The vast land in the north, every winter, can always be covered by heavy snow. But the beings under the snow did not stop their work and rest because of this, but because of the silence of the earth, the desires of the heart became more elevated, and the world was never willing to be flat at any moment.
The movie "The North is Vast" takes place in northern China, with mountains, lakes, wilderness, fields, villages, markets... All kinds of colors, extremely local. At the same time, the film not only scenes are local, the story is also rural enough, telling a series of seemingly absurd, occasionally magical, but also has many realistic and profound experiences that a village girl who has lost three husbands in succession, Wang Erhao.
We often say that "nothing is too much", but when Wang Erjin loses three husbands in a row, he will inevitably be criticized by the people around him. After all, no matter how many accidents come together, they become indisputable necessities, especially in the countryside, which are still somewhat obscured and backward. And a series of accidents, so that Wang Erhao's survival has become more difficult, not only nowhere to live, but also can not even get back the money lent before, a widow, pulling the underage deaf and dumb uncle, in the corner of the corner of the hard life.
In contrast to Wang Erhao's hard life, this ordinary woman, because of her extraordinary experience, has gradually become the object of everyone's attention. Her every move, every word and deed, can not be over-interpreted. It is also a variety of coincidences, Wang Erhao's miraculous "cure" of the fourth master's paralysis, and a succession of coincidental "prophecies", so that she gradually got rid of the inherent label and was crowned with a magical aura. From the early stage of scorn, to the later stage of the group of emotions, just like "cold rain and desolation, bath fire to shape the golden body", Wang Erhao in the magical life changes, felt the cold and warm of human feelings, and gradually began to use his new identity, for the living space, to bring more love, so more stories, quietly happening.
Of course, the magic of "A Vast North" is not only in the great turning point of Wang Erhao's life, in fact, in the film, there are often many illusions. When you think that this is a simple realistic theme work, but gradually can understand the irony and metaphor, when you think that this is a work that sees the truth in the ordinary, but gradually find a lot of strange places, or from the reverie of the characters, or from the overlap of time and space, injecting the whole film with surreal colors.
At the same time, the color of the film is also quite worth mentioning. Most of the time, the whole film is black and white, setting off the white expanse of the land, really clean, and towering trees, barren mountains in the distance, jagged villages, barren farmhouses... Life is as pale as the picture, and the subjective perspective of the characters in many places, as well as the occasional aerial shot, gives the audience a wonderful sense of being in a hurry. Originally, this story, for us, is also too far and near, there are cultural, time-space barriers, but also the resonance of the inner world.
However, there are still some places in the film that have been colored, such as when Wang Erhao sits on the fire and is regarded as a belief by the villagers, the room gradually becomes colorful, and the window behind the second good reveals a colorful true face, like a playground, like a church, in the funny, gradually rising a little tenacious upgrade. Similar image processing, there are several places in the film, such as the burning charcoal basin, such as the small colored lights flashing on the wall, etc., a large black and white like splashed ink landscape, under the occasional multi-color embellishment, showing the unique survival trajectory and independent spirit of Erhao.
In fact, erhao has always been very sober, because she knows that "when it is bad, it is hated by people", compared to the villagers, Erhao is the real "awakening", which is particularly rare. There is a sentence in the classical masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber": "It is like eating all the birds and throwing themselves into the forest, and the land that has fallen into a white expanse is really clean." When watching "A Piece of The North is Vast", I will always think of this sentence involuntarily, but throughout the ages, whether it is the artistic conception or the meaning, there are many differences, but the poetic beauty in the snow presented in the film is similar to the hardness and coldness of survival. Under the "vast expanse" of the film, what is wrapped up is this silent earth, which has never been flagged, like a dog.
"A Vast North" is a very stylized work, which won the "Best Feature Film Award" and "Best Director Award" at the 11th Xining FIRST Youth Film Festival, which has aroused many hot discussions at the film festival, and now it is also a fortunate encounter for the audience to be able to see the real face in the theater.