Li Ziqi must be one of the largest Internet celebrities in China.
opened Li Ziqi’s personal main business, and the number of comments on each of her homemade videos easily exceeded 10,000. In these videos, Li Ziqi always wears ancient cotton and linen, picks wild fruits and vegetables, and chops wood and cooks by himself. Make your own stove swing.
leads the ultimate life that everyone dreams of.
Some people think that Li Ziqi's popularity is a team plan, and some people think that no team can plan the second Li Ziqi, and her success is attributed to her personal charm.
But no matter what, in the end everyone reached a consensus: planning or not will not affect our love to watch Li Ziqi.
Especially in the hustle and bustle of the big city, you spend nine nights and five nights every day. After get off work, how many things can bring us healing like Li Ziqi?
The enthusiastic Li Ziqi effect only shows one thing: life in Taoyuan is the eternal pursuit of mankind.
But then again, is life in Taoyuan really as dreamy and beautiful as we imagined?
Li Ziqi is so hot, but why has no one dared to follow her and truly return to the countryside?
Because everyone knows that living in Taoyuan requires not only faith but also ability.
Even if we can give up everything we have already worked hard in the city, we may not necessarily have good skills in rural life.
Li Ziqi's rough hands have explained everything. Rural life seems to be indisputable in the world, but in fact it is only the object of contention, becoming self and nature.
There is a documentary in 2019, which shows us the unsatisfactory side of Taoyuan life. Rural life is not as beautiful as you think!
Looking at it, you will be envious and yearning at first, but you will be anxious and silent in the middle, and you may cry in the end-
"The Biggest Little Farm"
This film nominated the audience for the documentary unit of the 43rd Toronto Film Festival The Choice Award has won praises at home and abroad after it was released. The Douban score is currently as high as 9.2:
. The film is very personal. It records the process of an American couple who moved from the city to the countryside to expand and build a farm for ten years.
is also great, because from the changes in humans and nature in the past ten years, and the narration from the film, we seem to have seen the most sacred side of nature and learned to rethink the connection between the universe and the individual .
What is nature's blood? What is the pulse of the universe? What are we asking and giving each other from the world?
These questions, "The Biggest Little Farm" cannot give us the answer, but it can give us shocking power and enlightenment. The story of
starts with a dog.
John and Jasmine originally lived in the city. John is a wildlife photographer and won an Emmy for his work; Jasmine is a food blogger who advocates exploring healthy and natural eating styles. The
days were originally comfortable and fun, until one day, the couple adopted a black dog: Todd.
Because of being abandoned and left out in the asylum for a long time, Todd is very insecure. As long as the Johns go to work, he will bark at home.
So less than a month after adopting Todd, the Johns received an eviction order from the landlord.
Now they have only 2 choices left: 1. Dispose of Todd; 2. Find a place where Todd can run and bark freely. The
couple decisively chose the second one.
In other words, it is Todd who gave them an opportunity to love life, give up everything they have, and bravely pursue the ideal Taoyuan life.
So they came to the country.
But the reality is very skinny. This is also the point that the whole movie "The Biggest Little Farm" reminds the audience that John Molly has encountered a lot of problems before actually entering the farm.
First question first: no money.
We are now able to correctly understand this problem. Rural life is actually not as "cheap" as we thought, especially in this age of land and money. If you want to pack a piece of land to grow vegetables and sheep, it is a big family. Things that can be done.
So John Jasmine wants to enter the country, firstYou must raise funds at the first step.
specially opened a party for the couple, invited friends and relatives from all walks of life, and told everyone about their great plan.
After listening, everyone pretended to be very supportive and admired the courage of John and Jasmine, but in their own hearts they felt that these two were completely whimsical.
In this way, relying on the iron rule of "good things do not go out, bad things spread thousands of miles", John Jasmine's funny plan soon became known to everybody.
really recruited two silly bosses who were willing to invest and rented a 1,200 acres of wasteland to John Jasmine.
The two are so happy that they have only taken the first step, but they feel as if they have touched the wings of their dreams.
But soon, they ushered in the second problem: land shortage.
This 1200 acres of land sounds terrific, but in fact it is indescribable:
has been over-reclaimed and used, and the soil and water have been excessively lost. The surface soil has begun to desert, and the pond is also dry:
is still dry Tree roots, animal carcasses, abandoned beehives and water pipes all hint at the decadence of this land:
is obviously a land severely damaged by modern intensive agriculture. Looking north from here, it is the largest egg farm in the city, and the environment is harsh.
Looking west, there is another plastic greenhouse stretching for several miles, neat and uniform, full of industrial atmosphere.
The brutality of humans has left traces that are difficult to repair.
Faced with such a piece of land, John Jasmine, who had no farming knowledge, was dumbfounded.
So they used modern methods to search for a farming expert: Allen.
Allen drew a pie for John and his wife:
In this pie, the farm has achieved self-sufficiency and has become a complete and fertile ecosystem.
In this way, Jasmine wants to plant nectarines, cherries, kumquats, grapefruit, guava, carrots, vanilla, thyme, rosemary, basil leaves, strawberries, cabbage, broccoli... The wish can be realized.
The first thing Allen did with the Johns was to cut trees.
They cut down all the dead or half-withered trees in the wasteland and burned them together. This not only cleans up the messy farm, but also recycles the ashes for fertilization.
According to Allen's philosophy, these trees can no longer save the land, and it is better to start all over again.
In the second step, Allen began to introduce cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks and other livestock animals. In addition to adding vitality to the farm, the most important thing about
is animal dung, which is the best fertilizer to heal the land.
So the little guys started to urinate in this wasteland, and the farm recovered its stench and mess.
