Reporter/Li Zijian
Daj looked solemn and knelt before his guru, wondering where his father's undead would be reincarnated. The Guru told him the answer, and the undead would be reincarnated into their own homes. It was at this time that his wife, Drogga, became pregnant with a child. This is the scene in the movie "Balloon", and the conflict of the story comes from this.
"Balloon" is directed by Wan Ma Tse-dan and starring Solang Wangmu, Jin Ba, Yang Xiucuo and so on. The story takes place in the 1990s, when the heroine Drogga's child steals a condom when a balloon blows, indirectly leading to her accidental pregnancy. Droga wants to have a fetus, and her husband Dajie believes that the child is the reincarnation of his father and firmly disagrees with the induction of labor, and the family faces an embarrassing and difficult decision.
Since its national release on November 20, 2020, "Balloon" has received a high score of 7.9 points in domestic movies on Douban. The audience is not unfamiliar with the Tibetan dialogue of the film, but resonates with the protagonist's encounter.
Director Wan Ma Tse-dan told reporters that when the audience sees the story of Tibetan areas, they can perceive their emotional way as human beings, "As a director, I also hope that when the audience sees this film, they will have an objective and comprehensive understanding of the present moment in Tibetan areas." ”
<h1>Fertility problems caused by "balloons"</h1>
Born in the Tibetan region of Qinghai, Wan Ma Tse-dan worked as a primary school teacher before being sponsored to study at the Beijing Film Academy. His films such as "Quiet Ma Ne Stone", "Tharlo", "Old Dog", "Bumped into a Sheep" and other films, without exception, are focused on Tibetan narratives. With a unique perspective, it reflects life in Tibetan areas through images, and is therefore known as the initiator of the new wave of Tibetan cinema.
The inspiration for the movie "Balloon" really came from a balloon floating in the wind. One day, Wan Ma Tse-dan went to the Central University for Nationalities to find a friend, and when he passed through Zhongguancun, a red balloon appeared in front of his eyes. The balloon fluttered in the sky, his gaze was firmly drawn, inspiration suddenly came, and a story related to the image of the red balloon appeared in his mind.
At that time, Wan Ma Tse-dan combined this image with Tibetan areas, associated with condoms that would often be used as balloons by ignorant children, and gradually built up the relationship between the characters, and the rudiments of the story began to emerge slowly. After Wan Ma Tse-dan returned to his place of residence, his thoughts poured out, and the script of "Balloon" was completed in one go.
An excited Wan Ma Tse-dan handed over the script to the relevant personnel, but at the time, no one was optimistic about the tibetan family story triggered by condoms. Later, Wan Ma Tse-dan adapted the script into a novel and published it in Flower City magazine. It was not until 2018, after expanding his 10,000-word novel into a script of more than 30,000 words after enriching the relevant plot, the movie "Balloon" finally got the project, and after preliminary preparation, it entered the shooting stage.
Wan Ma Tse-dan told reporters that from the initial inspiration for the story, until it entered the shooting, after more than ten years of preparation. But the main line of the plot, several core characters, and the overall story core have not changed.
Balloon is a female-female film set in the mid-to-late 1990s and revolving around a family. The heroine ZhuoGa has three children, the children who go to middle school in the county town no longer need adults to bother, and the two children in the family steal the family condoms and blow them up to play as balloons. Because of this "balloon", Droga is pregnant with a child she does not want, and contradictions and conflicts occur.
On the one hand, under the influence of the family planning policy at that time, if you want to have children, accepting fines will expose the family to financial burdens; on the other hand, after the death of the grandfather, a teacher who is deeply respected by the Tibetan people predicted that the child conceived by Droga would be the reincarnation of the grandfather.
Whether or not to surround this child constitutes the core narrative of the movie "Balloon", and that balloon has thus become a clear meaning of intention, becoming a worldly problem for the protagonist in the story.
When women face the problem of fertility, to some extent, many literary and artistic works that express this theme, the background settings are almost all based on the space dominated by men. The heroine in "Balloons", the various pressures encountered after pregnancy, allude to the fact that at this moment, the female body does not belong to herself.
Similar to the metaphor, there are many scenes in the film, such as the heroine's gaze at the sheep waiting to be bred, which has a different meaning in this case. The role of high-quality breeding sheep is to breed, and the more sheep are fertilized, the better. If a ewe can no longer give birth to lambs, its value and significance immediately disappear, and the result is only to be sold.
Droga's inner struggles, wanderings, and the fate of being uncontrollable, the source of pressure is the female childbearing. The female body is not controlled by herself, and the male will somehow kidnaps the heroine. "Balloon" expresses the woman in this situation, and Drogga's consciousness of controlling her own destiny gradually awakens, she wants to control her body, and has the right to pursue a better life.
<h1>Faith, the plight of man in reincarnation</h1>
On the question of birth or non-birth, the decisive influence on Droga's choice is the concept of "reincarnation" at the level of belief. The resulting contradictions and conflicts have also become the core driving force for the development of the plot.
In Wan Ma Tse-dan's view, reincarnation, birth and death, Buddhism, etc., are part of tibetan life, and it is difficult to separate faith from daily life.
