"The Yugurs once had their own country, but now there are only 14,000 people left."
The Yugur are one of the 28 less populous ethnic groups in China, living mainly in Zhangye Sunanyugur Autonomous County, Gansu.
The movie "Place with Abundant Water and Grass" uses ordinary scenes, slow rhythms, desolate pictures, and the traditional culture of the Yugur people as the background, reflecting the importance of environmental protection and the responsibility of inheriting ancient culture.
Directed by young director Li Ruijun, the film is an ethnic minority film that focuses on two Yugur children and tells the story of two estranged brothers who return home along the Silk Road through the Hexi Corridor to find their parents.
The film is also known as a rare masterpiece of inland western road films, and simplicity is the highest praise for the film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > "to bring the soul and heart back to the prairie is to go home."</h1>
Two camels, two small children, a journey that goes on a walk-and-go journey.
The younger brother who endured and paid in silence, the brother who had little communication but was concerned about his heart, rode a camel, and embarked on a journey...
Because of the birth of his brother, the nomadic parents were too busy to send their brother Battle to his grandfather's house to raise, so Battle resented his parents and brother, and when he reached school age, his brother Adiker was also sent to study with his brother, because the father did not come to pick up the children to go home for the summer vacation, and the grandfather also had an accident, resulting in the two children returning home without adult protection.
Because Grandpa said that "the shepherd's home is in a place where the water and grass are abundant", so the two children firmly believe that the home is in the place where the water and grass are abundant, Adilke heard from his father, "When you go home, you must go down the river", so the two brothers began to take risks according to the words of grandpa and father, as the saying goes, parents are the best teachers of children, they give survival skills to children, which is also a prominent feature of traditional nomads.
Because the lush place of water and grass is not fixed, it also means the nothingness of "home", home and water weed are the two major images in the film, home symbolizes the mother, and water weed has never really appeared. Su Shi of the Northern Song Dynasty once had a poem "This place of peace of mind is my hometown", to the effect that the place where my heart can be placed is my hometown.
His younger brother, Adiker, who is accustomed to nomadic life, is clearly different from his older brother Battle, who lives in the town.
In his world, home should be in a place of lush water and grass, far away and beautiful, where only his heart and soul can be placed.
The innocent and cute Adike constantly strengthens his perception of home, and when confronted with his brother who is estranged from him because of family reasons, all he does is take his brother home and return to the place where he thinks he should belong to him and his brother.
And home, in fact, is also a "root-seeking" journey, the route of the brothers to go home in history was the Silk Road, which is the most beautiful imagination of the Yugur origin of existence, is the history of the Yugur, can also be said to be the root system of their nation...
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the transition from nomadic to industrial civilization</h1>
Although the film tells the story of a Yugu family, the film begins with the history of the nation.
Historical origins of the Yugur people living in the Hexi Corridor:
He rode a camel to the road, and the oncoming truck contrasted him sharply, and the modern narrative of the film began.
Follow the Silk Road through the sad history and return to the vibrant greenery, the once golden pasture summer tara. For people in the city, factories are reality and grasslands are fairy tales. For the nomadic Yugur people, the grassland is the reality, and the factory is the fairy tale.
And the modern "camel knight" is the father of this Yugur family, Odogil.
He arrives from his home deep in the steppe to visit his father and his two sons who are studying, the two little protagonists in the film. In history, the Uighurs are a nomadic people, and some of their descendants, the Yugur people, have retained this nomadic tradition, and the father in the film is one of them, for them, the importance of the grassland is self-evident, it can be said that the grassland is their civilization, the foundation of their development.
There is an old song in the film: the grassland is their father, and the meandering river on the grassland is their mother, and they once built a splendid civilization by relying on the vast grassland with abundant water and grass. (The river sings, west to the blessings of the ancestors.) Bless the wandering children, find your way home. The father-like grassland, the mother-like river, the green grassland, are disappearing... ）
"Far from the town, the water weeds will grow abundantly"
The caves that Bartle sees in the film and the grotto temples on the cliffs are the remaining evidence of their history.
There was no water in the well, and the lamas of the temples left one after another to find "a place where there was water."
Under the process of industrialization, urbanization, modernization and globalization, the social ecology and cultural ecology of ethnic minority areas are undergoing tremendous changes, lonely white horses, empty deserts, passing monks, ruined walls, abandoned lama temples, fallen grottoes and faded murals... It turns out that everything is real.
During the journey, Adiker's heart of the land of water and grass did not see, but the river dried up, the climate was hot, the boundless desert, the home was ruined, compared with his brother, he was more simple and persistent, just wanted to go home, but when he saw that his father had decided to give up the herdsman life to join the gold panning industry, his dream woke up, and after the dream, he had to face the reality, and it was also the status quo of "homelessness".
The film is of great significance, warning people to love the grassland and protect the environment.
The Hexi corridor in the lens, whether it is the sandy land, or the peeling murals, the ruined villages that no one cares about, the tired camels, the back of the child at the end, are very sad, and I feel sad after watching it... This kind of film shown through precocious and naïve children, more cruel, sad ... The director puts the heavy theme of cultural inheritance and disappearance in children's films and presents it to the audience, which is a kind of helplessness and anxiety.
Home is in a place where water and grass are abundant, so they have no home.
Fortunately, the optimistic teenager has been on the road, so that the audience has a little vision.
Original text, figure network