Documentary - in-depth real life to record the changes of the times

Pictured: Poster of the documentary "Mountains and Rivers Years".

Pictured: Poster of the documentary "Qinghai Our National Park".

Pictured: Poster of the documentary "Wisdom China III: Frontier Science".

Profile picture

Core reading

Literary and art workers adhere to the "two for" direction, "double hundred" policy, adhere to creative transformation, innovative development, recent documentary creation paints a real portrait of the times: warm commemoration and historical contemplation, realistic observation and cultural pursuit

Salvaging the memories hidden in time, activating history, and enlightening the future is the cultural mission of historical documentaries and the expectation of the future

New life is also the protagonist of documentary images, and new occupations, new technologies, new possibilities and new trends highlight the vitality and hope of our times. Life is constantly moving, and documentaries dive into the depths of society, keenly capturing the changes that are taking place, leaving a portrait for a new life

Documentaries are the memories of nations and nations. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television 'Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Documentaries in the New Era' was recently released, focusing on high-quality development, and documentary creation will usher in a broader future.

Literary and art workers adhere to the "two for" direction, "double hundred" policy, adhere to creative transformation, innovative development, recent documentary creation paints a real portrait of the times: warm commemoration and historical contemplation, realistic observation and cultural pursuit.

Grand narrative works are in full bloom

The grand narrative dominates the direction of the documentary. Celebrating the centenary of the founding of the Party is a theme of great color, full of political passion, high narrative tone and diversified ways of expression, giving the documentary a powerful force and a broad space, "Mountains and Rivers Years", "Dare to Teach the Sun and Moon for a New Day" and a number of high-quality masterpieces have emerged one after another.

"Mountains and Rivers Years" selects 100 major events, key scenes, and important figures from the centennial party history, leads history with people, speaks things with people, and pays attention to telling the century-old struggle of the Communist Party of China from the perspective of people. Director Charmon opens up new ideas for theoretical documentary films with "poetic expression". "Dare to Teach the Sun and The Moon for a New Heaven" takes the context of time, leads people with events, selects key events and nodes, tells the history of the CPC's unremitting struggle to achieve national independence, national prosperity and strength, and people's happiness over the past hundred years, and unites and leads the Chinese people to achieve a great leap from standing up and getting rich to becoming strong. Director Yan Dong highlights the party's "youth code", which is refreshing. The courage of the two works to break through the original framework of similar themes is commendable. In addition, works such as "Absolute Pen", "Birthplace", "Hundred Refining into Steel: 100 Years of the Communist Party of China", "Daughter of the Party", "Happiness Landing", "Youth is Just in Time" and other works also pay tribute to the centennial party from different angles.

At the same time, the documentary works affectionately tell the process of poverty alleviation, and truly depict the picture of the overall well-off. The creators went deep into the poverty alleviation scene, captured the stories that were happening, and moved the living and hot life scene into the documentary, radiating great emotional strength and aesthetic passion.

"Getting Rid of Poverty" tells the whole picture of poverty alleviation in a political theory mode, and many works tell the story of poverty alleviation of small people in a documentary way. For example, in "Above chai rice oil and salt", the story of poverty alleviation and relocation in the mountains of Yunnan, female truck drivers, and Shanghai acrobats has made us unforgettable for a long time; in "Farewell to Poverty", the live broadcast of goods in the mountainous areas of Chengbu County, Hunan Province, and the poverty alleviation of the Hani ethnic group in Yunnan Are refreshing; "Running well for the last kilometer" tells the story of poverty alleviation in Shanwei, Qingyuan and other places in Guangdong Province; the director in "Approaching Daliangshan" shows the development and changes of the Yi ethnic mountain areas of Daliangshan in a personal experience, etc., all of which positively show the poor masses. The tenacious efforts of grassroots cadres and the outstanding achievements of poverty alleviation.

The richness and complexity of society, the expression and deep connotation of the people's times, have laid a solid foundation for grand narratives, which is why Chinese documentaries have always been sought after.

Absorb the rich nutrition of Chinese culture

Rich Chinese culture is the source of documentaries to expand new space and explore new methods, and there are many brilliant stars in more than 5,000 years of civilization that are worth re-examining and re-disseminating, and can be inherited in creative transformation and innovative development.

"Yuelu Academy" combs through the millennia of Yuelu Academy's changes, inheriting the cultural spirit of preaching to help the people, applying it to the world, and seeking truth from facts. "Wang Yangming" breaks through the traditional model, ancient and modern docking, time and space travel, the actor not only looks for the relics of Wang Yangming in his own identity, but also plays the historical Wang Yangming, activating traditional psychology with today's perspective. "Book Reading China" tells historical stories through letters, and the film selects letters that express family, love, friendship, and homeland feelings, releasing a strong emotional charm. "Dunhuang: Born legendary" recreates 5 historical moments of Dunhuang, "Li Bai" interprets the legendary life of the poet Li Bai, and "Travel with Tang Poems" invites contemporary literati to trace the whereabouts of 5 Tang Dynasty poets such as Du Fu, Meng Haoran and Li Bai.

