Ma Gui (PhD student, Chinese Min University)
Gu Tao's "Evenk Trilogy", "Aoluguya Aoluguya" (2007), "Yandahan" (2013), and "Hugo's Holiday" (2010) have brought him many praises to the industry, such as "Gandahan" won the Busan International Film Festival Documentary Award and was also shortlisted for the Rotterdam International Film Festival. However, the popularity of these awards is in a small circle, and the impact they can create is very limited. We know that the investment, operation and market of documentaries are far from comparable to feature films, and few audiences enter the theater to pay for a documentary. The "Trilogy" is full of strong national image temperament, attracting many professional researchers and people with special interest in minority culture. Therefore, Gu Tao's works are often met with the audience in the form of salons, academic screenings or special exhibitions of minority films. They are rough, frank and poetic, and unforgettable.
From "restore" to observation
According to Gu Tao's own account, because of his father's old friendship with the tribal old man Maria So, he was allowed to capture the trust of the hunters to shoot. During filming, they ate and lived with their peers, drank and sang, or went out in search of reindeer. Gu Tao's work is quite anthropological: for a long time, he went deep into the hinterland of the tribe and mingled with the locals. Therefore, documentaries have a certain nature of visual ethnography. The camera takes a "no-step" stance, either standing in front of the characters or following closely behind. From the elderly Maria Sault to the youthful Hugo, hunters have plenty of opportunities to show their lives. The images lead us to the Evenk people, which have a kind of rough perceptibleness like birch bark. These are all things that are difficult to reach with mere written records.
Gu Tao
As early as the 1950s and 1960s, with the blessing of the state-led ethnic identification and investigation policy, Bayi Studio and Beijing Science Education Studio jointly produced sixteen films, entitled "Chinese Ethnic Minority Social History Science Documentary Film". Among them, there is a "Evenk people on the Erguna River" (1959) (hereinafter referred to as "Riverside"). It now appears that the black-and-white image has a strong sense of age, so that the hunting, distribution, exchange, marriage customs, and shamanic beliefs of the deer Evenk (Note: the deer Evenk is also called "Yakut", the other two branches of the Evenk are Tunguska and Sauron) are all presented. Filming is under the concept of "cultural rescue", ethnographers try to use the "realism" of film technology to preserve those tribal systems and cultures that are on the verge of disappearing. However, by the time of actual filming, some of the ancient rituals had become rambling, and ethnic customs were in a slow decay. In order to remedy this, the photographer chose to write the outline and split-shot script in advance, so as to achieve the effect of "restoration" or "reconstruction". Locals are asked to put on traditional costumes and rehearse in advance so that the lost objects can be recreated on the screen.
The purpose of "restoration and reconstruction" is to rescue the vanished culture, but its doubts are too numerous to conceal. Posing is perhaps the biggest problem, because it falls below the boundaries of documentary realism, and the so-called "real" can only remain in the visual immediacy. Posing is like a covert manipulation, which makes the film deeply trapped in the ethical dilemma of shooting. The organization of the production content, in nature, makes the documentary begin to move closer to the feature film. The boundary between reality and fiction becomes blurred here. In post-production, commentary and subtitles play a similar role in pulling. In Riverside, a wedding scene is accompanied by a commentary: the bride brings the dowry of several deer, explaining in detail the entire wedding process. In this sense, images simply provide research with more intuitive material than words, thus illustrating the perception of minorities under a particular ideology. The original intention of these films was to preserve the "early forms of ethnic minorities in the history of social development" with images. As some researchers have pointed out, one of the defects of "restoration and reconstruction" is that in the value system of the photographer, there are already unequal preset standards such as backwardness/advanced, primitive/modern, etc.
Compared with "Riverside", Gu Tao's "trilogy" restores the ethics of focusing on the subject. In addition to the necessary background explanations, there is no redundant commentary in the film, and the initiative is given to the subject. Records are observations to avoid overstepping. Gu Tao asked the Evenk people to expound their understanding of hunting civilization and express their hearts. The unadorned image makes the "inner vision of the culture holder" land firmly. Through self-expression, we know how the Evenk hunt according to the rules of the seasons, for example, when reindeer mate, they put away their guns, and the doe in the deer herd is not the object of hunting. In the words of Vega in the film, hunting is to help the deer herd reduce the old, weak, sick and disabled. Under the teachings of shamanic faith, they will respect any life, even if it is as small as a nest of ants. Whether from the perspective of ecological consciousness or humanistic spirit, reindeer culture is awe-inspiring. In the film, there are several news programs that explain the "new life" of the Evenk people in a round way, which constitutes the background of the era in which Wei Jia, Liu Xia and others laugh and scold, struggle and wander.
Man's elegy
Under the film's Douban entry, Vega's desperate poems are frequently quoted. For example: "The loss of a nation's culture / is equivalent to the loss of everything / the loss of everything / means the demise." There is no doubt that the "trilogy" as a whole is understood as an elegy of the Evenk hunting civilization.
