody and stormy war years, and the gratitude of the children of the cadres of the New Fourth Army who gave up better life and development opportunities and stayed with their adoptive parents is reflected in fact, this also expresses a deeper understanding of the dialectical treatment of regional development differences and personal development relations, and these traditional Chinese virtues and Chinese spirits that are in fact deeply praised in the documentary are the profound embodiment of the work's ideas And the film appropriately uses a certain scene reproduction for event restoration, using poetic empty lenses like Jiangnan green landscape paintings for emotional rendering and aesthetic stimulation, making people feel the blending and interpenetration of the beauty of endless wind objects and the beauty of human feelings, showing the beauty of fresh simplicity and elegance, and can subtly nourish the aesthetic values of the viewer.
In short, the documentary "Children of Yunling" can be said to have achieved a fusion of ideology, artistry and ornamentation, written for the great spirit of the people, and achieved a deep tribute to history.
Editor: Shen Xian
Editor-in-charge: Zuo Kaixun, Chen Yu
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