"The parcel is on your body, and it's a part of you."
The movie "Believer", which tells the story of the postman in Tibetan areas of Yunnan, is based on the true story of Nyima Ram, a female postman in Yunling Township, Deqin County, Yunnan Province.
The film restores the arduous journey and great spirit of the archetypal characters, especially in today's rapidly changing technology and convenient conditions, mobile phones, the Internet, WeChat, express delivery, takeaway emerge in an endless stream, allowing us to enjoy the convenience and communication brought by staying at home. Seeing the glorious deeds of the heroine in the film, we can't help but sigh, it turned out that in the last century 20 years ago, in the remote mountainous areas with underdeveloped transportation, there was such an obscure group, which sent a letter full of diverse emotions to the hands of the recipient.
The female postman in the film is named Nyima Yangzhen, and the film uses realistic techniques to describe the deeds of the archetypal characters through montage language and imagery. Realism refers to the fact that the whole film is a double practice from body and mind, in this ever-changing mountain road, in the face of the unforgiving challenges of nature, the heroine is not only a postman, but also a mother, since the moment when her old director took over the burden, the expectant gaze of the distant recipient, the burden on her shoulders, and the children waiting to be fed at home have become the places where she has always been difficult to choose.
The mountain road from the Yunling Township Post Office to the villages is rugged and difficult, Nyima can only carry heavy parcels on foot, door to door to deliver letters, the road is dangerous, she crossed the snow-capped snowy mountains, walked through the muddy paths, the first time in her life to try the zipline, but also encountered mudslides; this road she experienced life, she also witnessed death, she wavered and retreated, but she still persevered, year after year, spring to autumn, cold and summer. The true display of the character's deeds and encounters is where the film is realistic.
But it is not enough to be realistic, although the power of real deeds is so shocking, but simply copying it one by one is sometimes a bit of preaching. Therefore, the film carries out the expression of imagery, showing the true deeds of the protagonist at the same time, but also from the role modeling and the character's heart, from different angles to describe how the heroine overcomes difficulties and how to persevere.
I originally said that this is equivalent to China's "road film" or more precisely, "mountain road film". The story unfolds as the character wades through the mountains, and the people and things she encounters and experiences will change her outlook on life, which is the eternal cornerstone of similar works. The film opens with several character relationships and lets everyone substitute into the story, which is the cornerstone of the film.
The first is the heroine's choice, in order to send a letter, leaving the children waiting to be fed at home, her heart is worried. The heroine sends a letter to meet Sanji's grandmother, who stays with her and asks the heroine to read to her a letter from her grandson, from the letters of the two grandchildren, the heroine feels the emotional maintenance of their close world, and the image of Sanji's grandmother's maternal care is projected onto the heroine, avoiding the cumbersomeness of telling the mother, making the morphemes centralized and simple.
Then she met a little girl, each time because of the wrong address and returned the letter, but the girl still insisted on writing letters, the heroine learned from the old director that the girl's parents who went out to work had long been missing, so the old director secretly hid her letter to her parents every time. From this story, the heroine feels the burden on her body, and she intentionally or unintentionally carries the little girl's family affection.
Along the way, the ritualistic journey of delivering letters finally makes the contradictory relationship in the film reach a balance, and also lets us understand why the heroine can persist, not simply by willpower, but by the emotional maintenance between people.
This idea is a magic stroke of the movie. The inhabitants of the mountains are simple and have no scheming. They are one-way insulated and opposed to the world outside the mountain, and only the heroine has a letter in the parcel, so she has become the only channel for the mountain to connect with the outside world. The turning point in the film is in the second half of the film, Sanji has an accident, and the heroine comes to Sanji's grandmother and reads her a letter as usual, but this time there is only a death notice in the envelope. The heroine is full of tears and makes up a white lie, but the grandmother who knows everything says to her: Go bravely, the mountain just takes away our bodies, turning the breath into wind and snow, but the snow cannot bury people, because the soul of man is in heaven.
This is a journey with no scenery to see and loneliness and WeChat. But it definitely has a different meaning, because this journey is still a kind of reincarnation and continuation. The journey is cyclical, and when you go out from the doorway, you have to come back from the doorway, and the heroine represents this continuation. The sentence of the postman's big brother Dorji in the film is impressive:
Time is an interesting thing, and if you think about it, it passes very slowly; if you don't want it, a day is no different from a lifetime. Every time you encounter difficulties, you will pick up a stone, and the greater the difficulty, the bigger the stone you pick up, and then throw the stone into the river, no matter how big the stone, the river will always turn it into silt.
It can be seen that the movie "Believer", while expressing the tenacious spirit of the characters, the proposition of the film is once again emphasized here about the proposition of the living state of man. Sanji's grandmother's sentence "There are more people here who need you", let the heroine understand her own value, the most beautiful things, growing on the grassland, the most beautiful figure, is the day after day, year after year, spring to autumn, cold and summer, shuttle through the mountain streams, snow mountains, ropeways, the mountains, grasslands and the outside world to maintain the "believer".