But surprisingly, Allen's method worked quickly.
They collected dead wood ashes and animal dung, and introduced some earthworm tips to act as activation assistants. In this way, the first batch of viable soil was cultivated.
John Jasmine’s farm also began to fragrant, surrounded by pollen: the
business plan also started, they can sell eggs:
and every time they are put on the market, they are robbed.
John and Jasmine’s dreams seem to have been realized for more than half.
But soon things started to go off track, and problems followed one after another. One of the biggest problems of
is that there are more wild animals around the farm.
John and Jasmine helped the wasteland restore its vitality and brought cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks to the farm, but the re-bred ecological chain is also quietly attracting more wild animals. The birds began to show more and more episodes on the fruit trees on the farm, the gophers began to burrow in the orchard frequently, and the wolves began to howl at night.
This was originally a good thing and one of John Jasmine's ultimate goals.
But the problem is that the uncontrolled increase has destroyed the ecological balance they originally built for the farm.
For example, after the birds came, the output of John Jasmine’s fruit trees began to decline, which could have been70% of the fruits on the market were eaten by birds before they were picked. The
snails also began to multiply, sticking to the trunk in large areas, biting the leaves and affecting the growth of the fruit.
and gophers, the damage to tree roots and soil caused by frequent burrows has caused it to lose the balance with natural fertilizers.
and the two most serious things. One is that wolves began to raid the chickens and ducks on the farm. On the one hand, they caused losses to the farm’s egg business. On the other hand, the number of chickens and ducks dropped rapidly, resulting in insufficient manure fertilizer and pests. Propagating wildly, forming a vicious circle, invading all kinds of plants.
The other is due to drought. John Jasmine’s farm is located in Southern California. There have been several wildfire news in 2019. They are undergoing the test of a drought that has occurred once in a thousand years.
There was not enough precipitation, and the re-storage ponds on the farm also ceased operation. Phytoplankton grew vigorously, polluting the water body, and fish began to die.
At the same time, John and Jasmine's most effective assistant, Allen, also died of cancer.
Allen spent his last energy on the couple's farm, hoping to restore the best farm in his mind.
He once told John Jasmine that by the seventh year, the farm will complete the operation of the ecosystem by itself.
However, it seems that John and Jasmine are not able to survive that day.
turns out to be like this. It seems far away, but when you touch it a little bit, it immediately feels close at hand. When you touch it again, it becomes even more distant again.
Seeing that the dream of the farm was about to be disillusioned, when everyone was at a loss, one day John suddenly thought of something: can
open up every ecological chain that has been built and let them merge by themselves ?
So John went to open the fence of the ducks and put them in the orchard.
A simple action, but helped the farm solve the snail disaster. The
ducks entered the orchard and began to feed on snails. In just one season, they had eaten more than 90,000 ducks.
The chain of duck flock originally belonged to the pond alone, but now it can also belong to the orchard.
and so on, John also began to put wild animals in. He no longer blindly worried about wild animals occupying his own animal’s space, but took the initiative to build a home for the owl:
followed, the arrival of the owl, and also helped the farm The orchard solved the problem of pests.
snake's infiltration, helped catch the headache gopher.
and then eagle, hare, mole, raccoon... etc.
John and Jasmine’s farm is back to life.
simply opened the ecological chain. No pesticides and fertilizers were used, and there was no hunting and slaughter. The farm was restored to its balance.
Human beings seem to be like this. They always like to overestimate themselves and set up various fences for nature, called protection, but in reality they are only restricting the law of its operation.
Even if John and Jasmine are so respectful of nature, there are still times when they fail. It can be seen that we have many ignorance and misunderstandings about nature.
But does this mean that John and Jasmine can sit back and relax from now on?
is not, until the second half of the film, John and Jasmine still failed to solve the problem of wolf attack.
They surrounded the duck house with barbed wire, but found that it was useless to the wolves. They could easily break the barbed wire and enter the duck house to attack. When
was the worst, they even lost more than 200 ducks overnight, accounting for more than 70% of the total.
So for the last time, John raised the long gun at the bottom of the press box: If
does not solve the wolf pack problem, the loss of chickens and ducks will directly threaten the livelihood of the entire farm.
But at the moment when the coyote fell, John suddenly found that his beliefs also fell:
"As the wolf fell, part of my belief, the uncompromising idealistic force, also The things that brought Jasmine and me to the most wonderful place in our lives have also disappeared."
John never thought of hurting any life. He and Jasmine’s ideal ecological farm is not controlled by humans. , There is no killing, only predation between animals.
Why can human beings kill a wolf at will?
is always the master of this farm only because he and Jasmine.
If this wild wolf is allowed to enter, then he and Jasmine will lose their livelihoods. Maybe then the wolf will form another balance with other animals and plants on the farm, but there will be no John and Jasmine.
So, is this ecological balance the ecological balance of John and Jasmine, or is it nature's own ecological balance? At the end of the
film, John and Jasmine ushered in the first baby in their lives, and also sent away Todd who brought them to the farm.
Whether it is animals, plants or humans, it seems that they have realized the inheritance of life in this farm, but under happiness, John Jasmine's confusion about nature and the universe still cannot stop.
They seem to have achieved the ultimate goal, but they find that the ultimate goal is getting farther and farther, even non-existent.
Whenever he looks up at the starry sky, John is also deeply fascinated by its complexity. The earth is a part of the galaxy, and the galaxy envelops the small individual human beings. How do they interact and connect?
, regardless of whether it is destroyed or restored, whenever we take ourselves as the main body, we are already very arrogant when we point to nature.
From the perspective of God, maybe one day, we are just the wolf waiting to be slaughtered.
Bluestone Film Editor | Shiva
