At the recently concluded Beijing International Film Festival , "the end of the sea is the grassland " as the opening film met with the audience for the first time and aroused strong repercussions. A lot of praise and anticipation swiped. And the recent premiere is also has been well received.
From these comments, we can feel that this film takes the audience back to the past in 120 minutes, followed the protagonist of the film to the grassland, lived in a yurt, and witnessed a touching real history.
Between 1959 and 1961, due to force majeure, the number of orphans in child welfare institutions in the South increased dramatically, and they faced the threat of malnutrition, disease and death.
In order to let these orphans get out of the predicament as soon as possible, they decided to arrange for them to move to the north where the conditions are relatively good. Among them, Inner Mongolia received the largest number, with more than 3,000 orphans. Everyone calls this history "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia".
"Three thousand orphans enter Inner Mongolia", just seven words, but in fact it is a lot of hardships and dangers. Under the relatively difficult conditions at that time, the government escorted the group of five or six-year-old orphans, who were a few months younger, through trains and cars across more than half of China, and safely escorted them to Inner Mongolia.
Er Dongsheng , director Er Dongsheng , who created with a focus on realistic themes, keenly captured this little-known feat and used the lens to tell us how these children adapt to local life. How's it going? The
movie is told in two timelines. The first timeline of
is now, Du Sihan ( Chen Baoguo ) embarked on the road to find relatives, and went to Inner Mongolia to find his sister Du Siheng, one of the "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia". This part of
is like a road film. We followed Chen Baoguo along the way. Through the camera in his hand, we saw blue sky and white clouds, grassland horses, yurts, Mongolian dialogue, local customs, and a scenery outside the Great Wall, which is so beautiful that people are fascinated.
In the process of looking for his sister, the scenery of the grassland is changing, time has passed, and everything is different. After Chen Baoguo solved the conflict between his tour guide brother and his car repair brother, he also picked up a little bit. Maybe Fragments of memories that he intentionally forgot, the secret behind sending his sister to the nursery. The movie keeps this suspense until the end. The second timeline of
is many years ago, after my sister Du Siheng was sent to Inner Mongolia, and the process of getting along and growing up with Sarina ( Masu ) family.
The two timelines appear alternately, which is a test of the director's narrative ability.
Time came to the end of the 1950s. In a welfare home in Shanghai, a group of orphans were gobbling up food delivered from the north, but the staff on the side frowned.
"Instead of sending the supplies to the south, it is better to bring the children directly to Inner Mongolia."
In this way, with the deep concern of Premier Zhou, the then main leader of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ulan Fu, received more than 3,000 orphans in batches Raised in various pastoral areas in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
followed the whistle of the train, and the style of painting changed from Jiangnan to the vast Inner Mongolia prairie. The little girl Du Siheng and the southern children of many orphanages traveled northward across half of China to the Inner Mongolia prairie, where they met Eji (meaning mother in Mongolian), father and brother on the prairie.
In the yurts, everyone scrambles to adopt orphans, and each family brings the best food to entertain the children.
The village cadres have repeatedly stressed the requirement that only infertile families are eligible for adoption, so that the child can be regarded as their own; the second is to play with the child first, and then look at the child's wishes when they are familiar with it, and more importantly, respect the child himself choice, only the child is willing to adopt.
so the herdsmen tried their best, and used love, sincerity and patience to help the weak souls find their homes. From this detail, it can be seen that these grassland herdsmen families accept a child with incomparable sense of responsibility. This kind of acceptance is by no means a simple bed and a bowl of rice, but a lifetime commitment to these children from the grassland. Another little detail in the
video is also interesting. Du Siheng was adopted by Sarena Eji. At home, Eji had to pick up and eat the milk tofu dregs that fell on the table, but Du Siheng, who was not used to the taste of this extremely cherished food throw away.
echoes that Du Siheng's new father Idel ( Ayunga ) specially brought back a few eggs from the army for his family to eat, but the herdsmen in Inner Mongolia at that time did not have chickens at home, and they were not used to eggs.
Under Er Dao's meticulous technique, the differences in living habits and regional culture of southern children and prairie people are vividly manifested in this way. This is also the first problem after "three thousand orphans entered Inner Mongolia", how to integrate into the new family? How to adapt to the new environment?
The answer is the only one. The prairie people use love and even their lives to fulfill their commitment and determination to "take one, live, and grow" for this group of children.
The child was not used to the toilet on the grassland, so he built a new one for the child; the child encountered a pack of wolves, and a group of Mongolian brothers arrived in time; Rescue...
piece by piece, piece by piece, the director uses real and credible, specific events to express, and the way of telling is extremely restrained, never exaggerating and beautifying, succinctly, The emotions expressed are tender and powerful!
Before watching this movie, "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia" was just a concept, but with the efforts of the production team, this concept has become rich and three-dimensional.
made the audience believe in the helplessness in the eyes of the more than 3,000 orphans on the train going north; I believe how anxious Eji was, who was pacing back and forth in the nursery in Inner Mongolia because of the lack of antipyretics; The tension and joy of accepting a child.
Director Er Dongsheng has put a lot of effort into the reappearance of history, and the shots are also real people and real feelings. Most of the actors in the whole film learn Mongolian. It is particularly worth mentioning that the actor Ma Su not only performs in Mongolian throughout the whole process, but her role as Sarena is also the character with the largest age range in the film.
From youth to middle age, the relationship with Du Siheng has changed from almost one-sided doting to becoming a real mother and daughter with the latter. Ma Su's performance accurately captures the subtle changes.
In addition, many non-professional actors from Inner Mongolia are also used in the film, who play the centenarian Eji's grandmother, and the herdsmen in the wedding scene are all real grassland herdsmen, so the performances in the film are very real reactions.
, who is good at shooting realistic themes, truly reproduces the historical story of "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia", giving our younger generation a chance to understand this history. 's ordinary characters and trivial incidents are connected with heart-warming stories that make people cry again and again.
On September 9th, let's go to the cinema and witness this little-known but touching "migration feat" together.