Sandan, a Tibetan teenager who went to Ta'er Monastery alone to learn how to make butter flowers, met Tang Yu, a child of the same age who traveled from the city to Tibetan areas. The two teenagers embark on a heartwarming and unique road adventure together, and at the end of the journey, the audience will follow the two children together, both healing and thinking.
"Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" is scheduled for July 9, the director and the publicity team are ready to fight a protracted battle, from the Beijing International Film Festival in April to the Southern Film Festival in Zhuhai a few days ago, the director Chen Yingxin and the starring Che Yongli, who are a little socially phobic, plucked up the courage to continue to take the stage to accept the audience's review, and the audience responded again and again with warm applause and affirmation of the film. During the Southern China Film Festival, we also found an opportunity to interview director Chen Yingxin and starring Cha Yongli, and learned that the behind-the-scenes story of "9981 Difficulties" is as wonderful as the movie.
From conception to release, it spans 14 years
After graduating from the Film Academy to study directing, Chen Yingxin, who laughed at herself as having no job, no love, and no mood for "three nos", decided to roam in Qinghai alone, which was 2010.
Chen Yingxin, who has never been able to find a creative opportunity, has given up being a director, but the local customs have stimulated her desire to create, and the story of the encounter between a Tibetan teenager and a mainland teenager on a journey has gradually taken shape, and there is a force that prompts her to write this story. "Actually, this is a very simple and simple idea, no matter whether I will be a director in the future or not, I have to shoot this story and be worthy of myself." Chen Yingxin said.
The blending of the feeling of travel and the story of the two children, the collision of pure creative intention and courage without hesitation, determines the intrinsic temperament of "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers".
Next, Chen Yingxin spent 2 years creating and polishing the script, she knew that looking for an amateur to act, the image and personality of the actor and the character must be highly unified to have a good performance, and it will also make the shooting controllable, so she set off to Seda, went to a primary school in Yalong Township to select young actors, and then wrote characters according to the image and temperament of the actors.
Making movies requires teamwork, Chen Yingxin asked Zhang Ji to be her producer, and her mentor Xu Haofeng at the film academy at that time had just finished filming "The Trail of the Widows", so she recommended the director of photography Sha Jincheng to her. The preparatory work in the early stage was very smooth, but no one guessed that it would take more than ten years for the film to be released.
After going through the "ninety-nine-eighty-one difficulty", I never thought of giving up
The filming of "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" had an extremely tortuous experience. When the script was completed, the actors were finalized, and the filming was ready to start, the investor had a problem, and the shooting had to be put on hold.
In the years when looking for investors, the Chinese film market began to blow out, the number of screens skyrocketed, and the annual box office soared from 13.1 billion in 2011 to 64.1 billion in 2019.
But "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" encountered the opposite. When there is a problem with the investment, you can actually stop the shooting immediately and start anew, which will save you a lot of trouble. "It's not that I haven't thought about it, and some people have given advice like this." Chen Yingxin said, "But the movie is halfway through, the whole crew has so many people, and everyone is shooting on the plateau at an average altitude of 4,000 meters, which has consumed a lot of effort and energy, and I can't bear to let so many people's efforts and efforts be in vain." In the end, Chen Yingxin decided to continue filming, and she paid her own money to make up for the investment and pay off all the crew members. In fact, our life is not easy to make movies, and I can understand this very well, and I don't want everyone to lose their confidence to continue making movies every time they make a movie. ”
After the filming was completed, the film could not go through the release process normally due to the problems of the previous investors, and even post-production could not be carried out, and the support funds that could have been obtained, as well as the plans of various film festivals and film festivals, were all stranded. But she never thought of giving up, so she struggled, persevered, paid a great price, and finally could continue to advance, as if she had experienced ninety-nine eighty-one difficulties. This is also the reason why "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" has not been scheduled to be released until now.
A great team makes a great movie
The quality of a film is often directly proportional to the hard work put into it by the director. In the past ten years, Chen Yingxin has devoted most of her time and energy to film creation. Perfecting the script by yourself, conceiving the shooting ideas for each scene, photography, art, lighting, actors, ...... Partners from various departments personally invited, and some readily agreed, while others had to repeatedly "stumble".
