"The Taste of Rice Blossoms": The hometown is not unrecognizable, but it is no longer human

Gong Jinping

The story of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms", which debuted at the 23rd Shanghai International Film Festival, takes place in a Dai village with four seasons of spring on the border between China and Myanmar. Here the sky is high and far away, the green is vast, the sun has a transparent and warm brightness, and everything seems quiet and peaceful. The rhythm of the story that takes place here is soothing, like a breeze blowing through the river of life, occasionally leaving a few ripples and drifting away, never blocking the flow of water, and not changing the direction of the river. Life in the village seems to be stagnant and cyclical, pale and monotonous, but the people here are comfortable and self-satisfied, and they have cultivated a kind of calm and calm. The discord and conflict, the diaphragm and the opposition in those daily lives, do not seem to be worth mentioning.

Of course, as a feature film, "The Taste of Rice" still has conflicts. This conflict is at the visible level a barrier that cannot be communicated between generations, but behind it is the violent collision between tradition and modernity, and between the countryside and the city in the process of modernization. When the "city" and "modern civilization" enter this almost isolated village with a strong posture, those traditional rituals, religious rituals, lifestyles and ways of thinking that have been continued for generations suddenly show all their embarrassment and awkwardness, and even become synonymous with conservative, backward, and ignorant. The film does not want to divide a victory or defeat in the collision of two civilizations, and evaluate a high, but coldly realizes the paradoxes and dilemmas of life itself, and uses a restrained and introverted way to let the characters test, retreat, hesitate between different life states, and finally be relieved.

After Ye Lan, a single mother who has worked in a big city for many years, returns to her hometown, although she looks at the mountains or mountains, the water is still water, but a feeling that things are not human is hidden: the rice flowers that were once in her heart are not as delicious as imagined; the daughter Who left her warm memories when she was a child has become very strange, not only has many bad habits, such as lying, cheating, stealing, but also lacks empathy and gratitude; the villagers are not so simple and kind, but have malicious snooping and slander... At the time of exhaustion, Ye Ran also thought about fleeing, but a mother's sense of responsibility made her realize that the child's fault may be the adult's fault. It's just, whose fault is it that the adults are?

In the film, the contradictions between Ye Lan and his daughter, Ye Lan and his father, and between Yan Hang and his teacher all look like the troubles and storms at the end of life, or the collision brought about by the rebellion of Yang Hang's "middle two period". But in fact, the real root cause of these contradictions is that because of the identity and life of "left-behind children" such as Mu Hang, they lack discipline and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

So, why do young people in the village have to go out to work? They may give high-sounding reasons, such as ensuring the life of the whole family and creating better material conditions for children. However, this sounds like a false proposition: for thousands of years, the villagers here have lived and worked in peace and contentment, why did they have the anxiety of survival in the period of highly developed modernization? In the final analysis, this is because modernization has opened up the boundaries of life, broadened everyone's horizons, and introduced many material temptations that did not exist before, such as imported biscuits, televisions, mobile phones, the Internet, cars, and so on. This process of modernization is indeed a shocking and painful experience for such ethnic minority villages. In the face of such a turbulent tide of the times, any high-profile preaching seems weak and powerless, and the film can only show its heart through the few square dancing aunts: the aunts are dancing on a simple stage, the power is suddenly blackouted, accompanied by a storm, the villagers are scattered, but the mothers are still in the dark, facing the empty audience, dancing happily. Perhaps, this transcendent mentality, the pursuit of inner joy, rather than external praise or fame, is a spiritual benchmark that the film intends to set.

However, most people can't be as open-minded as big moms, especially young people who have seen the big world. Ye Ran's pain lies in the fact that she has a modern vision, but her roots are in this village, and her emotional attitude becomes very ambiguous and ambiguous. She could not appreciate the architecture and folklore here with an indifferent attitude, nor could she return to the original track of life with a calm heart. In this confused gap, how should she deal with herself and how should she complete the communication with her daughter? In this regard, the film can not do anything, but through the mother and daughter two dance bridge section, the character's dilemma to imagine the solution.

At the end of the film, the mother and daughter come to the cave where the stone Buddha is located, in this secluded place, dancing, with a free and graceful posture, the lightness of the heart, and the heavens and the earth, with the stone Buddha, and of course with the people around them, they have obtained telepathy, realized the reconciliation between mother and daughter, completed the intergenerational inheritance of traditional etiquette, and completed the temporary transcendence of the real dilemma. It's just that it's all like an unreal dream.

Because the emptiness and silence of the cave is not the norm, but thanks to the "rest today" of this attraction, and the slender body of the mother and daughter through the iron gate. In the cave, Mu Hang once thought that there was a chant with the charm of the ancients, but after some searching, he found that the sound came from a water droplet tapping a can. It's like a prank with a hint of black humor. The implication is that this holy place not only blocks the entry of villagers in a cold way, but also is destroyed and desecrated because of tourism development. It is difficult for villagers to find peace of mind and inner comfort here, which is also the dilemma that all once closed and self-sufficient spaces are facing now: isolation from the world will only lead to poverty and ignorance; will opening the door and embracing modern civilization leave tradition with no place to live and no spiritual sustenance?

Through the intergenerational conflict between a mother and daughter, the film reflects the survival anxiety and spiritual pain of these traditional villages under the impact of modernization, which has a positive reflective significance for the reality of Chinese society, which is the biggest value of the film. At the same time, the film constantly magnifies the contrast between the beautiful exterior and the forced interior through the large-scale lens and the small scene, outlines the cracks in life in a quiet way, exposes the spiritual emptiness and personality defects of left-behind children in front of the audience, and presents the truth of human nature that easily penetrates the moral bottom line due to poverty to the audience, which is the success of the film. Of course, in order to match the poetic tone of the film as a whole, the film actually wants to stop talking about the dark side of these lives, and finally solves all contradictions imaginatively in an empty scene, using a religious feeling to purify the soul and harmonize all things, which is the limitation of the film and the helplessness of reality.

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