Poster of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms"
When we think of left-behind children, of remote mountain villages, of migrant workers in cities, of lives lost because of poverty or blind faith, we see faces with tears in front of us, rough and dark pictures, close-ups tearing and magnifying human suffering.
How far away it is from reality, when we are heartbroken behind a fluorescent screen for this faraway place or rejoicing that we enjoy all the conveniences of modernization, the extinguished oil lamps of that distant village may be illuminating the face of the Buddha, the moonlight reflected under the turquoise roof of the Dai village, and the crispy rice flowers are fried in the oil pot in the house.
Stills from "The Taste of Rice Blossoms"
Before filming "The Taste of Rice Flowers", director Pengfei spent a year in a village in Cangyuan, Yunnan Province, where he was filmed. He first went at the same time as the whole village was rehearsing dances and preparing food for the soon-to-come Songkran Festival. The local Hinayana Buddhism is a local believer, and there are temples in every village, and during Therapian Festival, the Buddha is scrubbed with water and then splashed with this water to express his wishes. Compared with the withered and backward situation previously envisaged, Pengfei's first vision here is a vibrant village under the touch of beliefs and customs.
As a remote village, here is also to face the problem of strong years into the city to work, left-behind children, but these problems should be in front of the beautiful village and interesting crowds of people at the foot of a dark river, you can feel a certain coercion and displeasure, but it should not be a black curtain that covers all the joy of the village. Pengfei felt: I don't want a way to sell misery and sadness, I want to use a new way to make it bright, humorous and naughty.
At the first Pingyao International Film Festival, "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" won the "Most Popular Film" voted by the audience, and director Pengfei displayed the trophy.
"The Taste of Rice Blossoms" is about a mother who has returned to the village to get along with her daughter, and it is also interspersed with the current situation of the whole village. Ethnic minority customs and particularly revered religions create a sense of strangeness, everything is more mysterious and novel, and Pengfei also adds very funny situations in life. Before recognizing the dark river of social problems, "The Taste of Rice" is first and foremost a beautiful story.
Peng Fei and Artistic Director Mr. Mark Muller attended the interactive event at the Pingyao International Film Festival.
"The Taste of Rice Blossoms" has gone to many film festivals, it has been shortlisted for the Venice Film Festival, the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and also screened at the Pingyao Film Festival and the Dali International Film Festival, and Pengfei is currently talking about publicity, hoping that this film can be released next February. This is Pengfei's second feature film, but he has received the blessing of many big names: Cai Liangliang's royal photographer Liao Benrong served as the film's cinematographer, Kitano Takeshi's soundtrack to the film's soundtrack, the film's editor Chen Bowen was nominated for the Golden Horse Award six times, and was the editor of films such as "Yiyi" and "The Juvenile Murder Incident on Muling Street".
The finishing touch of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" is a dance between mother and daughter in the cave at the end. Film critic Europa commented: "In the face of the ancient caves and mural shadows at the end, fans are always keen to press Tu Suoji, thinking that the director stole the teacher to learn who is who, but never thought that this is not in the territory of Chinese cinema, digging out a new path of light that opens up the underground." ”
The crew of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" took a group photo inside the cave
Mother and daughter enter a 200 million-year-old cave with stone stalactites shaped like Buddhas, known locally as "Stone Buddhas". In order to pray for blessings and disasters, everyone wants to dance for the "Stone Buddha", but it is just in time for the scenic spot where the cave is located to close on that day. Everyone was stuck outside, and the mother and daughter duo entered through the gap in the iron door and entered the cave.
Pengfei said that "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" or ninety-five percent is telling the story of a Yunnan Dai people, but after entering the cave, he wants to tell a story of human beings and nature - how short a mother and daughter who suddenly broke in is for a cave of 200 million years, when a flesh hand touches a rock, a creature touches a substance that has a long time, you will feel the dissolution of all problems strongly, and only the most simple and primitive emotions remain.
The plot in the cave of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" is polysemy. First of all, the cave is a third-party force that is added when tradition and modernity, religious beliefs and modern life, village and urban entanglement and confrontation, nature: a vast force that is extremely long and grand, which takes the whole story to a deeper atmosphere.
The heroine played by Yingze has always rebelled against religion, for example, she has not taken off her shoes when she has visited the temple several times, and she has also ignored all kinds of words about the temple elders and broken into the forbidden place of the temple where women cannot set foot. But in the cave she danced with a very solemn and pious face, which was her heartfelt admiration for the forces of nature. She could question all the gods and idols of man-made creation, but no one could not but crawl at its feet the empty and long-standing sublime and astonishing magnificence of the cave, formed by the accumulation of time.
Recently, we also had a conversation with director Pengfei.
【Dialogue】
The Paper: You talked about the people in the story of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" have archetypes, what are you actually seeing in the local area?
