Using bookstores as a medium, "Bookstore, Meet You" shows the life of "book readers" and tells the story of ordinary people meeting books.
Author: Nian Nian
"In the book, I experience things in the outside world,
Here and there, nature is vast. ”
- Rilke, The Reader
From April 22 to 24, the CCTV-9 Documentary Channel of the Film and Television Drama Documentary Center of the Central Radio and Television Station broadcast the documentary "Bookstore, Meet You". The documentary consists of six episodes, focusing on 5 cities and 6 bookstores, and taking the audience into the physical bookstore in the accompanying interview and documentary shooting, meeting all kinds of "readers" and sharing their different life stories.
Each episode of "Bookstore, Meet You" is named after the city + bookstore, and uses documentary lenses to lead the audience to start a journey around the bookstore. The small and beautiful expression and warm narrative characteristics have attracted the attention of many audiences.
From all Saints Book Park in Beijing and Baicaoyuan Bookstore in Wuhan, to 24-hour book bars in Shenzhen, Xinhua Bookstore in Shichi, to Fangsuo in Chengdu and Youhe Bookstore in Wuhan, each bookstore is full of random and accidental encounters. These bookstores, which are distributed in different cities and regions, as well as the people who come to the bookstore, buy books, read books or just hang out, open up a rich narrative space for documentaries.
Adjacent to Tsinghua and Peking University, All Saints Book Park is a 30-year-old humanistic academic bookstore, the books here look very deep, the town store cat "safe" sleeps on Hegel's philosophy books all day, attracting many readers to come; located near The Central China Normal University in Wuhan, a small bookstore that has been open for 11 years is about to close, and many readers who meet it here also come to "say goodbye" to it in addition to looking for books; in the center of Shenzhen, a 24-hour book bar is not only a space for urbanites to rest in a hurry. It is also often in the middle of the night to witness the fatigue and dreams of many people; in Shichi County, Henan Province, where the Yangshao Cultural Site is located, the Xinhua Bookstore in the small county town has accompanied generations of people to grow up, and here you can always meet new readers and different stories...
Let the physical bookstore return to the public vision, "Bookstore, Meet You" uses a story of personal encounter with the book to take the audience back into the bookstore and feel a simple sincerity of "quiet in the middle of the noise".
In the film, there are not only people's encounters with bookstores, but also people's encounters with the city, people's encounters with people. For example, the hard work of Shenzhen people and the fast pace of the city are condensed in a 24-hour book bar; the bookstore square house hidden under the bustling business district is integrated with the comfortable urban atmosphere of Chengdu; the 8-square-meter old bookstore outside the south gate of Wuhan University complements the cultural heritage of Wuhan.
Not only showing the characteristics of bookstores and cities, the documentary "Bookstore, Meet You" also starts with bookstores and enters the life of "book readers", so that people can see more stories of ordinary people meeting books.
Beijing All Saints Book Park, the bookstore staff who came to buy books did their favorite thing after work or visit the bookstore, and his salary was mostly used to buy books, because he had never left Beijing and liked to see the world in books (travelogues). Although the shelves of Wuhan Baicaoyuan Bookstore are empty, the good books have a home, follow a "red fan" to walk home, those about "Dream of the Red Chamber" and her stories when she was young have a different understanding. In Shichi, a rural left-behind old man who loves to read books will take a car into the city when he thinks of his grandson, and by the way, he will go to Xinhua Bookstore to read books, when the family has a new look, the children are going out, but he only wants to return to his hometown and miss his deceased relatives. At Chengdu Fangsuo Bookstore, an entrepreneur from a small mountain village in Luzhou, Sichuan Province, seems to have seen her own story in "Migrant Girl", and now she still regrets that she has not realized the freedom to read. In the process of "talking" with them and going home with them to read books, the film also opens up the colorful life situations and feelings behind the characters.
During the broadcast of the film coincided with World Book Day (April 23), many netizens said, "It was a real surprise", "Seeing the people in the film, I really feel that everyone's background is hard and strong", "From the bookstore to reading, to the experience of the readers themselves, humanistic care is available"...
"Bookstore, Meet You" uses the bookstore as a medium to string together the life of "book readers" and dig out more stories about books and reading. Under the accompanying narration and real record, the moving story of books and reading is spread out in front of the camera, taking the audience to immerse themselves in it, and slowly tasting the taste of life.