Today's sharing with you is "That Mountain That Man That Dog", according to the old tradition, first talk about the plot:
The film begins with a picture of the beautiful natural scenery of Xiangxi, Hunan in the 1980s, a backward remote mountain village, which is blocked by inconvenient transportation, and the township postman is the only link between the villagers and the outside world.
This job is very hard, but as the father of the township postman, but in this post for most of his life, due to the difficult road can only walk to deliver letters, resulting in a serious leg disease in his father, now about to retire, decided to ask his son to take over this post.
This is the first day of the son's appointment, early in the morning the father will be ready for him, although he handed over the errand to the son, but the heart can not help but worry, can not stop telling the son, but the young son at this time has not really realized that this job is not only so simple as delivering letters, but also means responsibility.
The father used to deliver mail with a dog named the second son, used to follow the father's second son, unwilling to follow the son, in desperation, the father decided to accompany the son to walk again, and the second son looked at the father and then followed.
When the father and son rest together, they ask each other in one voice whether they are tired, in fact, both sides are concerned about each other, but because the father has been running around for many years, it is difficult for the son to have a close intention to him, this postal route represents a job and responsibility, and also means that the two are on a road to repair the feelings of father and son.
After the father and son left for a day, they came to the first village, and the first-time son thought that everyone would receive them warmly, but he did not think that the villagers reacted to their appearance flatly, and the son said to his father indignantly, you have paid so much for them, but no one knows, the father just said lightly, I am just doing ordinary things.
But before they left the village, everyone gathered together to say goodbye to their father, and in the face of the kindness of so many strangers, the son was shy, and the father told everyone that this was the last time he sent an email, and then his son sent it, and when he finished, he left and never looked back.
In fact, the villagers and their fathers have been getting along for decades and have developed feelings, so after they learned that their father came here for the last time to deliver a letter, they invariably came to the village entrance and watched their father leave, which is a simple and thick love that does not need to be expressed in words.
After that, the father took his son to the home of the widowed old man's fifth wife, who was blind and could not see anything, and sat at the door every day waiting for a letter from her grandson. It turned out that after the grandson of the fifth wife was admitted to a key university, he never came back, not even after his father died, and only sent back a remittance slip and a greeting card during the Spring Festival every year.
In order to give the waiting five wives a little comfort, the father often took a letter that did not exist to the five wives. After the son took over the father's letter to the fifth wife, he learned that the grandson had never sent a letter to the fifth wife, which was just a white lie of the father, and the son could not help but blame the father, this matter is not something you can manage.
But my father sent the letter like this, and it was sent for many years. He repeatedly told his son that he would often visit his fifth wife in the future. The son never knew that his father, who had always been bad at words, would have such a tender side.
Later, they came to the Dong cottage and met a Dong girl on the road, and the girl told them that they knew that their father was coming, so the clan specially scheduled a wedding tonight, which shows that their father's years of efforts are not in vain, and everyone loves him.
At the wedding in the evening, the father and the villagers were drinking wine, the son and the Dong girl were dancing a national dance, he felt the secret affection between the son and the girl, accompanied by songs, he seemed to travel through time, seeing the scene of himself and his wife knowing and loving each other, and the father's desire for love when he was young was now projected on the son.
The love and fate of the two generations of father and son are linked by this postal route.
The next day on the way to deliver the letter, the father and son had to cross a stream, and the father habitually wanted to pull up his pants legs and go into the water himself, but the son asked him to wait for him to carry him across the river. The father looked at his son's back and sighed to the second elder, I have been alone in my life, and I have never enjoyed the feeling of being carried by my son.
The father was old, and when the son carried him on his back, he truly understood what the old man in the village had said.
At this time, the father on his son's back could not help but recall that when he was a child, he carried his son shopping, the time was hurried, and the children who had relied on him could now easily carry him, and the father quietly turned his head and wiped away his tears. In fact, the further this road goes, the closer their hearts are to each other.
It's no longer a tough mail route, it's more like a father leading his son through his life.
After they crossed the river, the mountain suddenly blew a fierce wind, and the mountain road to the next place was extremely rugged, just when they were about to climb up, someone threw down a hemp rope, they climbed up along the rope, saw a teenager, the original teenager's grandfather was afraid of too much wind, the township postman fell down the hillside again, so he specially let the teenager come to meet them.
