Located in Xiuwu County, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, Dananpo Village is a farmstead in the valley slope near the Yuntai Scenic Area of the Wei and Jin Bamboo Forests, and has accumulated wealth due to coal mining in the 1970s and left a certain number of public buildings. Later, after the coal mining ended, the economy quickly declined, becoming a provincial poor village.
In 2016, the Xiuwu County Party Committee and County Government pioneered the development path of "county aesthetics", continuously aggregating local history, culture, tourism and cultural resources, using aesthetics to retain nostalgia, and reviving the countryside with culture and art. Zuo Jing, a township construction scholar, publisher and planner, was entrusted by the county party committee to invite design and ideological forces from inside and outside the region to carry out the "Great South Slope Plan" by means of local construction.
Just go to a hometown you've never been to before, singing
In October 2021, Gojo was on the Great South Slope
Before watching "China Is So Beautiful", I was really suspicious in my heart. Associating the subtitle and theme of the film, when "music" meets "local", especially the countryside, it is not sure whether it is just a "Summer of the Band" that moves the shooting location to the countryside.
After all, recording music between natural mountains and rivers is a flattering practice, but such "countryside" is just the "background" of another urban property.
Open the first episode with questions, and erase most of the original thoughts. Compared with the band itself, the people who live in the local area and their stories are really vivid and cute and layered, perhaps because they stay in the field where they naturally belong, or maybe because I naturally have feelings and curiosity about the countryside. But what I still didn't quite understand at the time was that it seemed that the show had made an effort to "bring the band and the country together," but they still spoke their own words in their own languages.
The mountains and rivers are beautiful, too beautiful to be true. Life in the countryside is so real, so real that you can only get along with yourself, real enough to be a little lonely.
In October, I personally experienced the trip to the Great South Slope of the Gojo Band, and I probably knew that there was a shooting team following the record this time, so I could feel the "posture" of a large team at the event site, but I didn't know what they recorded from what perspective. Until I saw the beginning of the film, director Wang Shengzhi told Gojo on the high-speed train, I have not read your information before, I don't know you, and I suddenly put my mind at ease, because I don't know enough about the music of Gojo people, it seems that it does not prevent me from feeling it again from the perspective of the camera.
A brief intersection, in addition to the hilarity, will bring something
In November 2020, at the Hangzhou Strawberry Music Festival
I saw a live performance by Wutiao people at Strawberry Music in Hangzhou in 2020, when they were already popular all over the country because of "Summer of the Band". To be precise, they are liked by so many people because they are themselves. The show is an opportunity, and so is the camera, which only illuminates what is already there.
This time I went to the Great South Slope to see the countryside up close, and I also saw Renke, Amao and Xiaohe at close range.
The one-hour film truly shows everything I saw two months ago: persimmons, corn, renovated public spaces, trade unions selling local produce, two shows that make cold northern nights less cold, and a multitude of familiar and cute locals.
Renke, Ah Mao, and Xiaohe sang with their children in the music classroom: "A tree in the forest does not need to know that it is a tree", and the people in the countryside are also completely unaware of their innocence, simplicity and preciousness as the song sings
Of course, there are also some parts that I missed: such as the music class between Gojo People, Xiaohe and the children, the scene where the children paint in song, the conversation between the Gojo people and Grandpa Cow during the meal, and their exchanges and run-ins with the Wai Yi Troupe.
Is the footage of the shot absolutely real? How "distracted" will the interaction surrounded by cameras be?
I once saw this explanation in the book "Life Only" about the documentary: "Even if the interviewee lies to the camera, the moment that is recorded is real." We can't expect the subject to be completely absent as a lens, but that doesn't prevent the camera from recording reality. ”
Renko also said when he first arrived on the Great South Slope that he had long been accustomed to the presence of the camera.
Those two days were perhaps the most lively days of the year (except for the Spring Festival), and during those two years, because of this rural construction project, many young people returned to their hometowns and had new careers or jobs that did not have to be too far from home. There are also many young people from surrounding cities who come to see the five people or the small river, and with the cultural circles and rural workers invited by Zuo Jing, the Great South Slope may have ushered in one of its most vibrant moments.
Before the performance, the actors of the Huaiyi Troupe looked at the children
Can the singing man hear the voice of the countryside?
Musicians come to the countryside, but they just change places to sing. That was why I had difficulty getting interested in the show at first, but Gojo's interaction with The Great South Slope slowly changed my vision as the show progressed. To say wonderful, sincerity is like air, you can't see its existence, but when you are deeply surrounded by it, you will be aware of its penetration and power.
For example, I feel the understanding and empathy of Gojo people for the countryside, but if I am asked for clear evidence, I can't find it, and I feel that there is evidence everywhere.
In the Great South Slope, in addition to the five people and the small river, the main characters of the music are the actors and children of the local Huaiyi Troupe. In the two days on the Great South Slope, the actors appeared on the stage again and again, cooperating with the shooting, and with perhaps a little bit of self-confidence. Forty years after the costumes were in one suitcase, there was no need for them to appear on stage in the village, until a record of their own was finally released.
The villagers of Da Nanpo, who are using oil paint makeup, are also members of the HuaiWu Troupe
Outsiders gathered around the actors to ask for autographs, and as they rehearsed at the entrance of the ancestral hall, Gojo listened as spectators. Renke will think of his own experience because of the experiences of the elderly. When Gojo eats at Grandpa Niu's house, it is not "Let's sing a song for you", but "We want to hear you sing a piece." ”
They are no longer the foils of the grand scene, they are the grand scene.
