Preface
The characteristics of this film are that it not only presents the psychological changes and behavioral changes of the characters with temperature in the details of life under the gaze of "mutual other", but also unfolds the story in a grand space spanning two places and a time frame spanning nearly 70 years, showing the fate of the characters, completing the narrative of "grassland" and "sea" looking at each other, presenting the vast and far-reaching tension of the story, and the collision of life and the emotional shock of joy and sorrow.
"Grassland" cares for the "sea": from the true feelings of the nation
At the beginning of the film, it uses dialogue language to describe how the relief materials from Inner Mongolia were transported to Shanghai by train, and then to the 3,000 orphans in Shanghai who took the train to the distant grasslands of Inner Mongolia, which is a kind of spatial narrative framework, showing the purity and love of national feelings.
In 1960, natural disasters such as droughts, floods, insect infestations, hailstorms and other natural disasters caused severe shortages of food supplies. In dozens of orphanages in Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and other places, thousands of orphans are in serious distress due to lack of food.
Due to the large demand for materials and the high cost of transportation, the Inner Mongolian government suggested to the state that the orphans in the welfare homes be sent to Inner Mongolia to be raised by herdsmen, and said that "there is one, one live, one strong", this kind of broad-minded and unhesitating attitude has given more than 3,000 orphans who are often in trouble to rely on and care.
In the unfolding of the narrative, the film depicts the warmth and profundity of this national emotion in more detail. Acceptance is only the beginning, in the long process of parenting, due to differences in region, culture, customs, etc., the gaze and collision between the nurturer and the nurtured "for each other", the tolerance, integration and emotional sublimation after the collision continue to emerge in the long process of nurturing.
The adoption process in the movie is very touching, the herdsmen bring a lot of toys for the children to play with, give the children delicious food, hold the children who have a good relationship with them, because of the language barrier, so they can only express their meaning through their eyes and body language, for some of the children's strangeness and avoidance, the herdsmen are also very patient, there are many details that show that the herdsmen are trying to get close to these lovely children.
For example, in order to better communicate with Du Siheng, she has been flipping through Chinese pamphlets and taking notes in Chinese. Du Siheng didn't understand that Mongolians sleep with their feet on fire, don't like to pee in open places, don't Xi used to make tofu with milk, and treat wolves as puppies, so his new mother and brother patiently taught her, built a toilet for her, and cooked food for her.
So many details show the broad tolerance of the "grassland" herdsmen to the children of the "sea", the silent integration of moisturizing things and the priceless dedication of hardships. The heartfelt emotions and conscious actions of the "grassland" herdsmen make the gaze and collision of "mutual other" and the many "inhuman" of the "sea" evolve into communism, empathy and sympathy.
The sons and daughters of the "sea" grew up under the careful care and cultural influence of the "grassland" herdsmen, and their growth memories are the epitome of the historical evolution of the Chinese national community, and their growth identity is a symbol of national unity and integration. This gaze and integration of "the other" constitutes a social narrative in which the ethnic group and the Han nationality participate in the construction of national history.
The watchfulness of the "steppe" and the "sea": a national integration that is both far and near, but also deepening
The film always runs through strong national feelings. This emotional thread transcends the barriers of time, space, nationality and culture, and is sincere and selfless.
Under the framework of a grand spatial narrative, the main part of the film revolves around "leaving, seeking, and returning".
Du Siheng is a native of Shanghai, with a stubborn, independent and assertive personality. The marginality of the grassland and the "strange" ethnic customs are very different from their hometowns. The feeling of open space in the vast grassland reflects the uncertainty of connection and the dispersion of individuals.
In her hometown, the brick and stone houses, with their well-defined rooms, give a sense of order: safe and stable. The two worlds are in stark contrast, the city abandons her, while the steppe accepts her. "Is her hometown the "sea" or the grassland?
This instinctive longing for her mother's "sea" gave her an illusion of "self", although her brother Namu Khan rescued her from under the blue sky on a wolf, and in the silent night, her father Idel chatted with her in Chinese, which opened her heart, and in the sandstorm, her father saved her life and promised her that he would never abandon her.
But in order to find her mother, she chose to leave the prairie and return to Shanghai. In the process of leaving, they encounter quicksand, which appears and is mentioned many times in the movie, and just when they are in danger, his brother Namu Khan arrives and saves their lives, but he himself gets stuck in the quicksand.
This is an important turning point in the emotional relationship of the characters in the whole movie, the death of Namu Khan made Du Siheng re-establish his identity, and from then on he was no longer Du Sihan's sister Du Siheng, but became Idel and Sarena's Namu Khan.
It's like at the end of the movie, she said that with her own home, she doesn't want to go back to her original family. Her so-called "own home" does not only refer to the family she has married, but also the Idel/Sarena/Namu Khan family, when she really regards herself as a part of this family, when she is determined to fulfill Namu Khan's last wish, the family's restraint on her disappears, and is replaced by the responsibility and protection of this new Han and Mongolian family.
This transformation of identity, the establishment and return of self, means that Du Siheng, who has been immersed in the wind and rain for a long time, has broken through the shackles of geography and culture, and sublimated from national affection to bloody family affection, and sublimated into the personal identity of "I am Namu Khan".
This transformation from group care to personal blood connection of love is a kind of inseparable national integration, a continuation of love and responsibility that continues in the process of national integration, and a sublimation of national feelings, making national feelings more unbreakable, and the expression of the Chinese national community becoming more shocking.
Echoing Du Siheng's "run away, find, return", Du Siheng's sibling brother Du Sihan also began the journey of "running away, searching, and returning", he left the "sea" to find his sister and reunite in the "grassland".
