A true love 60 years ago made me cry today

text丨Axing

"The end of the sea is the grassland ", which opened today, actually paid attention to it very early. Not only because its director Er Dongsheng is the creator I have been following for a long time, but also because of the title, there is endless poetry in the pun. The film

explores the fact that in the late 1950s, the whole country was in short supply, and a large number of southern orphans were facing the crisis of living difficulties and malnutrition. In the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, far north of the sky, they took the initiative to take this group of children. Orphans receive the major task of local parenting.

How the great love in the world spans the geographic scale of thousands of kilometers, this is the true meaning of the movie title.

adhered to the principle of "take one, live one, and strengthen one", the herdsmen brought precious life to these orphans at the "end of the sea" with the broadest world and mind.

This is the history of "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia". Such a generous heroic deed should not be buried by time. The most valuable thing about Er Dongsheng is that he not only resurrected the memory of a period of time, but also gave more contemporary thinking to that period of time.

It is quite difficult to restore the history. Just to capture the living environment at that time through setting and photography, it needs to be carefully crafted on the basis of a large number of historical materials. What is more difficult is to accurately and vividly reproduce the appearance of people, not only herders of all kinds, but also children who need to quickly adapt to the new environment (including food, language, living habits, etc.) after migrating to Inner Mongolia. Among them From casting to shooting, there are too many difficulties that are unpredictable in advance.

Fortunately, Er Dongsheng, from " Disciple " to " Shinjuku Incident ", he has proven himself to be a powerful historical research director, he has the ability to recreate a time and space that is unfamiliar to everyone surroundings.

And the real difficulty of "The End of the Sea is the Prairie" is not only the physical restoration of time and space, but as a national theme movie, how to find a solid foothold for its grand spirit, so that today's audience can also benefit Does the thing silently produce a real emotional projection on the spiritual world of people decades ago?

That is, you can't make it as a so-called theme movie.

We can see that the main theme movies in recent years have already undergone many changes as a whole. The biggest change is that many main theme movies are now commercial works with outstanding box office, and there are also many unanimous praises in word of mouth. This shows that the main theme movie, driven by a large number of creative creators, has found the law that the theme and the form complement each other.

However, the commercialization of the relatively successful theme movies still relies on war, action, criminal investigation, and biography, which have attractive commercial elements in themselves.

, ​​which deviates from the above-mentioned types and themes, is undoubtedly facing a more difficult challenge, and it also gives a very positive answer.

It still has a strong plot, strong suspense, and ending reversal, emotional resonance , so that it has the opportunity to be accepted and close to a wider audience.

How did this happen?

If you are familiar with Er Dongsheng's film resume, you know that he has a strong interest and super insight into characters from different backgrounds, especially the most ordinary and humble characters, and then through seemingly special individuals, arrive at The commonality of times and human nature.

the same, "The End of the Sea is the Prairie" is also an "epic" about these ordinary people. They have achieved touching feats at special historical nodes, but this does not mean that they need to be deified. On the contrary, in Er Dongsheng's narrative, we see the things that these heroes have in common with us ordinary people. They are like a bright mirror, reflecting big love with small love, reflecting human nature with human feelings, and finally touching the audience deeply with living people and feelings.

Specifically, this film breaks through the traditional representation of similar genres on multiple levels.

First of all, we may have obtained a simplified conceptual description of the historical event of "Three Thousand Orphans Entering Inner Mongolia" from textbooks, but we don't know enough about the real experience of the relevant people, let alone feel that a group of people had to The orphans who have left their hometowns, on the premise of seeking survival, integrate into a completely new life. What difficulties and conflicts exist in this?

The living habits from the south and the rough atmosphere of the north, the context of the city and the symptoms of the grasslands have brought many direct conflicts and even mutual incomprehension from the root, and then there are the fetters of the old family and the intervention of the new family, the old parents' Severing the connection with the new family becomes a serious test between the characters.

Especially children's incompatibility, lack of understanding, and even double distrust of others and themselves, all require endless patience and tolerance.

Among the orphans, Du Siheng is quite representative. Even when she went to the house of Sarina, whom she only trusted, she still had a reckless side to protect her inner panic and the pain of being abandoned by her biological mother. At this time, Sarena's heartfelt concern is an important method to continuously resolve conflicts.