Three documentaries that interpret the story of modern history from different angles are also worth paying attention to. "Post-90s" takes 16 alumni over 90 years old such as Yang Zhenning and Xu Yuanchong of Southwest United University as the protagonists, passing on their spirit of exploring the truth and serving the country with enthusiasm. This kind of group portrait story, which is difficult to make into a movie, has become a thoughtful and interesting masterpiece under the careful weaving of the director. In the era of war, two Westerners came to China and were called "old friends of the Chinese people". In 1938, the Dutch filmmaker Evans made the heroic image of the Chinese people resisting Japan into the movie "Forty Thousand People". Before leaving, he gave his camera to the Yan'an Film Troupe, which was in preparation. Evans Looks at China tells the story of Evans' friendship with Chinese people spanning half a century. British scientist Joseph Needham lamented that the achievements of ancient Chinese science and technology were ignored by the West, and after long-term research, he finally placed ancient Chinese science and technology on the coordinate system of world civilization.

Starting from today, salvaging the memories hidden in time, activating history, and enlightening the future is the cultural mission of historical documentaries and the expectation of the future.

Participate in the international dialogue on ecological civilization

In 2021, the successful holding of the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in China has promoted the cooperation between countries in ecological environmental protection and achieved fruitful results, and the international community's attention to ecological civilization has risen to a new height. At the same time, China's ecological documentaries have made leapfrog development, such as "National Parks: Wildlife Kingdom", "Snow Leopard's Frozen Kingdom", "Song of Life", "TongxiangXing", "Wilderness Supreme", "Qinghai Our National Park", "Song of the Yangtze River" and other works, effectively participating in the international dialogue of ecological civilization and disseminating the Chinese philosophy of "the unity of nature and man".

"National Park: Wildlife Kingdom" focuses on China's national parks for the first time, telling the natural ecology, animal habitat and humanistic life in different environments according to geographical distribution, not only presenting the well-known giant pandas, Siberian tigers and Tibetan antelopes, but also photographing animals such as rabbits, gibbons leaping into the jungle, and chipmunks with agile actions, capturing animal expressions and eyes with accurate scenes, and infusing ecological consciousness into the whole film, improving the visual performance and cultural height of Chinese ecological documentaries. "The Frozen Kingdom of the Snow Leopard" can be described as a real snow leopard documentary. The story takes place in a hidden valley at an altitude of more than 3500 meters in Qinghai Province, and although it is only 50 minutes, it all revolves around the snow leopard, which walks out of the enigmatic mountain Daze and clearly comes to us. "Song of Life" is a tribute to the United Nations Biodiversity Conference. Yunnan provides natural conditions for biodiversity because of its special landforms and climate, and the film takes mountains, rivers, forests, lakes, grasslands, fields and homes as the theme, and the gestures of natural creatures complement the rich and colorful national culture, highlighting the harmonious coexistence of man and nature. Also in Yunnan, a group of Asian elephants from tropical rainforests suddenly migrated northward, attracting global attention. "Same Elephant Line" tracks the footsteps of the elephant herd, with both a suspenseful narrative with an unknown future and a thrilling storyline. In a sense, Asian elephants have given humans an ecological test question, and the Yunnan masses have given a full score answer.

Ecological civilization is not only a Chinese issue, but also a global issue. From conquering nature, consuming nature to protecting nature, documentaries are moving forward and in action. Chinese ecological documentaries participate in international dialogue with unique oriental philosophy and wisdom, and promote the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Image writing that highlights the vitality of the times

New life is also the protagonist of documentary images, and new occupations, new technologies, new possibilities and new trends highlight the vitality and hope of our times. Life is constantly moving, and documentaries dive into the depths of society, keenly capturing the changes that are taking place, leaving a portrait for a new life.

"Hi New Occupation" tells some emerging occupations in a short section: dog trainer, iron armor designer, etc., presenting new types of jobs that have emerged with the development of society; "IntelligentLy Creating a Better Life" looks forward to the new life brought about by scientific and technological innovation, and technologies such as the Internet of Things, smart home, robots, drones, and unmanned driving are changing people's way of life and work; "Smart China III: Frontier Science" tells the latest achievements of Chinese intelligence, aerospace, and biotechnology; "Recruits are invited to join the list" It describes the training story of a group of post-00s recruits in the army, presenting the style of the younger generation; "Little Teenagers" records a group of talented teenagers from ordinary families; Rao Zhiwei, a boy after 90 in "Return to the Field", gave up the city to work and returned to his hometown shaoguan, planting rice with the help of Deng Ruiting, a big grain grower after 80, to start his own career; "Return to Hongqi Canal" examines Hongqi Canal from an overseas perspective and activates the modern value of this grand project; the documentary movie "University" takes four generations of Tsinghua alumni as the main characters. It presents the humanistic heritage and academic spirit of Chinese universities. The food documentary is hugely popular, and the third season of "Flavor of the World" spans China's long coastline to explore the delicacies of the sea and record the harmony between people and the sea. From these documentaries, it can be found that Chinese society tends to be pluralistic, and young people have more choices and more room for development.

The world is changing, life is changing, and the documentary leaves a rich expression of annual rings and multidimensional thinking. In 2022, we look forward to documentaries going deep into real life, excavating cultural forces, activating historical resources, recording the changes of the times, and accompanying us to continue to move forward.

(The author is a professor at Beijing Normal University) Zhang Tongdao

Layout design: Zhao Kairu

Source: People's Daily