This is in line with my ideal vision of the form of intersection between outsiders and the countryside. Musicians lack of stage, the probability is not lacking, most of the year in various cities to perform the band, what they need is actually to stop and supplement, if "back to the earth" has become a bare performance, it is not only another consumption of musicians in the "right name", but also the ignorance of the country itself. Local villagers who spend most of the year busy with real life need to be seen and heard.
The actors of the pre-performance Huaiju opera, photographed on the Great South Slope
Renke describes his visit to the Great South Slope as "the hometown of today." The word "hometown" is based on the sensibility of the locality, and "today" shows his sobriety about "timeliness". He knew that there was a limit to what he could do, that the intersection was short, and that a lot of attention would dissipate after the hustle and bustle, but that didn't stop him from adding more, a sincere stroke, to the good possibility.
He may be pessimistic, but this pessimism grows in reality, and the changes that can be brought about may be more positive.
Is "real" more beautiful, or "beautiful" more beautiful
To be honest, as a witness of Nanpo Qiuxing, the first sight of the Great Nanpo Village is not "beautiful", just like Zuo Jing expressed in the interview, the Great South Slope is really a very ordinary one among so many villages in China. However, it is precisely because of the ordinary that it brings tests to local practitioners and confirms that rural work does play its role.
The "beauty" of the countryside, like the "sweetness" of sugar water, really does not need to be confirmed.
Just as many people who do not know it will sigh, when they are old, they will go to the countryside, find a piece of land, cultivate a field and build a house, such a life is more comfortable, and the over-glorified image is giving birth to and exacerbating such a desire (it can also be said to be imaginary), but this is exactly the opposite of the wishes of many people who really live in the countryside.
Villagers of Da Nanpo Village, who set up stalls on the side of the road
The countryside does not exist for the imagination of the people in the city, it really grows and it really encounters difficulties. Zhang Xiaozhou said: "China is so beautiful, I am afraid that you have photographed the countryside too beautifully." “
What is facing the countryside?
It is the hollowness of the old house, the departure of young people, the inconvenience of transportation, the lack of education, the forgetting of memory, the sealing of tradition, the bitterness of life that is dissolved again and again in the telephoto lens of beautification and avoidance, but the bitterness itself has not been dissolved.
Children interacting with the new architectural space in the countryside, photographed on the Great South Slope
Zuo Jing was doing rural construction in Da Nanpo Village, and with other previous experiences, he should have the most say in all this. But he seemed to be restrained at all times, rarely showing emotion, and even looking a little serious. He only buried his head in things and gathered more people to come to the countryside.
Come and see its beauty? More, should be to see it real.
And this episode is also edited like the middle-aged men in the picture who want to talk and stop, implicitly and restrained. In the film, music is not an accomplice to sensationalism, but just a ship that helps the "real" reach the "real".
A better country must not have been built at the hands of people who believed it was good enough. Vigilance against "beauty" may be another kind of sobriety.
It is undeniable that most "we" can only focus on "them" because of "them"
Zuo Jing and Gojo ren have been old friends for more than ten years.
More than a decade ago, gojo people had not yet been recognized everywhere they went, as they do today, but by then they had paid attention to the countryside, walked in the countryside, and interpreted in their own works the reality of what they felt in the local area. So when they came to the Great South Slope and were surrounded by the audience who wanted to sign the autographs, his old friend Zuo Jing reminded him with a little seriousness, don't forget that our purpose this time is to "set out for the earth."
Renko reading on the high-speed train
Renko is humorous, and the humor is tinged with lingering sadness. Before he read books, books were his companions, but now everyone will emphasize in a mocking tone: "Renke is really a reader."
His language and expression are uninhibited and free, but they also face the contradictions between performance and life meaningfully, he said: "You can only use emptiness to stab that satisfaction, and use satisfaction to resist emptiness." ”
More than ten years later, Zuo Jing is still doing rural construction, and the Gojo people are still singing life with music. They were still friends who knew each other, as if nothing had changed. Of course, changes have also occurred, and many people pay attention to the Great South Slope because of the Five People, and re-understand the Five People because of the Great South Slope and because of the rural construction.
In the film, they are also aware of this change and accept the new role and meaning. They did not change direction because the tide of the times swept over them, and more importantly, their works were always truly rooted in the land, so that they could get sincere attention and happiness when they sang in the center of the village.
The last song performed by Gojo Tainanpo, "I'll Tell You When the Problem Arises"
But so what
If "arrival" and "attention" are a predestined exchange, then when it is in the right person event, it has foreshadowed the beauty of the outcome.
It's like you might have opened that episode because of "Five People," but what you see is not only the talent of the musicians, but also the real land that gave birth to it all. See a vivid and familiar Henan countryside, see the many possibilities that it can be more vivid and better, see the many stories that have arisen around it, of course, you will also see the truth and humility of the Five People facing the countryside and the land. You can see the rustic emotion flowing with the music, and see the light points of the stage fall into the smiling eyes of the children.
Even if we regret that "in the end we still have to pay attention to the countryside because of the musicians", it is okay to feel happy and happy that "after all, we still haven't missed this precious thing".
It was he or she who convinced me of the meaning of "coming" when I saw children on the Great South Slope who were filled with joy because of the musical performances
As Mr. Qian Liqun once said: "We need the countryside, and the countryside needs us." Acknowledging this "mutual need" is not an embarrassment. After all, the saddest thing is not that people who pay attention to the countryside do not simply want to pay attention to the countryside, but that no matter what the reason, they can no longer arouse the curiosity of "urban people" about the countryside.
It remains a valuable sign.
Distant view of Da Nanpo Village Hand-painted: Li Guosheng
The Great South Slope edition of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest" woodcut work