Unlike some big directors who just confirm the scene when they set the scene, the director of every scene in the movie did it himself, and provided great help during the two months of his trip to Tibet. "At the beginning, we followed the crew's conventions to find the scene, but the feeling we found was not right, I simply re-took the route of the trip back then, I have a habit of traveling, that is, I take pictures all the way along the way, mark the scenes, buildings, and terrain that I think are worth remembering, which makes the movie scene selection less detours." During the filming process, Chen Yingxin gained a lot of small surprises, such as the landscape of many places in her memory has been preserved and has not been destroyed, and for example, the reservoir in the adult ceremony mountain village is an unplanned beauty. But there are also a lot of troubles, such as the fact that there are too many tourists in Taer Temple, and they can only shoot for 5 minutes in an hour, and finally even put the materials used by the executive director to propose marriage into the movie.
It is easy to concentrate on framing, and there will always be all kinds of difficulties in scattered framing of road movies, but fortunately, the preparation is well prepared in the early stage, and the lens design is planned in detail, so in the face of a lot of sudden troubles, Chen Yingxin is not messed up, she is like a mature director, making full use of audio-visual language to skillfully resolve the problem of scattered scenes.
When it comes to film creation, Chen Yingxin has a lot of people to thank.
She is very grateful to the producer Zhang Ji. On the basis of respecting her ideas and not interfering in her creation as much as possible, Zhang Ji gave her a lot of help in the script, such as the plot of the conflict between the two teenagers, the letter written by Tang Yu to Sang Dan at the end, etc., which made the plot more gripping and completed the emotional sublimation. Zhang Ji also wrote a golden sentence such as "You city people, adults are like children, and children are like adults". "Zhang Ji will help me control every critical time and try his best to help me complete the script, from this point of view, he is a very good producer." Chen Yingxin said.
She would also like to thank her teacher, Xu Haofeng, and photographer Sha Jincheng. In the four years of film school, Chen Yingxin and Xu Haofeng are also teachers and friends, when they were ready to start filming in 2012, Xu Haofeng recommended Sha Jincheng, after the project was stranded, and in 2019, Sha Jincheng happily agreed to continue to help the director complete the film, and the two hit it off with the image style of the film and the same creative concept.
and starring Cha Yongli. At Zhang Ji's recommendation, Yongli got the script under Che Yongli, and her concerns about her health made her hesitate at that time, she was afraid of altitude sickness, and she was afraid of altitude ultraviolet rays, and her skin was easily allergic and swollen. But in the end, she still took the risk to take on the role, considering that this is director Chen Yingxin's debut, she should support it, and in addition, it is a movie for children, she wants to do something for her children with practical actions.
Taking over this role, Che Yongli still has performance concerns, this is her first time playing a mother, she has no children who insist on "really listening, really watching, and really feeling" in acting, and she can't draw nutrients from reality to feed back the role, she can only rely on an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the script and the characters, as well as communicating with the director, to find the role positioning of Tang Yu's mother.
In the end, Cha Yongli interpreted this role that did not have too many scenes very well. Her first scene is the part where the hotel front desk asks about the child's room, and the vivid details of hitting her husband's arm to remind him to pay attention to his emotions are designed, and the family relationship between a strict father and mother is constructed.
At the heart of expression is persistence and letting go
"Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" is a film made for the big screen.
On the screen, the movie fully restores the beautiful scenery on the trip to Sichuan and Tibet, and the sense of immersion is better on the big screen, which is refreshing and pleasant, as well as appreciating the local customs. Director Chen Yingxin selected representative elements such as thangkas, coming-of-age ceremonies, and Taer Temple from what she saw and heard during her two-month trip, from which the audience appreciated the charm of intangible cultural heritage and the beauty of art.
At its core, the movie covers hot topics that cannot be avoided in real life, such as husband and wife relationships, family education, cultural integration between ethnic groups, and so on.