Pengfei: Cangyuan is a very beautiful scenery, but at the same time there are some problems. For example, now that Yunnan is vigorously carrying out tourism to stimulate the economy, there are some villages that do not protect their traditions too well, and look completely at money. Before I went to the China-Myanmar border, I thought it was all muddy roads, and the children didn't have shoes to wear, but the local materials were actually not too bad. Because the parents are working outside, will send money back, many children have mobile phones, originally parents to the children mobile phone is to contact them to use, but the children rub Wi-Fi everywhere, rub the temple, the elders are not happy to turn off the Wi-Fi, and then they go to the town government to rub Wi-Fi also want to play this game, to the evening at eleven or twelve do not go home, this problem is more serious, I also focused on this place in the movie.
The Paper: Seeing your presentation is very objective and restrained. Mu Hang fell ill, and the family first asked God, delaying the treatment. Faith is a support for the locality, and beliefs and traditions maintain the order of the village and construct the human spirit, while people also suffer from faith. As an outsider, do you often want to change something when you experience this?
Pengfei: I stayed there for a year, and I first thought of myself as a local, and the local children gave me the name of the Wa people, and I ate local food like them. At first, I had a curiosity, and then I would be anxious about every family's affairs, such as the child volunteering to fill in the wrong one, I would find a way to help him, treat myself as a big brother, and sometimes I wanted to ask the mountain god for some advice. If I really can help anything, it's more about communication on a spiritual level.
"The Taste of Rice Blossoms" work photos
I have no responsibility and qualifications to judge whether people are right or wrong, such as children are sick, in reality, there are many children are sick, I and some local social workers raise money for children to go to big hospitals for treatment, the road is far away, there was no plane at that time, and the medical costs were high. Grandma and Grandpa don't care too much, so they call a soul to beat a hanging bottle like this, but many children are very seriously ill. Later, the child died before he could raise enough money to go to a big hospital for treatment.
Japanese musician Keiichi Suzuki
The Paper: What is the cooperation with Keiichi Suzuki?
Pengfei: I like takeshi Kitano's films, and Keiichi Suzuki is takeshi Kitano's royal soundtrack artist. When I was writing the script in Cangyuan, I used to drive around the mountains and listen to Keiichi Suzuki's music. He would use the sounds of the countryside in percussion, such as the crackling of shoes in the mud, and the sound of hoes, which were a little electronic and a little modern. I wrote to him hoping that he could score "The Taste of Rice", and he read the script and read it very happily, and then he came to Yunnan, where he wanted to experience the humidity of the air, the temperature and the color. I showed him the passages of the film and told him to let it go, and he wrote thirteen or four songs, and finally put in nine. He chose the entry point in the film, and I chose where to stop.
The Paper: In the previous interview, you talked about watching films such as "Nobody Knows", "Kikujiro's Summer", "Miracle", "Tokyo Story" and so on, what is your perception of Japanese movies, and have you projected them into your creations?
Pengfei: I like Japanese movies, Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Takeshi Kitano, and Hirokazu Kore-eda. I can't tell why I like it, it may be subtle. One thing they have in common is that the picture is concise and not sensational.
Peng Fei once said on Weibo that the four directors who have the deepest influence on him.
I visited Kore-eda at the Taipei Film Festival, and his "Nobody Knows" shoots kids very well, and I asked him to give me some guidance, and he said don't let the children read the script, otherwise they will perform for you according to some of their experience in watching TV. The second is to find out the child king, the child is awkward and tempered when filming, and when the adults can't reason with them, the child king can solve it. In addition, pay attention to the first three times of shooting, the child has no patience, the three shots are not good, and so on.
The Paper: What were your considerations when you wrote the script in Cangyuan?
Pengfei: I thought there were three places I had to insist on, first of all, I wanted to present it in a relaxed and pleasant way, the second was that I didn't want to appear in a city shot, but I wanted to feel the oppression of the city around here, and the third was to end with a dance, and I spent more than a year in dance, which was a very primitive and very religious expression.
The Paper: What do you think of local religious beliefs?
Pengfei: There is a very interesting story, that is, when filming the scene of "mountain god possession", I have been very anxious, I don't know how to present it, (I) actually do not believe in religion, but when I can't shoot this scene of mountain god, I went to ask the mountain god, I said: very presumptuous, to shoot a mountain god possession scene, I don't have any inspiration, I hope you can bless. Then when shooting, I set up the camera position and lit a cigarette for the grandmother who was going to be possessed by the mountain god, she couldn't smoke my cigarette, she coughed as soon as she smoked, she coughed, her throat and eyes were red, and she waved her hand with the assistant director, which meant that she couldn't shoot. But her state is exactly what we need, so she continues to act, and she has not forgotten a single line, and her state is also very good.