The most popular film and television themes in 2021 always seem to have a hint of "earthy flavor". Because the end of the earth to the extreme is not only the tide, but also the simple and pure spirit.
This year, works with the theme of "rural revitalization" ushered in a blowout. At the beginning of the year, the TV series "Mountains and Seas" was popular, with a Douban score of 9.3, with the theme of rural revitalization in the western region in the 1990s, and a large number of "spiritual onions" were harvested with a simple and grounded narrative style.
Some people have come out of the mountains and have also walked into the depths of the mountains. / "Mountains and Seas"
Recently, a Douban 9.5-point documentary "Infinite Road" went viral, which selected ten of the most representative cases of deeply impoverished areas through reporters' personal visits to six provinces across the country, and truthfully recorded the bits and pieces of rural revitalization. How good does it look? Even CCTV, a major documentary household, "liked" the documentary.
Remember our smile? Then you certainly can't miss this "realistic version of "Mountains and Seas".
Sister Splash shouted that you watched the new drama. / "Mountains and Seas"
The title of this Hong Kong-style documentary "The Road to Infinity" produced by TVB uses a pun that hong kongers love. This is not only an "infinite" road to get rid of poverty, but also a long and endless journey of people who have paid silently for rural revitalization behind it.
And we, as the audience, can also discover its third meaning - this is an evocative road.
Thousands of miles of clouds and moons
"The Road to Infinity" can become a high-rated documentary that makes everyone reminisce about "Infinity", and naturally has its killer skills.
Produced by the tvb team of familiar old friends, from the perspective of Hong Kong people, once again looking back at the changes along the way of "rural revitalization", this freshness with its own "Hong Kong flavor" is attractive enough.
When we talk about "Hong Kong flavor", we are actually interested in the attitude behind it – looking at the world with a rational and pragmatic eye.
The last TVB documentary that received popularity, "The Quest", has the same characteristics. Of course, there is also these simple and unpretentious life principles that can "eat the belly".
This time TVB still did not disappoint us in the matter of grounding. Although the film crew of "Infinite Road" traveled through 6 provinces across the country and penetrated into 10 poverty-stricken counties, it took nearly 3 months to complete this "thousands of miles of clouds and months".
But the whole team consisted of only 4 people – host Chen Belle, journalist Cen Ying and 2 photographers. Being able to complete this endless journey, these 4 people have not only achieved "personnel streamlining", but also "elite personnel".
Generally speaking, there will be at least seven or eight people in the average documentary photography group.
Starting from the yunnan tropical rainforest in the southernmost part of the motherland, it walks to the Grand Canyon of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau; from the remote ethnic minority autonomous prefecture, through the Great Northwest Gobi Desert, and finally into the Sichuan-Tibet Plateau.
At the end of "Mountains and Seas", a paragraph is used to describe the history of the entire rural revitalization: "This is a painting that ripples with idealistic romance and contains the truth of realism." ”
In The Endless Path, we can see these magnificent scenery, and more importantly, it is a journey of truth with questions and answers.
How many people and at what cost can we embark on the "infinite road" out of poverty?
In 2012, there were nearly 100 million people living in poverty in China. How to get these 100 million people out of poverty in 8 years, not only to solve the problem of food and clothing, but also to ensure education, medical care and housing?
The first episode of "The Infinite Road" focuses on the village of Atulier in Liangshan, Sichuan, because it is a poor village listed in the national classic poverty alleviation case, and even many people around the world have heard about it. Because it has another more well-known name - Cliff Village.
The whole village is built on a cliff at an altitude of more than 1500 meters, and the mountain is too inclined to accommodate half of the road. Since ancient times, there has only been one way for villagers to climb the mountain: on a cliff almost vertically 90 degrees, a simple ladder is built with rattan rope, and the climb to the top of the mountain is nearly 1,000 meters away, about the height of a Hong Kong Big Hat Mountain.
Until August 2016, the Zhaojue County and Liangshan Prefecture governments, to which cliff village belonged, invested one million yuan to transport 120 tons of steel pipes up the mountain by the village's Zhuangding and workers, and built a modern version of the ladder - a total of 2556 steel ladders.
Even so, it is still "difficult to go to the blue sky" to go to the cliff village. The host Chen Belle and his party set off from 7:00 a.m. and did not officially arrive at cliff village until 1:30 p.m. And after completing the whole journey and returning to the bottom of the mountain again, it is already 13 hours later.
Following the host's first perspective to "personally" walk like this is the most touching and impressive recording method in "The Endless Road".
From such a real perspective, it makes people's legs shudder and weak when they look at it.
Without words, the audience alone can easily feel that the reason why these poor villages are poor and deep-rooted is because of the natural geographical conditions, and they are forced to become isolated "poignant places".
The "endless road" that the audience sees in front of them is actually the "helpless road" that the local villagers experience every day, and there are still bigger problems waiting for them.
Pacha Youge, the secretary of cliff village, said bluntly that in the past, the villagers had almost zero income, in addition to the terrain, there were also "overbearing people" from the outside flower world. Even if the villagers worked hard to carry the crops down the mountain to sell, it was almost impossible to sell them for a good price.
Villagers are being priced down for the simple reason – "You came down from a cliff village, so I don't believe you can carry things back again."
