I know Zhang Yimou, and it was the first time I went into the city to see his director's "Old Well"
I was born in the rural countryside of Damingfu, Handan, Hebei, at the junction of Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces, known as the "Three Disregards".
It wasn't until I was twelve or thirteen years old that I first left the countryside and came to the city, xingtai, where one of my great uncles (my grandfather and his father were brothers) lived.
My great uncle was single, a young man who went to Xingtai alone, living by pulling a cart to help out, and when he was fifty years old, he was introduced to a woman whose husband had died. My eldest wife lives in the southern suburbs of Xingtai City and is a vegetable farmer. One of her daughters works in the hospital. After my uncle married his wife, he lived in a family.
After the Spring Festival in 1987, my great uncle returned to his hometown, because he had no children and no daughters in his hometown, and a piece of his homestead belonged to our family, so when he was old, my family was responsible for supporting him. Usually, when he returned to his hometown from Xingtai, he ate and lived in our house.
One night, when he was about to leave his hometown and return to Xingtai, our parents and brother discussed and thought of letting me go with him and live with him. I am the oldest in the family, two older brothers and one older sister.
But my family has worries, that is, my uncle is not young, and he lives with the vegetable farmer's wife, and if I inherit it to him, I may not be able to live well.
But I still followed him to Xingtai City (try it), and entered the city for the first time. First time eating old-fashioned bread, instant noodles, and seeing bananas.
I remember staying in Xingtai for about half a month, passing the Lantern Festival. The first time I felt the beauty and hustle and bustle of the city, the first time I walked into the cinema to watch a movie, and saw the Woniucheng Park in Xingtai City.
One day, I went out alone to play and came to a cinema in the Workers' Palace of Culture. As soon as the movie was over and people were walking out of the movie theater, I picked up a movie ticket from the door of the movie theater (the gatekeeper tore off the corner) and entered the auditorium without paying attention to the door. After the people who had seen the movie left, I hid under the big curtains and welcomed a new audience.
Because the movie tickets were used, I casually found a seat in the back. When the lights in the entire auditorium suddenly dimmed, I could see clearly that the movie was playing "The Old Well." Before that, I didn't know who Zhang Yimou was.
When the film was at its climax, I was somehow brought to tears by the interpretation of the two protagonists, Zhang Yimou and Liang Yujin. Since then, I've thought about the truest side of human nature.
The storyline of "Old Well" is like this: the ancestors of the old well village in the Loess Plateau have not been able to drill a well for generations, and the elderly have pinned their hopes on the young people. Qiao Ying, a handsome-looking rural girl, returned to the countryside to work as a farmer after taking the college entrance examination.
She is in love with Sun Wangquan, a young man from the same village. However, in order to exchange money for Wangquan's brother to marry, Wan Shuiye insisted that he be the son-in-law of the young widow Xifeng. Under the pressure of the family, Wangquan had to agree to be the son-in-law of the upside-down door.
In order to let the hometown people drink water, Wangquan devoted all his energy to digging a well. The first scientifically determined well in the history of Laojing Village has finally broken ground. At the critical moment when the whole village was fighting day and night, there was a landslide accident, and Wang Cai was sacrificed. Qiao Ying and Wang Quan are sealed under the well by earth and stone, and with their lives taking away at any time, they finally have a husband and wife (having a relationship).
Since then, I have known Zhang Yimou, so after the birth of my two sons, they both have an art character in their names.
