article said that Li Ruijun 's "Hidden Into the Dust" is the tenderest love story, a fascinating and beautifully framed film, with simplicity as a virtue. The story is simple. Two lonely middle-aged men are thrust into an arranged marriage by their worldly family members, which quietly blossom into a companion love. The protagonists are simple because they pursue a traditional farming way of life, and only a , a donkey that has suffered for a long time, can relieve their burden. Crops are growing and seasons are changing.
Lee's sixth work unfolds in a small village that is gradually being encroached upon as residents move into the city to work. The towering sand dunes nearby provide an evocative metaphor for the future, hidden in the dust. With government decrees encouraging the demolition of uninhabited buildings, dwellings are more like a pile of rubble to their absent owners. This is the trouble for Ma Youtie and his new wife Cao Guiying, because in their marriage, they moved into an empty house because family members were no longer willing to support them, but when the municipal bulldozer appeared, they had to relocate to another place.
Middle-aged Ma Youtie starts by sharing his food with his donkey as relatives discuss his upcoming wedding. Suffering from incontinence and painful limp, Cao Guiying, who was even more reticent than Ma Youtie, later admitted that upon seeing his kindness to animals, she realized that marrying him might be preferable to her current misery. "That donkey's life is better than mine," she said, in such a bland way that it didn't sound like self-pity.
In fact, this couple may be the least self-pity people in the world. They were put together without much say, and soon began work on their small plot of land. Li Youtie's almost procedural interest in the farming process provides some of the film's most bizarre and bewildering plots. Cao Guiying sits on the plow, letting the plowshare bite deeper under her weight; Ma Youtie lays mud bricks in a spiral to dry, or hands cut wheat during harvest. These scenes are elevated by Li Ruijun's work, which finds grace and dignity in hard work without being overly romantic. The exteriors are expansive, the couple is often overwhelmed by nature, and the interiors, despite their modesty, are warm. When Ma Youtie uses a cardboard box to make a incubator for chicks, the blobs and mirror effects of light spilling are subtle and magical.
The poignant nature of the relationship they develop is what drives the film's patience. On a cold night, Cao Guiying waited for Ma Youtie to return from the town, held a bottle of hot tea for him, and returned to the house to reheat several times when Ma Youtie was late. When he finally shows up, it's a delicate turning point in their relationship. Neither can seem to believe how lucky they are to find the gift in the other.
Wu Renlin and Haiqing are both fully integrated with their heroic and decent characters.
But this heroism is based on disturbing self-sacrifice, turning away and accepting without complaint the paltry leftovers of someone else's banquet. Ma Youtie has the same rare blood type as a sick local boss, and regularly donates blood to help him. He was really sucked dry by this big guy. Cao Guiying exercised her frail body to the limit, often choosing to walk rather than ride to avoid overloading the donkey. "You're being used most of your time, haven't you had enough?" Ma Youtie asked the animal when he finally decided to remove its ever-clinking bell and set it free. But he may be talking about the conditioning he and Cao Guiying experienced, believing that this hard, thankless life is what they deserve.
As a persuasive account of the imminent end of a traditional way of life and the rapid demise of rural communities in China's outer periphery, Into the Dust is convincing. The warm heart of the film distracts from its underwhelming content. Where is the unjust anger that society demands so much of people and they demand so little of societyinside? Once, while they were tending their first crop, Cao Guiying looked at Ma Youtie in distress while holding a lone green shoot that had been uprooted. "Don't worry," Ma Youtie said. "If a sapling dies, it can nourish the soil, so other things can grow." That's certainly true, but it's grim consolation for the seedlings.
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from the perspective of foreign netizens