The director's creative attitude is commendable, she did not let this work become a conventional commercial film to strengthen the opposition and amplify the contradictions, but used a gentle attitude to restore reality, and did not use sharpness to present sharpness. According to the director's own words, although there are many elements expressed in the movie, the core is persistence and letting go.
The insistence of the Tibetan teenager Sang Dan is to go to Ta'er Monastery alone to learn butter flowers, even if he knows that he missed the exam, he must go to see it with his own eyes; The insistence of the urban teenager Tang Yu is to refuse to roll in, fight against the chicken baby, and do not ask his parents for help when he is in trouble, and strive for the life he wants.
The two amateur children selected out of thousands of miles, there is no trace of performance on their bodies, their eyes are as clear as blue lake water, and their emotions are pure like crystals, which also explains the director's original intention, in Chen Yingxin's view, adults will consider the interests and disadvantages, there will be a lot of interference, shoot the story of two teenagers, the relationship between the characters is more pure, and there will be no ambiguity about what you want to express.
The back of the put and the front of the insistence form an echo. Chen Yingxin explained that like the process of making this movie, letting go is not giving up, Sang Dan arrived at Taer Temple and saw the butter flowers that would soon melt, Tang Yu finally reconciled with his parents, and covered his sleeping father in the car, which can be understood as a kind of letting go, "A person's persistence and letting go are often learned by us getting along and colliding with another person, so it is very important to communicate, be sincere, and be brave to hand yourself over." Chen Yingxin said.
Cha Yongli understands and agrees with the views and attitudes that the director wants to convey to the audience. She thinks that children will have a rebellious psychology when they grow up, and Tang Yu's running away from home is a typical manifestation of rebellion, at this time, the mother needs to give the child enough respect, make friends with the child, and resolve the conflict before educating the child; As for the relationship between husband and wife, Che Yongli feels that if one party is short-tempered, the other party needs to be able to forbear, and in real life, it is often women who forbear.
Che Yongli used such a point of view and attitude to inject the background color of Ye Xiaoman into the character in the movie, vividly portraying the two identities of wife and mother, drifting away from her husband and divorcing her children from her, and at the same time choosing forbearance for the sake of her children, and doing her best to give her children more understanding and love, isn't this the persistence and letting go of the role of mother?
"Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" looks at the world through the perspective of children, and then triggers the thinking and introspection of adult audiences through a series of contradictions and conflicts, which is especially suitable for parents to watch with their children. Of course, real life is like an unsolvable equation, and the ending of the movie does not give a standard answer, Chen Yingxin likes the current open-ended ending, and she feels that the growth of the characters is more important than the answer given by the movie.
I hope there will be more volume and can be released in the long term
The Chinese film market is getting bigger and bigger, but it is becoming more and more difficult to find a place in films like "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" that do not have traffic stars.
This is indeed a good movie, but the aroma of wine is also afraid of deep alleys. Without the support of the capital, "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" to this day can't come up with much publicity budget, Chen Yingxin and Che Yongli can only expand their voices, interact with the audience, and accumulate "tap water" through film festivals and screening activities, so that the film can be known and seen by more audiences.
Based on such a cruel market environment, Chen Yingxin did not have the luxury of the box office, fortunately, it was her own money, and she did not have to be responsible for the investor, compared with the box office results, she hoped that she could have the opportunity to let the audience who want to watch this movie be able to see that there is no separate distribution in China, and 100% commercial theaters have squeezed the living space of non-commercial films.
"If only every city could have a theater or even a hall, this movie could be rehearsed for a long time, so that the audience who wants to see it has a chance to see it." Chen Yingxin's idea is indeed difficult to implement, but if the film has a certain degree of attention and can ensure the attendance rate under the limited schedule, the theater will consider continuing to retain the number of screenings.
Looking at the movies released in recent years, most of them are commercial blockbusters with the same taste as chewing wax, cookie-cutter action, suspense and love, "Chocolate and Ghee Flowers" will bring a different bright color to the theater this summer, and it is also a good opportunity for parents and children to repair their relationship and take a spiritual break, hoping to get the double support of the theater manager and the audience.