There is a small thing, Du Siheng was embarrassed to be as convenient as the herdsmen, so Sarina and her son Namuhan thoughtfully built a toilet for her. Such vivid details of using tolerance to resolve conflicts abound. The mother-daughter affinity is constantly built in the play, and the authenticity and resonance outside the play continue to accumulate.

This conflicting film has no villains and doesn't need villains. If I had to find one, it would be the misery of life itself. The harder life is, the more kind and noble the herdsmen are.

Secondly, in order to better handle time spans as long as sixty or seventy years, the film uses a tightly intertwined two-line structure. This narrative structure is of course not unusual, but "The End of the Sea is a Prairie" still has its own uniqueness.

The first line is now. When Du Siheng's brother Du Sihan was about to come to an end, he took over the task of his mother to find his sister's whereabouts for many years. In the most difficult years, he was not separated from his mother, and represented a relative survivor. Therefore, he was born with a guilt mentality to salvage the past and had a relatively compassionate vision. Another line corresponding to

is Du Siheng's adventures on the prairie, including her adaptation and her feedback. There are too many things for children that need to be slowly familiarized, accepted and counteracted. She is the main line reflecting the intimacy of the Mongolian and Han nationalities, attached to the selflessness of the Mongolian , and even the most simple love in the world, which is the strongest source of emotion in the film. The two parallel lines of

not only achieve a supplementary role in restoring and enriching the truth, but more importantly, the corresponding content of the two, especially the original family and the new family that also have parents and brothers, make mellow family affection After transcending time and space and completing the echoes from afar, it highlights the great love that transcends blood ties, ethnic differences, and personal emotions. At this point in the movie, the group resonance effect is very strong.

The third level, that is, further, the film uses unexpected plot development and strong suspense,Create narrative appeal in the double line, so much so that we can consider it a commercial film that is up to the mark.

Suspense refers to the fact that the brother's process of finding his siblings is full of unknowns, and his mentality changed with the increase of information he learns, which constantly drives the audience to reconsider the scene or possibility of the reunion of brothers and sisters. At the same time, suspense also refers to the fate of the older brother who was terminally ill at this time, and the younger sister who had gone to the north at the time, in the face of countless unknowns.

Movies constantly switch perspectives. The amiability of people and the sensibility of the land constantly prompt the audience to have a strong interest in the next development. There is no need to confront good and evil like a police and bandit movie, but the natural conflict between people can still constitute many important nodes in the life journey, such as high fever, siege by wild wolves, quicksand people, etc. Thrilling in between.

In the process, this film removes the threshold of niche themes. The nation and history are all presented in a natural form, allowing the audience to enter that time and space without obstacles.

At this time, it is time to mention the fourth level. On the basis of such a compact advance in suspense, the film throws its biggest highlight at the end-reversal. When the audience thinks that the fate of the characters has been finalized, the compassion of the elder brother and the fault of the younger sister both point to some kind of redemption, which makes the film move to a higher ideological realm in the profound theme of redemption.

Because what we see is not only a detailed presentation of suffering, but also a consistent and good choice under difficult circumstances. The simple people on the vast grassland opened their hearts, helped them with love, warmed these children, let them tide over the difficulties, let them take root and grow up, which is touching anyway.

can be understood in this way. The film not only expresses the struggle of individuals under the conflict of selfishness, but also the feats of the collective driven by human nature. Moreover, it is not only a questioning of the past, but also an exploration of hope for the future, which can be said to be meaningful.

Therefore, "The End of the Sea is a Prairie" can be said to have exceeded our expectations for a theme film with a main theme. Just like in the recent market, there are other small-budget art films that have unexpectedly sunk into the non-art film audience and achieved strong long-term box office trends.

"The End of the Sea is the Prairie" at least proves that no matter what the theme or type of film, there is the possibility of expansion, subdivision, reorganization and breakthrough in creation. The space for domestic films is far from being solidified, and it must be able to make new things on many levels, and tug at the audience's soft heartstrings from many unexpected angles.

This time, it is the true love of the Inner Mongolian herdsmen and southern orphans 60 years ago. We don't know what the next time will be. It is very likely that it is still beyond our expectations.