Du Siheng's biological mother has been looking for her daughter, and she has been thinking about her daughter before she died, and Du Sihan has been looking for relatives with her illness after learning that she also has this disease in order to fulfill her mother's last wish for Alzheimer's disease.
He feels guilty for his sister, which lasts until the end of the movie, and also solves the mystery of why Du Siheng was sent to an orphanage. After finding his sister, he did everything his mother explained. More importantly, in the process of "searching", he completed the identification of the Han nationality and all ethnic groups as a family of the Chinese national community.
At the end of the film, the hundred-year-old Sarena had a conversation with the late Du Siheng's biological mother, and her voice echoed in the vast grassland:
"Sister, although we have never met, we have the same daughter, and I am grateful to you for giving me a chance to be her Eji. Then, the picture of young Sarena and young Du Siheng together, young Sarina said: "One day, we will meet, and at that time, I will tell you the story of her growth." ”
As he narrates, the hundred-year-old Sarena, the elderly Du Siheng, the young Sarena, and the young Du Siheng all appear in the camera one by one. Time and space are brought closer at this moment, and Du Siheng and the new "Namu Khan", the mother of Shanghai, and Eji on the grassland, merge into one at this moment, completing the artistic construction from "small family", "everyone" to "Chinese nation".
The nation behind the "grassland" and the "sea" is the national responsibility of the national community
"The End of the Sea is the Grassland" is a film oriented to the "small individuals" in the "big history", which not only completes the micro narrative, but also expands the narrative of the Chinese national community at a higher level. This is also a feature of this ethnic minority theme that is different from previous similar films, and it is also a kind of transcendence.
At the beginning of the film, the audience is shown to donate materials from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to the Shanghai Children's Welfare Institute, to the relocation of 3,000 orphans to Inner Mongolia.
The herdsmen solemnly called these orphans who walked into the grassland "sons of the nation", and this identity dispelled the chill of the word "orphan", and these children with scarred hearts gradually healed under the care of the "grassland mothers" and established a great love with the people on the grassland that transcended blood relations. The once distant "sea" and "grassland" are closely connected in the embrace of the motherland, and they are strong and unbreakable for a long time.
The film also vaguely reveals that Du Siheng's grassland father and Shanghai's father are both "people of the country" - Idel, as a scout stationed on the border of the motherland for a long time, the "disappeared" father has actually been committed to the cause of national defense secrets, while Du Siheng's mother, Sarena and other women raise their children alone.
The groups in the movie, such as doctors, herdsmen on the grassland, teachers in welfare homes, orphans, and so on. No matter where they are, no matter what race, they will shoulder the responsibility of building the country, defending the country, fighting disasters, and sharing weal and woe with the motherland, which is a real community with a shared future.
In the past, films reflecting the life of ethnic minorities either took the Han culture as the main body, or recreated the imagination of ethnic minorities, in which the "outsiders" were mostly represented by advanced civilizations, such as "Visitors on the Iceberg" and "The Bell Rings in the Mountains"; or showed the differences between the life and culture of the Han nationality and ethnic minorities, such as the "outsiders" depicted in "The Sacrifice of Youth" that the "outsiders" could not integrate into the life of local ethnic minorities.
However, "The End of the Sea is the Prairie" breaks the simple "outsider" narrative mode, breaks the cognitive relationship between the "outsider" who is a "bystander" and "cannot intervene", and replaces it with a "personalized, diversified, and even contradictory" film.
In the process of staring at each other, talking to each other, and knowing each other, it shows the national responsibility of national love and national integration, and opens up a new field for ethnic minority films. In this way, the narrative of the community with a shared future for the Chinese nation is completed, and the theme of the Chinese nation's community, empathy, joys and sorrows, and shared responsibility is highlighted, which has reached a new height in the same type of films in the new era.
Looking back at the "Seventeen Years" theme film, its narrative presents a tendency of liberation narrative and frontier narrative, and its starting point is to build a Chinese national community and a modern nation-state".
Today, in the context of "forging the sense of community of the Chinese nation", ethnic minority films "should be created in a way of equality, inclusiveness and dialogue, return to life, return to the essence of film, reproduce an unchanged theme, express the common emotions of mankind, and reflect on modernity, so as to move the audience", "The End of the Sea is the Grassland" is undoubtedly a good exploration in this regard.
It does not have a face-painted character setting, which is different from the fixed images of the wise and kind old man, the bold and brave father, the kind and loving mother, and the happy and witty child in the previous "son of the country" theme movies.
The film delicately depicts the old man who wants to adopt but is rejected by the children and lost, Idel, who shoots into the sky in pain after the death of Namu Khan but never gives up Du Siheng, Sarena who is selfish towards Du Siheng, and the brother who was once jealous of his sister.
These real emotions and daily reproductions make the audience have a kind of resonance, one after another vivid characters overflow from the screen, although not perfect, but very real, just like the longest Chinese sentence spoken by Sarena in the whole movie, she said a few words to Du Siheng: "'daughter'", 'Daddy', 'Eji', 'Namu Khan', love you, forever, we, family", although incoherent, but very good.
epilogue
No matter how large and complex the social and cultural system of a country or nation is, it has its basic cultural spirit and historical characteristics.
It is precisely this kind of cultural spirit and historical personality that has endowed this nation with cultural personality and enabled it to maintain its independence and national personality. Therefore, the cultural spirit and its historical personality are the life genes on which a nation depends. Film is a kind of mass media, which writes and inherits national friendship in the form of community images, and perpetuates the responsibility of the family and country.