1905 Film Network special article an administrative township, an area of 3534.97 square kilometers of vast land, 34 years, only one family lived. It sounds like a fantasy, but it is true. This is Yumai Township in the northern foothills of the Himalayas, under the jurisdiction of Shannan, Tibet Autonomous Region, located on the magnificent snowy frontier of the motherland, close to the sensitive national border. There is a family that has been living, stationing and patrolling the border for decades. For a long time, there were only one father, two daughters and three people, stubborn and stoic to stay in this cold and snowy hot land.
The two surviving daughters were named the 2017 Moving China Person of the Year, and the movie "My Himalayas" is based on the story of "Yumai Three-Person Township". The film will premiere on the CCTV-6 Movie Channel in prime time on October 6 and be launched on iQiyi's simultaneous network with the 1905 Movie Network, a solemn gift for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The main theme is the indispensable wind bone of the film, and the "jade wheat spirit" permeates every frame. But what is quite rare is that "My Himalayas" does not present a set of stereotyped, facially patriotic formulas, and Renqing, Kelsang, and Dolma father and daughter are first and foremost vivid characters, living individuals with enough love and hatred.
The wife did not survive the serious illness and fell into the snow and wind. The biggest dramatic conflict point of the film is buried at that moment, and it has been brewing and erupting. Guarding the border on a sparsely populated, harsh environment, and closed information plateau is undoubtedly a kind of stubborn behavior to the point of almost madness, and Renqing in the film has also experienced wavering, especially when the two daughters have gradually grown up, have their own independent ideas, and begin to question "why do you want to stay instead of leaving".
As Wu Mengzhang, the screenwriter of this film, said at the event, one of the most memorable keywords of "My Himalaya" is "loneliness". Dolma gradually can't stand this life, emotional loneliness, wants to see the outside world, wants to let her singing voice be heard by more people instead of "only singing to the cow", and is dissatisfied with the isolated border life. Although the eldest daughter Kelsang is on the side of her father, she is also enduring the erosion of loneliness, and a college student wrote to her to express her love, but she could not meet with her, and could only tell the ethereal letters of the strong feelings that should have sprung up at her age.
And these letters, which did not even reach her at first, were locked in an iron box by her father, along with the newspapers that published their stories.
Discovering the truth and confronting it, Renqing did not have enough convincing reasons, on the contrary, he ignored his wife's advice to him before she died. Although the faith is strong, it is also true that Renqing controls the fate of his daughters in behavior. The motive behind this is still lonely, the Tibetan iron man has no fear in the face of dozens of poachers who are ten times larger than himself, but fears that the only two daughters who accompany him will leave.
The hero will have selfish intentions, but it has achieved the three-dimensionality of the image. With the preparation of this contradiction and the subsequent independent choice, the three people's love for the motherland and their love for their relatives is more convincing, and the character has a flashing and solid character arc.
Only by experiencing "loneliness" can we embody "greatness.". This is the second key word that "My Himalaya" cannot be bypassed.
The landscape of the Foothills of the Himalayas is as beautiful as the heavens, but with the dazzling snow, clear lakes, and dense trees, it is accompanied by the dangerous dilemmas of life. The three of them had to climb over snowy peaks at an altitude of 5,000 meters, had to fight foreign poachers in the primeval forest, had to drive yaks into the fence in the pouring rain, and had to eat a rare amount of barley noodles every day...
None of these are the sufferings that ordinary people simply cannot endure, and the beliefs that support them are extremely simple - this is the land of China, this is home.
So they painted the five-star red flag on the trunks and stones, and set up the five-star red flag outside the wooden house to form a township government, even if there were only three people in the "township", the father was the township chief, and the daughter was the women's director. These deeds were finally spread, infecting more compatriots, and at the end of the film, more herders were stationed in the home, in reality, there were nearly 200 villagers in Yumai in 2019.
The three Tibetan actors in this film give enough real and simple performances, which are integrated with the progress of the story, and there are many details that are even beyond the scope of "acting". For example, there is a scene where Renqing is "roasting cow dung", holding yak dung in his hand and then snapping it on the hot iron wall at his feet, the action is extremely skilled, and naturally most of them will not realize what the actors are doing when watching the movie. This is clearly due to life experience rather than acting training. For example, when he learned that the college student who admired him had died while building a road, Kelsang reacted calmly and calmly, and was still discussing with his sister how to teach this "missing person", but when the bad news came, he only let his documents drift away. This is actually a reasonable treatment, after all, the two have never met, although the emotional sustenance has become a void, but to learn that the other party is dedicated to the same goal, comfort may be greater than sadness.
"My Himalaya" pays great attention to the sense of echo in terms of structure, and it does achieve good results. Shortly after the film, Renqing carried his wife over the snowy mountains to the county hospital, and as a result, his wife's life was lost halfway, and on the other side, Kelsang and his sister huddled together in a narrow tent, and the wolves around them made Kelsang cry. Shortly before the end of the film, Kelsang broke his leg while drawing the national flag on the mountain alone, and the night time and situation of climbing back to the tent seemed to flow back to his childhood, and he could not suppress tears and thoughts.
But this time Renqing rushed back, completed the wind and snow road that he could not complete many years ago, and carried his daughter to the county hospital. The redemption of the father, the growth of the daughter, the continuation of the family affection, and the brilliance of human nature are all in these two cries and two journeys.
In the relevant reports of the story prototype, in the relevant introduction page of this film, it is common to describe: "They are rooted in the snowy border of the motherland like Gesang flowers." "In fact, "My Himalaya" itself is just like a bouquet of Gesang flowers, it has a different texture from most theatrical films, and it is a great gift to the motherland."