If you don't get stung by these pictures, if you don't fear them, if you don't try to stop the near and far causes of these killings - anyone who lacks these kinds of reactions, Woolf sees them as beasts of unscrupulous conscience . And she believes that we are not beasts, we are a cultured bunch. Our inadequacy is that we are imaginative or emotionally unengaged, we cannot mentally grasp this reality. (Susan Sontag "Watching the Pain of Others") The
live
movie begins with Chike's killing scene - the Tibetan antelope is killed alive, and then the thieves directly peel off the Tibetan antelope's skin. A desolate area of Hoh Xil (a large plateau in the west of China) is covered with hides of Tibetan antelopes to meet the needs of foreigners. After all, the people of China are for living. The beginning of the film clearly shows two conflicting groups of people in Hoh Xil. One group is thieves, who hunt and kill Tibetan antelope in large numbers in order to do business with foreigners; the other group is a mountain patrol team organized by local residents. Tai is the leader of the mountain patrol team. They take it as their duty to catch thieves and protect the Tibetan antelope. The film is based on the vision of a reporter from Beijing, Duo Yu (Zhang Lei).
But the film has been running for about five minutes, and it has already told the audience that what the director wants to tell is not a story of good and evil, let alone a story of a soldier catching a thief-When Duo Yu from Beijing asked where the local child Ritai was, They all fled; when Duoyu walked to Ritai's residence, he saw the hides of Tibetan antelopes on the attic. Hoh Xil is not a place to look for morality. On the barren plateau, life and nature are their challenges and their lives.
Hoh Xil is a beautiful name, referring to beautiful green hills and beautiful girls. Director Lu Chuan used a large number of expansive lenses to express the majestic mountains, seas of clouds, rivers and stars in Hoh Xil. But at the same time, the director also captured the horror of Hoh Xil: strong sandstorms, blizzards, frozen rivers, lack of oxygen on the plateau, quicksand, etc. Therefore, every time the mountain patrol team goes up the mountain, when they leave, it may also be the time to die. As a result, they have a lively attitude to life, crying and hugging every time they part. The director also focused on depicting the deep friendship between the members of the mountain ranger, and used primitive and natural body language such as dancing and hugging to express the simplicity of the emotions between the mountain rangers. On the surface, Duoyu from Beijing did not feel out of place, as if she walked into their lives in an instant and directly felt their pain and joy. People living in Hoh Xil love this place. They protect the Tibetan antelope, in fact, protect the simple soul of Hoh Xil. Even, it may cost life. What about income? Simple clothes, lack of food, and the tragic grief of China are all staged on the word "live". Prayer has become the best tool for purifying the soul in such a severe living environment.
Staring at the
living is the eternal theme of Chinese films, but how to enhance the depth of "living"? The wonderful thing about Hoh Xil is that the film is full of stares. Also because the movie is full of superego stares, the height of "Kekexili" is greatly improved.
A bystander
The narrative angle of the film starts from Beijing reporter Duo Yu, who enters Hoh Xil as an Other. Even though he has a certain degree of understanding of Hoh Xil (he collects a lot of newspaper clippings), he is still unfamiliar with Hoh Xil's heart. It is precisely because of this that he needs to seek the truth of Hoh Xil through interviews. So the entry point of the film is to see/observe the pain of others through the eyes of a bystander. The people who live in Hoh Xil were born and grew up in Sri Lanka. They were born in Hoh Xil, and they are destined to die here. They can't escape, and they won't escape. And Duo Yu's home is in Beijing. Even if he followed the mountain patrol team into the heart of Hoh Xil, he could only take some photos. The gaze of the camera is flat, without sound, and only images are left behind, thus showing the limitations of sympathy and the incompatibility of emotions. What kind of echoes can the disasters in the distance strike? Duo Yu couldn't fully feel the thieves and the mountain patrol team -- first of all, he sympathized with the captured thief Ma Zhanlin, and Duo Yu gave him a bun; he couldn't bear the mountain patrol team's confession to the captive, and in the end the captive was really hiding the truth , so the distance between him and Hoh Xil was confirmed again.
2. Bystanders The
movie stares at the pain of Hoh Xil with the eyes of others—Duoyu, while we in the movie theater look at the sufferings of people in faraway places with the attitude of bystanders. The image itself, the trauma of others, arouses our sympathy, but after multiple media translations, what has become of the pain of others? It has become an element that attracts audiences and an inspirational motto to cherish a beautiful and prosperous life. However, it is obvious that when we watch others suffering, we only have pure "onlookers", whether our body or mind is powerless.
3. The gaze of the vultures
Humans are bipeds standing on the ground, but the world is a three-dimensional space. The vultures in the sky have become the most important shots of the entire film of "Kekexili". The film directly captures the moment when the vultures are pecking at the Tibetan antelope, showing the gaze of the vultures in multiple close-ups. The members of the mountain patrol team died and needed to return to nature in the form of celestial burial. In one scene of the movie, the corpse was cut open for vultures to eat; there was also a large blood-red Tibetan antelope corpse that covered the plateau. The gaze of the vultures full of life force is the gaze of the god of death. When they flock in large numbers, it is also the time when the god of death comes, and this fateful gaze full of the flavor of "life and death" is to overlook the land of Hoh Xil from the highest point. No one who lives here can escape the vulture's gaze.
2005-4-29
View more about Mountain Patrol reviews