In many of Wan Ma Tse-dan's films, expressions involving faith can be seen. The reason why Dajie, the male protagonist of "Balloon", firmly believes that the child is the reincarnation of the soul of the deceased father, this concept is not out of thin air, but has its real life foundation. Wan Ma Tse-dan himself had a similar life experience, and he was identified by his grandfather as the reincarnation of his uncle.
It is precisely because faith can be seen everywhere in Tibetan life, and even affect people's way of thinking and behaving, which eventually became the direct cause of Droga's predicament. From this point of view, faith will cause trouble to the protagonist's life, and even cause conflicts in the family, which is no longer difficult to understand.
As a result, the protagonist of "Balloon" Zhuo Ga is under the dual pressure of faith and reality, and she does not want to have children, but due to the influence of reincarnation, her family believes that the child she is pregnant with is her grandfather, and the dilemma makes it difficult for her to choose.
Wan Ma Tse-dan admitted that from the perspective of culture and belief, the film presents a Tibetan context, and without this context, there may be obstacles in the understanding of ordinary audiences. Therefore, from the beginning of creation, all aspects of the script, lines, shooting, etc., have been laid out and explained in advance. In this case, mainland audiences have the psychological basis to accept the story and can resonate with the characters in the story.
Under the fierce plot conflict, Wan Ma Tse-dan is full of gentle care for the characters in the story. Including Xiangqu Dolma, who lost love and became a monk, and Zhuoga, who was unexpectedly pregnant, they could not make decisions for themselves. When the heroine is faced with the double choice of faith and reality, the characters fall into a double dilemma, and Wan Ma Tse-dan, as the director, is also unable to make decisions for them.
Film critic Cheng Qingsong believes that just because "Balloon" tells the story of Tibetan areas, it cannot be considered a regional film, in fact, the story told by "Balloon" has more universal value. People in any place may encounter the same dilemma, "just the director just happened to adopt a Tibetan dialogue narrative, does not mean that it is a regional film, this is a story that transcends regional culture." ”
In the film's open-ended ending, it is not shown what kind of decision the heroine has made. Wan Ma Tse-dan told reporters that what "Balloon" wants to express is a kind of dilemma of people. In a sense, this dilemma exists not only in Tibetan areas that are deeply influenced by faith, but also in the lives of people in other regions.
<h1>Surreal images in the "mundane"</h1>
The story of Tibetan areas told by "Balloon" is a relatively unfamiliar film narrative for the vast majority of audiences. The viewing experience of this film is almost a curiosity for audiences who have never been to Tibetan areas. A large number of long shots present the life in Tibetan areas in an authentic way, but if the elements of Tibetan areas are removed, the life faced by the characters is generally the same as that of life in the mainland.
For example, the avoidance of sexual topics is widespread everywhere. In the movie, when the doctor delivers the condom to Droga's house, her performance is always in a dodge. This can't help but remind people that when family planning cadres in the mainland send some contraceptives, the same scene is not unfamiliar.
The plot of two young children playing with condoms as balloons exists in the daily lives of the last century. In Director Jiang Wen's film "Sunny Day", condoms are also blown into balloons, and this iconic shot with imagery once made many viewers recall the taboos of that era in a snicker.
Wan Ma Tse-dan deepens this image so much that the trouble caused by it pushes the heroine into an almost desperate situation: she lies on the operating table of the hospital, ready to take away the child she does not want to have. The husband and son broke in, hoping that the deceased would be reincarnated to return to their families.
In the film, it is presented with some surreal style images, which also makes the narrative of the movie "Balloon" have a unique meaning. While entering the protagonist's world, the audience also enjoys a visual feast.
For example, we all know that it is impossible to bear to walk alone on the surface of the lake, but in "Balloon", under the brilliant sky, the deceased old man walks backwards on the lake, and his family chases after him. The surface of the water and the sky overlap each other, and reality and surreality are not separated from each other.
In fact, no special effects were used in the shooting of this video. Wan Ma Tse-dan introduced that when shooting that day, the scene chose to be on the edge of Qinghai Lake, which was exactly at dusk, and the water surface reflected the sky. With the hand-held camera moving with the old man, the effect of the real shot is magical.
The way the camera moves, in Wan Ma Tse-dan's view, is closely related to the theme of a film. Before shooting "Balloon", he had an in-depth discussion with the creator, believing that the characters in the film were in an anxious and uneasy situation, suitable for handheld camera shooting, expressing the state of the characters, "choose the way of holding and shooting long shots, to enter the inner world of the characters, and that uneasiness will be more accurately presented." ”
The swaying white balloons, and the red balloons fluttering under the blue sky; the butter lamp illuminates the heroine's face, flashing uneasiness and nervousness; Droga looks into the distance, the monastic song Dolma bows her head when she faces Droga, and the husband roars when she learns that Droga wants to take away the child. The characters in front of the camera are faced with different choices of fate.
In the film, Darje finally buys red balloons from the town for his two children. One burst and broke, and the other floated lightly into the sky after being accidentally out of control between the two children in a scramble. This balloon, which symbolizes faith, life, and reincarnation, accompanied by a dazzling red, will go and where it will fly, and no one knows the answer.
The balloon lifts off, and the lives of the characters in the story continue. Drogga prepares to leave home and go to the temple, where she will think about her future, and the future of the child in her belly. We all hope that Drogga's decision this time, whatever, will not be for anyone: her body, her own.