The film focuses primarily on the Evenk deer tribe. They first migrated from Siberia and lived in the Daxing'an Mountains, where hunting and reindeer were the main methods of production. As early as the 1960s, with the help of the local government, they established the Aoluguya Hunter Township, and some people settled down, and began the "dual structure" life of the mountain hunter point - the settlement house under the mountain. Since 2003, with the advancement of the "ecological migration" project, the government wants evenk hunters to completely change their traditional way of life and achieve "settlement" in the true sense. After the relocation, the hunter's accommodation conditions improved. However, because the means of subsistence under the mountain cannot be self-sufficient, a large amount of expenditure lacks economic resources, and the standard of living has decreased. The thin moss near the settlement, coupled with the rampant poaching of "sets of hunting", has caused heavy losses to the reindeer of hunters after moving down the mountain. (There is a passage in the "Gandharhan" that pulls the reindeer back up the mountain from the bottom of the mountain.) The local government does not appear to have done enough public opinion research and relocation budgets, so that the project can hardly be said to be successful. Many hunters were unable to adapt to a thoroughly settled life and later returned to the forest. The three families in the film are among them, and they form a hunter's point. Beginning in 2007, Gu Tao spent nearly four years tracking footage, documenting the final changes and decays of a small tribe.
Gu Tao has no official background and no research purpose. The focus of his shooting is no longer on systematic cultural characters, the protagonist turns: those with outstanding personalities come to the front of the camera. Their temperament is overwhelming, and their daily life reflects the fate of the ethnic group. In Gu Tao's eyes, "Evenk" is no longer a entry, definition and traceability of the origin of the nation, but a person full of offense and sorrow such as Wei Jia and Liu Xia.
Wei Jia studied painting at the Central University for Nationalities, and later returned to the mountains, a combination of art and wildness in this person. The forests and deer in his paintings are full of agility, the colors are delicate and full, and they are often exported into poetry. On a noisy, crowded green-skinned train, he talks about German Expressionism and Modigliani's nude paintings in a cotton jacket. Wei Jia is not trimmed and is a bohemian of Daxing'anling. He didn't seem fit to stay anywhere other than the forest. The first half of Vijay's life in the woods is devoted to his life in the forest, including his account of how hunters have decayed from the "Golden Age" to this point. The second half is gradually stained with some symbolism. When we see the hunter huddled in a rental house in Sanya, Hainan, and even later sent to a mental hospital, it is like an unruly beast finally trapped. In the eyes of director Gu Tao, Wei Jia is the last Yan Dahan in the forest - the largest animal in Daxing'anling, sensitive and dignified.
Stills from "Gandahan"
In contrast, Liu Xia is the inner whisper of life in the forest. She is the daughter of the old man Balajei, the sister of Vega, who loves to sing and bask in the sun. Liu Xia's teeth fell out, and her protruding cheekbones were increasingly inflated by years of drunkenness, so that her eyes were almost squeezed into a slit. "Hugo's Vacation" is from the perspective of Little Hugo, telling his journey back home. Little Hugo has been studying in the field for many years and has become increasingly estranged from his mother, and what is particularly unbearable for him is his mother's repeated persuasion of alcoholism. In order to make her son happy, Liu Xia often does some clumsy things, such as letting this guy ride a reindeer that is much bigger than a sheep, which is both embarrassing and sad. In Hugo's Vacation, Liu Xia is an affectionate but incorrigible mother whose love is clumsy, reckless, and unscathed.
The film's meticulous tracking of the characters does not mean that there is no technology in other aspects. For example, at the beginning of "Ao Lu Guya", Liu Xia expressed different views with a Han woman with a northeastern accent on whether the newly built house in Ao Xiang was suitable for hunters. Obviously, Liu Xia believes that the settlement is far from satisfactory compared to the mountain. In this way, the audience is given a comparative view of the mountain/downhill, looking forward to the follow-up direction. For example, the Aolugula and Odakhan end with a verse by Vega: "In our time, the hunting culture has disappeared, and we are ashamed!" Especially in Ao Luguya, as the tribal old man Maria So leads a reindeer slowly towards the depths of the scene, Vega's verses once again appear as a voiceover. Vega's poems not only reinforce the overall elegy of the film, but also constitute an interpretation of life in the forest. Coupled with the quotation of voice-overs and ethnic songs, Gu Tao not only takes observation as his responsibility, but also puts forward views and criticisms through editing.
Alcoholism and violence
These characters are informal, offensive and difficult for audiences accustomed to "civilized etiquette". However, they burst out with a vigorous sense of art and vitality, impacting our weak cognitive nerves. There are many scenes of alcoholism and violence in the "trilogy", which is eye-catching. Liu Xia and Wei Jia's siblings were drunk to death, and their mother Barajei gritted her teeth in hatred. The siblings often exchanged glances and hid the wine in a place where their mother could not see. Vega was unable to quit drinking and eventually broke up with his southern girlfriend. Liu Xia lost the right to raise her son because of her alcoholism.