After listening to it, my father couldn't help but say, you came out with such a big wind, isn't this nonsense, but the teenager said that this is his job, his grandfather has explained, the township postman has fallen down for us once, there can be no second time.
But the father said to the teenager, your grandfather is confused! At this moment, the warmest care between people is vividly reflected, and everything that his father has done for the villagers is seen by everyone, and they also express their gratitude to him in their own way.
The teenager got his report card from his father, he did his homework very well, and decided to go out of the mountains and study journalism in the future, and later have the opportunity to come back to interview his father. But when his father heard his words, he said lonely that he had no chance, because this was the last time he would deliver a letter.
Even if this was the last time he delivered the letter, when he saw that his son was blown away by the wind due to a mistake, he still ignored the injured leg and desperately went to chase the letter that flew away, and at this moment a force erupted in his withered body, and this force was his heavy responsibility for the work, as his father said, the days were long, there were more people to remember, more things to encounter, and the work was far beyond the original meaning.
This night they settled in a family to rest, the son told his father the trivial things in his life, as if he had not spoken for so many years, all the brains were spoken, the father listened silently, he rarely cared about the family for so many years, so that he lacked understanding of the people in life, but he had his own understanding of life, that is, to do practical things down-to-earth.
It was getting late, the father was lying on the bed after smoking a cigarette, watching his sleeping son unconsciously close to him, smiling happily, he remembered that a long time ago, his wife had taken his young son to the bridge to wait for him to return home, and then he grew old day by day, and his son grew up day by day, and his son's attitude towards him also changed from intimacy to alienation, and even before he returned home, he would deliberately avoid it, because he did not know how to face his father.
Until they finished walking this mail route together, the son finally understood his years of suffering, and could even take over the burden for him and go to his own life.
The son carried the parcel on his back, a man, a dog, and walked into the distance together. The picture under the morning is like a timeless and freehand landscape scroll, mixed with poetic beauty, leading us through the life of an ordinary, even nameless township postman.
Adapted from Peng Jianming's novel and directed by Huo Jianqi, "That Mountain, That Man, That Dog" is one of the few films in China that focuses on postal themes. After the film came out, it was unknown in the Chinese market, selling only one copy, and was even called "a film with almost zero domestic distribution" by some media.
However, the film was very popular in Japan, and soon after its release, it replaced "My Father and Mother" as the highest-grossing Chinese film in Japan, and finally grossed 800 million yen. The film has won many awards at domestic and foreign film festivals such as the Golden Rooster Film Festival, the Montreal International Film Festival, and the Indian International Film Festival.
The director of the film, Huo Jianqi, is an artist, so he is quite elaborate in the composition of the film's picture. The scenery of Xiangxi in the lens is not only beautiful, but also carries a fragrance of earth, coupled with the objects that belong to the 1980s in the scene, which really brings us to that era.
In addition to the exquisiteness of the picture, the film undoubtedly touches our hearts the most - the emotion conveyed by the film.
The director uses a lot of details to portray the heart of the characters, the image of the father and son is exquisite, the majestic and introverted but loving father, the young and considerate son, because the father is running around for many years, so that he neglects to accompany the son, resulting in the relationship between the two becoming more and more distant with age, which represents the father and son image in the traditional Chinese family.
On this three-day and two-night mail route, father and son also moved from estrangement to reconciliation. The director includes the restrained affection between father and son, as well as the father's guilt for his family and his selfless dedication to his career, in his last mail route. In the film, he doesn't even have a name, but isn't there a thousand workers in life whose names are not known to us? They have dedicated their lives for our good life.
Without this movie, we may not know that in the world of convenient transportation, there has been such a profession, they do not ask for returns, even ashamed to be praised, they stick to their hearts, do the most ordinary things in the world, but have the purest and most beautiful soul.
A rugged mountain road, an endless memory, a folk song, a person's life, like a clear spring gathered together, slowly flowing along the narrative until the end of life.
This article is original by the "film science officer", welcome to pay attention, take you along with long knowledge!