The huge information gap makes the villagers want to catch up with the big city life at the forefront, which is also a big challenge.
Heroes and good men who are overwhelmed with money are "forced to go up Liangshan", and it is also a matter of course that ordinary people who are "forced down Liangshan" in order to please themselves are also a matter of course.
To put an end to this poverty and evil disease that has been passed down from generation to generation, only a miracle is born, and the name of this miracle is called "relocation".
Look forward
Look at the "money" first
The "onion people" who have seen "Mountains and Seas" will not be unfamiliar with the term "relocation".
The government plans to use five years to move most of the country's extremely remote and backward areas, a total of 10 million poor people, to livable planned resettlement areas, which is equivalent to a small country to carry out a large population migration.
Since 2016, the government and various funds across the country have injected more than 600 billion yuan, built 2.66 million resettlement houses across the country, and helped nearly 10 million poor people relocate.
Telling about the many film and television works of relocation, and then looking at this "artificial miracle", the entry angle of "Infinite Road" is very hard-working Hong Kong people's spirit - to look forward, we must first look at "money".
How to solve the livelihood of the relocated residents, "supporting ourselves" is our most concerned issue.
Since 2021, the government has helped farmers develop characteristic industries in a planned way, and now all 832 poverty-stricken counties in the country have set up special industry poverty alleviation programs, with more than 300,000 modern agricultural bases.
The Fuzhao Modern Agricultural Park in Daliangshan, Sichuan, is a typical example in "The Road to Infinity".
Relocated farmers can choose to work in agricultural parks and receive a fixed salary; they can also choose to participate in cooperative farming, technical training is provided by the company, and as long as the crops meet the company's standards, they will be contracted for export.
The vegetable hearts planted by the villagers, through strong transportation transportation, can not only appear in Shenzhen, but also appear on the tables of Hong Kong people.
It takes science to defeat "magic" once and for all. In the past, farmers in the mountains would only grow potatoes and corn, and these crops had low prices and primitive planting methods, and they could only watch the sky to eat, and their income was only a few hundred and one thousand a year. Now by the company unified training, master the modern farming technology, one acre of land harvest can reach more than 10,000 pieces.
In the eight years since the launch of targeted poverty alleviation, China has eliminated poverty at a rate of almost 10 million people per year. According to the World Bank, 70 out of every 100 people lifted out of poverty in the world this year are from China.
At such an astonishing speed, in addition to the above-mentioned vigorous promotion of relocation and agricultural industry upgrading, there must be a longer-term vision. The best way to teach people to fish is, of course, to teach people to fish.
Whether it is facing the difficult conditions of the past or adapting to a new life, there is only one way - to face difficulties.
A skill to change the future
Guess what is the most expensive project in China to get rid of poverty? It is transportation infrastructure and education investment.
Throughout the filming process, the "new discovery" that shocked the production team of "Infinite Road" the most was the concept of "straight over the nation", which they had never touched before and could not imagine.
Zhijiao ethnic groups refer to the ethnic minorities who "directly transitioned from primitive society to modern civilized life", and Yunnan is the largest concentration of Zhijiao ethnic groups.
In 2019, Yunnan Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture established a special school, the Fugong County General Vocational Education Integration Boarding School, a school dedicated to these "straight-through ethnic" out-of-school young people.
More than 300 students in the school were personally "arrested" by the principal and teachers in the deep mountains.
Because of the peculiarities of the nation, they have no concept of "modern society". To make them aware of the importance of "civilization", school teachers can only go to every mountainous area and every village, knock on the door of each house, and persuade the peasants to let their children study.
Ordinary schools teach students "knowledge", but in this general vocational education integration boarding school, teachers should start from the most basic common sense of life and production skills.
"Teach them to wash their hair, wash their clothes, take a bath, including drinking boiled water." Teacher Hu Limei said that because in the mountains, the straight-through ethnic groups drink "pure natural water" directly, and there is no concept of boiling water.
"Special" slogans are everywhere in schools.
Academic subjects are too esoteric for students, so the school focuses on pre-career training, teaching them to repair cars, cooking, and even haircut classes, with only one goal - to hope that they have a skill.
Because only by having a skill can they discover another possibility of life faster.
Teacher Hu Limei's biggest concern is that because the Lisu people in Yunnan are too backward, many local girls only have one "future" - to get married, and it is up to their parents to decide who to marry and where to marry.
Even if she can't change the situation at once, Hu Limei repeatedly told her students: "Girls have to go out to work, learn to honor their parents, and then remember to have their own private money, find a favorite and reliable man to marry." ”
Like her favorite student, Açada, Hu Limei once asked her if she had imagined her future, and Acciada's answer was "marrying someone."
Now, Achada, who fell in love with cooking at school, has a new perspective on the camera. In the future, she wants to become a chef and open her own restaurant, "Let's talk about it after marriage."
This is the change that "The Infinite Path" has brought to her. Beyond "The Infinite Road", there are more roads waiting for us to go, all the way forward, only forward.
On July 1, 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping said in his speech at the conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China: Always want to be with the people, work together, share weal and woe in the same boat, share weal and woe, continue to make unremitting efforts to realize the people's yearning for a better life, and strive for greater glory for the party and the people!