This October film market is really a bit bleak.
Looking at it all month, there are only a few people who can really raise a little interest in watching.
Fortunately, the Tibetan film "Ara ginger", which won the Best Screenplay Award and the Jury Award at the Shanghai Film Festival, can wash our eyes and may be the biggest surprise of this month.
"Ara ginger color"
"Arajan" is SongTaiga's third feature film, his first two works "The Sun is Always on the Left", "River" has a score of 7.7 and 7.5 on Douban, and the reputation is very good.
Fans commented on Matsutaga: a director with a smooth narrative, a natural nature, and an excellent sense of proportion.
Speaking of Tibetan-language movies, many people will probably think of last year's "Kailash" that depicted Tibetans prostrating their heads all the way to the pilgrimage, and the box office of breaking 100 million yuan was really a small miracle on such a niche and unpopular subject.
Coincidentally, today's "Arajan Color" also has an intuitive and vivid prostration scene, but in this movie, the meaning of kowtowing is completely different from "Kailash".
His difference is precisely the reason why this film is worth recommending, he and "Kailash" complement each other, but the content is more oriental, there is the father-son relationship in "Thief Family", and there is mutual understanding like "Father like Son", which is a new life for each other.
In "Kailash", the reason why the pilgrimage team chose to go on the road was to fulfill their own inner wishes, and the film also used this process to intuitively show us how this unbelievable move in our eyes was done little by little. Presenting the pilgrimage path is the meaning of Kailash.
Stills from Kailash
But in "Arajan", the heroine Omar learns that she is suffering from an incurable disease and decides to kowtow to Lhasa.
Like most sane people in real life, Oma's husband, Rolchi, could not understand her move, dragging her seriously ill body to the hospital for treatment, and physically torturing her on the pilgrimage.
The first half of the film is to describe Oma's stubbornness and her husband's incomprehension.
However, by the middle of the film, the story gradually changes.
We learn that Oma is so obsessed with the road not because she really expects a miracle to cure her terminal illness, but to fulfill a promise she made to her deceased ex-husband to take her ex-husband on a pilgrimage to Lhasa.
Therefore, she is always inseparable from her backpack, and what is in the backpack is the rubbing made of the ashes of her ex-husband.
Just as we, like Rolchi, have just come to understand Oma's true intentions, Oma is already terminally ill and has died halfway through.
This sudden change makes the tone of the whole movie change.
We all thought it was another film about prostrating ourselves, but then we came to understand that it was originally a film about commitment, a film about family relationships and spiritual redemption.
Through this past of her ex-husband, the character of Oma's son Nolwu only emerges from the blurred background little by little.
At first we did not know the reason and significance of his appearance on this journey, but now we understand that it is precisely because of the death of his father (that is, Oma's ex-husband) that he has fallen into a kind of autism, unable to communicate with Oma, and there is a huge spiritual gap with Rolkie.
With the death of Oma, a difficult problem was placed in front of Rolkie - did he continue his ordinary life with Norwu awkwardly after taking care of Oma's afterlife like a normal person, or did he take Norwu and continue to walk this pilgrimage for Oma?
It must be emphasized that before that, it was Rolkie himself who had sworn to promise Nolwu that he would take him to Lhasa.
So, Rolkie's choice is actually whether he will live up to his promises.
Since then, "Arajan" has become a pure father-son movie, and the adventures and adventures on the pilgrimage road are just ordinary backgrounds, and what really matters is the heart path of father and son.
It was from this time that director Matsutaga began a series of extremely gentle and delicate depictions.
The first is Rolchi's act of tearing up photographs when he went to the monastery to pray for the blessing of the dead while cooking the afterlife of Oma. This photograph is probably the only one remaining photo of Oma and her ex-husband, which she has carefully placed in her urn.
When Rohr came to the monastery with the original intention of praying for Omar, but heard from the lama that "it is a great blessing that the couple in the photo can go to heaven together", he secretly tore the group photo in half, and he did not want his wife to remain with her ex-husband after death.
This little act of selfishness is particularly humane and therefore particularly real.
In fact, this photograph has inadvertently revealed many facts hidden behind the picture - Rolkie undoubtedly loved Oma deeply, the love of a husband for his wife in the most ordinary sense, but he undoubtedly did not know Oma enough, just as he had never been able to understand why Oma took this pilgrimage.
At the same time, of course, he could not understand that Oma and her ex-husband's son, Norwu, at least like every ordinary person, regarded him as a rebellious child with psychological problems, and never put himself in the shoes of trying to understand each other.
But Oma's sudden death forced him to start trying to get to know Norwu, to get to know the deceased Oma.
He began to try to take care of the lonely Norwu, especially after the latter accidentally injured his own foot.
The footage of Rolchi smearing his wounds at night after Norgo is asleep describes this subtle psychological change with great patience.
After that, Rolchi finally decided to take Norwu on the pilgrimage road that Oma did not finish.
The pilgrim changed from Oma to Rolgi, which means that Roerki began to put himself in the shoes of his wife, and he really began to understand his wife and children.
The story that follows becomes more fluid and logical.
When the father and son finally arrived in Lhasa, they also announced the end of this spiritual journey.
Up to this point, director Matsutaga still shows the elimination of the gap between father and son through some very specific details.
One is the torn photo. Finally Nolwu took it out again and secretly glued it together.
The second is the toast song "Ala Ginger Color", and the title of the film is taken from this Tibetan folk song. On the previous journey of Rolki, Oma, and Norwu, Rolki and Oma had sung this song, but at that time Nolwu seemed to be out of the matter.
But at this time, Norwu also began to hum the song, and he began to regard Rolkie as his father.
Like "Thief Family", this pair of "father and son" who are not related by blood finally realize the understanding and integration of the soul like a real father and son.
At the end of the film, Rolki cuts Norwu's hair, and the picture gradually darkens, but we can clearly hear his tears. This is the last delicate moment that director Matsutaga brought to us.
It is also at the last moment of this film that the bond that has trapped the father and son for a long time is finally released.
Like Song Taiga's two previous works, The Sun Is Always on the Left and River, Arajandro impresses the audience with its nuanced observation of the characters and vivid depictions of details.
If most films are accustomed to establishing the main theme of the film in the extroverted form of theme and story, then "Arajan" is one of the few films that dares to dig inward into the hearts of the characters.
In particular, in the face of such a theme as "prostrating the head", which is easy to be taken in the direction of "legend", it is even more rare that Matsutaka can still calmly and calmly describe the inner activities of those most daily characters.
It's all good in those fleeting moments.
And those moments are enough to cross the language and cultural barriers and reach every audience.
The film also held a premiere yesterday, director Song Taijia, the famous Tibetan singer Rong ZhongErjia, he is also the male protagonist of the film, the heroine Nyima Song Songdu came to the scene to cheer the film.
It was also the story of "Ala Ginger" that touched the singer Rong Zhong'erjia, who not only gave a wonderful "screen debut", but also invested in the filming of the film. The first investment film shined at the film festival, the vision is really good, and the development of Tibetan-language films needs more excellent investors like him.
The film's premiere day is only 0.6%, which is really a bit small, or I hope that everyone can go to the theater to see the movie, and I also hope to get more schedules, and the audience needs this kind of movie that goes into the heart.
Author: bbt