Profile: Tibetan cinematographer and director, representative works "The Sun is Always on the Left" and "River", won the Jury Award and Best Screenplay Award at the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival in 2018 with the film "Arajan Color".
Tibetan director Song Taiga
Reference News Network reported on November 2 that "Ala Ginger Color" as an original Tibetan film, not only uses local Tibetans (who are often non-professional actors), the dialogue also uses local Tibetan dialects, and even the first half of the film also focuses on the classic passage of "kneeling and pilgrimage to Lhasa".
However, this emotionally restrained and affectionate literary and artistic film does not mean this. Song Taijia, as the helmsman of the film "Arajan", as a screenwriter and director, believes that "Tibetans do not prostrate endlessly, nor even to emphasize how pure tibetans are to their faith, how great they are." Throughout, Shotaka has been exploring "the relationship between people."
All kinds of loss and acceptance
Stills from the movie "Arajan"
In the plot of "Arajan Color", there are all kinds of loss and acceptance. The story mainly tells that the heroine Omar insists on embarking on a long journey to Lhasa chaosheng when she is seriously ill, while her current husband and son with her predecessor have followed and joined the company, and the family has gradually eliminated the barrier and reached reconciliation in the arduous journey.
The central contradiction in the film is "the moral entanglement between the current and the predecessor, and how the current accepts the child of the predecessor". Matsutaga said that his favorite director is Kore-eda, as was derived from the 2018 Palme d'Or movie "Thief Family", "'Arajan' also explores the possibility of whether family affection is important or feelings are important." Song Taiga was fascinated by this proposition of family as a unit, with vague boundaries, but with great descriptive possibilities.
This can be seen in his debut work "The Sun Is Always on the Left": the son accidentally crushed his mother to death. When Matsutaga first heard this story, he was inspired by the desire to create. He placed himself in the role of "son" – "I can't forgive myself, and God can't forgive me." The legal level can't be solved, otherwise I will at least have a balance of mind if I am sentenced. But do I still have the courage to face life? What to do in the next few days? Therefore, the audience often needs to quietly appreciate Song Taijia's works, carefully ponder and ask questions about life.
High-reputation literary and artistic films have a low schedule, but have a fixed audience
Song Taijia won an award at the 2018 Shanghai International Film Festival for his film "Ara Ginger Color"
In fact, "Ara ginger" has shined as early as the 2018 Shanghai International Film Festival, winning the best picture, best screenplay and jury awards in one fell swoop, and even some film critics have taken the initiative to cooperate in promoting this high-profile film and including it in the list of "probably the best domestic films this year". But even so, it cannot hide the characteristics of the film's "literary niche", and it is facing an ultra-low scheduling rate - only 0.5%. Matsuta smiled helplessly, "It's useless to be anxious, we did receive some feedback, the audience felt that the pace was too slow, and it may take some patience more." However, Matsutaga's mentality is very peaceful, and he laughs and talks about "it is useless to be in a hurry."
He said that he is not a kind of sword-and-blood partnership with the film investor, because "Arajan" itself is not expensive, so it is not a big problem to sell the copyright to recover the cost. He said that the foreign market is actually better than the domestic market" for literary and art films, of which France and Japan are more accepted countries. Matsutaga's second work, "River", was not released in China Film, but it took the path of a long stream and was released at a Japanese art academy for a year. "There is a fixed group of people watching, this city put a month, that city put a month, so that every day there is a screening."
Numerous films depicting ethnic minorities entered the audience's field of vision
In recent years, films involving ethnic minorities have increasingly entered the public's field of vision and attracted widespread attention. For example, in 2015's "Tharlo" and "Kailash" (all telling Tibetan stories), and 2017's "The Taste of Rice Flowers" (telling the story of the Dai people in Yunnan), Song Taijia said that the art film market is getting better and better, "after experiencing the bombardment of Hollywood blockbusters, the audience began to return to some, and also became more picky, so there is a fixed audience." For films involving ethnic minorities, Song Taijia is often full of support, and the circle of Tibetan films is not large, and he knows or cooperates with Zhang Yang, director of "Kailash", and Wan Ma Tse-dan, director of "Tharo".
He even gave a small detail, Zhang Yang's quest for Tibet was as early as the 2001 film "Bath", a film with the Beijing bathhouse as the main background, but interspersed several times with the old Tibetan people taking their little granddaughter to bathe in the Holy Lake, only to be afraid that the feelings of the soul had been planted at that time.
Being a director is because I can't "mix" in the photographic circle
Matsutaga who switched from cinematography to director
As a minority film, there is always a perspective of outsiders and locals, and Matsutaga believes that "it is not simple to say that this film is good and that film is not good, it is just a difference in perspective."
In fact, on the contrary, as a Tibetan director, Song Taijia will also have unexpected restrictions when shooting Tibetan films.
Matsuta Kamoto is a photographer, and it can be said that he was "forced" to go to the director's position. The original intention was to be a small "play ticket", but his debut work "The Sun is Always on the Left" won many foreign awards such as the Dragon and Tiger Awards at the 30th Vancouver International Film Festival, which led to his later photography being regarded by the team as "oversized and underused", and slowly in the "photography circle can not continue". He admits that being a director is a learning process, he taught himself to write and edit, at first he would overemphasize the "sense of form" because of the "occupational disease" of photography, but now he slowly retreated behind the scenes, and believes that "the best screenwriters do not leave traces, do not jump out, and hide it very well." ”
Therefore, he likes the directors Hou Xiaoxian and Yang Dechang, because they are good at slowly letting emotions flow out, but they are deeply moving.
Matsutaka was on the set of the film "River"
Not only does he jump out of his professional identity, but in filming, Matsutaga also tends to use non-professional actors. For example, the reiki girl Yangjin Ram in "River", and the male lead actor Rong Zhong'erjia in "Arajan Color" is actually a Tibetan singer. Because the film needs to speak Tibetan, and even dialects, there is not much room for casting, and Kathatsu often chooses those close to the temperament of the character. But he has a "different" habit when writing a script, looking for actors while writing a script, or even having an actor and starting to weave his story before it becomes a script , such as "The River" . He often does not tell the actor that he will play a certain role, but silently determines in his heart, and then carefully speculates on his temperament, so the film can also present a natural and realistic screen effect.
Matsutaka maintained the pace of a film for a year or two, saying that when he did photography, he didn't have to think too much, he could follow four or five films a year, but when the director worried about much more things, there were some jobs that were even more tedious but had to be done, and the time with his family became less. However, he stressed that "being a director is something I like, and it's a pleasure to be able to express myself."
Song Taijia's new 2019 film "Ram and Gabe" has been filmed, and in the new film, he tries to explore the love and marriage values of individuals in the face of reality, and even the stubborn and eager little boy Sai Choga in "Arajan". It is not difficult for the audience to find that his works are in the same vein, and he has always thought calmly according to his own rhythm. (Text/Zhu Qiqi)