In addition to getting drunk, it was also an amazing big fight. There is a scene in "Ao Lu Guya": Liu Xia returns to the countryside and is dissatisfied with the dirty and messy house, and in the midst of her muttering, she picks up the bench without warning and smashes it on Wei Jia's head continuously. Suddenly, the latter was bleeding profusely. Liu Xia's head was repeatedly injured because of fighting with people, and her consciousness became confused, which can be seen from the fact that she always repeats her words upside down. Reading Gu Tao's shooting journal "The Sorrowful Reindeer Country", alcoholism and dry fighting seem to be commonplace. It is said that once, a young man hid wine on a tall branch, but he did not expect that Liu Xia directly put the tree down in order to drink. Bibi, the son of the tribal chieftain and the most authoritative man in the hunter's point, was stabbed four times by his cousin because of the dispute, and the knife was fatal, and he lay in the intensive care unit for a long time.
Of course, we can give many explanations for why hunters love to drink, such as in the forest to withstand the cold, or because of the similar "no wine, no table" dietary customs similar to the Han. But Wei Jia, Liu Xia and others were drunk, beyond daily regulation and became a pathological addiction. The scenes of alcoholism and violence are so violent that we find it difficult to understand intense physical behavior from the level of individual temperament alone. Especially once a statistic is formed for those who die of drinking (Vega says he knows that "there are eight who drink to death"), these words and deeds inevitably characterize the important aspects of the mental condition of the Evenk people. Vega explains it this way: "The Evenk did not dare to drink before they moved. After the relocation, there was nothing to do, the gun was confiscated, there was no fact, I drank all day, I drank very tired..." "After the confiscation of the shotguns, the young hunters lost the right to continue to gallop in the forest, and the energy of their bodies was difficult to exert, and they were depressed and angry and did not know how to channel. So they chose to paralyze themselves with alcohol.
Drunkenness and dry racks, as if defining Evenk. Decadent, cruel and sentimental self-indulgence characterizes the inaction of an ethnic group. They transcend personal idiosyncrasies and become a nation's helpless reaction to cultural loss, in a sense of protest. However, once the image of an alcoholic is claimed, it can have a dangerous effect. Singing and dancing may be the best standard for any minority reproduction in the mainstream media, and sporadic negative images add viral value. Externally, considering the pervasive misconception of "the early stages of social evolution" in history textbooks, it will exacerbate the mainstream world's prejudice against minorities such as "barbarism" and "low civilization". Internally, in the day-to-day indulgence in alcohol, the hunters of yesteryear will see their own bodies as the embodiment of suffering and resentment and respond with hostility to the outside. When sad emotions are rendered within the ethnic group, it will also cause the self-positioning to be sad and shrouded in negativity.
Orunchun hunters hunt on horseback accompanied by dogs.
End
Perhaps the most important Evenk novelist since the 1980s, Ugertu won the National Short Story Award in 1981-1983. The award-winning novel Amber Bonfire (1983) tells a touching story. Evenk hunter Niku was on his way to the hospital for his seriously ill wife when he found traces of several lost people. With the encouragement of his wife, he chose to first rescue the few han people who were dying in the city. After finding them, Niku made a fire, collected wooden fir, and cut birch bark to boil water. He spares no effort to show his superb survival skills, because he knows that he is being watched by outsiders.
This eye-catching relationship between hunters and foreign visitors, in fact, constitutes an intercultural metaphor. In such an era of increased mobility and migration, no culture can be isolated in isolation. On the contrary, there are always people who leave, who break in — they are reproduced precisely in the negotiations between the frontier and the provinces, between the majority and the minority. The encounter between ethnic minority cultures and the hinterland has allowed them to begin to get out of their own state and participate in the interaction. This determines that they can no longer stand alone and become ones, but speak in the relationship and desire to be recognized. Ugertu, as a writer who intends to speak for his own people, wrote in this inevitable intersexual relationship. So in the novel, we read about how the Evenk hunters, in the face of the visitors, did their best.
However, in reality, in the face of ethnic minorities, our Han Chinese readers in the interior are more or less so-called "capitalized dissident readers" (the other reader): subconsciously afraid and resisting those feelings that are very different from ours, and hoping to sift, find, and locate enough similarities. This is a general laziness mentality, because it is difficult to face the strange existence and environment, and it is willing to stay in the comfort zone. We are accustomed to filtering out heterogeneity, leaving only the reassuring part. There is intellectual negligence in this, and of course there is no lack of mental arrogance. However, Gu Tao's film just formed a shock that surprised us. In the harsh forest, drinking, singing, crying. These intense bodies, as well as abundant libido, make us feel pain.
exegesis:
[1] [4] Gu Tao: The Sorrowful Reindeer Country, Jincheng Publishing House, 2013
[2] Zhu Jingjiang, "Restoration, Reconstruction and Image Reality", Northwest Ethnic Studies, No. 2, 2013
[3] Xie Yuanyuan, Ecological Migration Policy and Local Government Practice, Peking University Press, 2010
[5] Orchard: The Amber Bonfire, Hundred Flowers Literary publishing house, 1984
Editor-in-Charge: Wu Qin