Maria So used lip string to express the nostalgia in the forest. This old man is the "spiritual totem" of the last hunting nation in China, Ewenki people. (Photo: Gu Tao)
On August 20, 2022, the sound of the oral string piano "comes" in a photo suddenly rang in the ears of many people. The old man who plays the harmonica alone is Maria So, an Ewenki. He comes from the poplar tree dense forests all over the mountains. He is a forest tribe that still raises reindeer . That day, the old man walked through her 100th-year-old life. People regretted in the cyber world that "the last female chief in China" was finally able to return to the forest.
Two months later, the vigorous cyber memorial had returned to peace. People had been silent under the symbol of "last one", and then left. This scene is like the fate of the lost civilization that seems to be irreversible to the memory. The death of "China's last female chief" also restarted some topics, making the attention of attention again on the border ethnic groups. The photographer of this photo naturally became the "intermediary" leading to the Ewenki people.
The person who took this photo was called Gu Tao . At the beginning of the new century, he followed his father's footsteps, took a "treasure in the palm" and stayed in the mountains and forests of the Great Xing'an Mountains where Maria So lived for eight years, eating and living with the Ewenki people. Among the materials accumulated through time, Gu Tao has successively edited three documentaries: "Aoluguya Aoluguya", " Hugo's Holiday " and " Bandahan ", which are called the "Ewenk Trilogy". These three films bring Gu Tao the symbol of "independent documentary director".
After that, Gu Tao has accepted many interviews and has also told the past in person to the public. But almost every sharing ends, the question he is asked the most is how to view the last hunting nation in China and how to understand their relationship with modern civilization. Out of politeness, Gu Tao would respond one by one, but he would also be puzzled. It seems that few people care about the emotions and lives of those specific people under the "symbol". And in his opinion, those are things that attract him more than the grand question itself. Gu Tao never thought that his shooting was a kind of " anthropological -style image."
In addition, there are many problems that point to those eight years. People seem to be speeding today, and they are even more puzzled what can support a person to stay in the forest in the border area for eight years. With these questions in mind, we came to Gu Tao's home in Songzhuang, hoping to pass by a person's life in addition to the exchange of abstract ideas and share with readers the trance and persistence of an ordinary person. In Gu Tao's view, from childhood to adulthood, our education has been teaching us to seek meaning, but the power that truly supports a person to do something can rarely be attributed to "meaning".
Gu Tao (left) and his friend Weijia (right). There are several villages of large and small, located on the edge of Chaobai River, more than 30 kilometers away from the urban area of Beijing. Like many villages, there is actually nothing special here, except that there are many people living in similar houses, and the outside world calls them "artists".
Gu Tao rented two yards opposite to sit, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the village road on one side. The fences at the door are almost never locked. It is hard to imagine that this place was just a pile of garbage a few years ago. It is a bit exaggerated to see passers-by sitting in the room and saying "coming back and forth". Murakami is quiet during the day, and few people pass by in the morning, and most of the people passing by are acquaintances. Occasionally, I shouted a few words through the window, but I couldn't hear clearly, so I just pushed the door open and came in. "Lao Gu, when did you come back?" The so-called living room is actually his studio. Next to it is the stove, with green onions, ginger, garlic and a pile of cups scattered. The water is taken by itself, and if you have any food, it is placed on the surface. On the other side of
, there are two large yurts standing in the yard. The top of the bag looks like a child's untucked trousers. It stands naked at first glance. Even if it's the first time I'm here, I won't admit my mistake.When I pushed the door open, there was a long table in the yard. Someone filled several seats beside the table that night, including musicians and filming... The visitors did not mention their names, but only reported what they were doing recently. The newcomer and the regulars got familiar with each other. It was said that as long as Gu Tao was at home, it would be staged every day. When he came back, people seemed to be able to smell the "scent". This is what I saw when I interviewed Gu Tao’s house in Songzhuang.
Yurt in Gu Tao's yard.
On the dining table, a cup hit a place, and a visitor joked that he had been busy with various situations in the first half of his life, and after drinking for three rounds, he didn't remember the topics he had talked about. Gu Tao's home is a party every now and then, but he feels that these give him strength, and he cannot do without these "same breathing". "The most important thing is to distinguish whether you care about the relationship between people or the relationship between humans. If it is the former, then you have been busy with social engagements all your life."
, under the light of the light, the musician stood up and took the guitar standing against the wall, "Happy today, let's have a song."
The emotional thing, Gu Tao also stood up, and the bottle at hand changed direction and became a microphone.
I hate that I cannot give my lover's life,
I hate that I cannot bring the melody of happiness,
I can only give you a small attic,
A north-facing window,
Let you see the stars...
The visitors that night had roughly similar intentions to me, or in other words, many episodes and ones that happened in this yard were mostly due to the "Ewenk Trilogy". It’s just that at the dinner table, “stop the cup and throw chopsticks cannot be eaten” is not because of the confusion of “the relationship between lost civilization and modern civilization”, but more because I can’t figure out how to stay in the same place, or how to do something. The man in front of him has been following the photos in Aoluguya's dense forest for eight years.
"When your heart is humble, your work will become fragile"
In the winter of 2001, the North Fourth Ring Road had not been repaired yet. Gu Tao, who had just been in Beijing for two years, rented a basement near of the Asian Games Village in and his wife at that time.
In those years, he was still doing graphic photography and making money. The two of them formed a "team". His wife was specifically responsible for putting on makeup for others. After they were finished, Gu Tao came to take pictures. In those years, the two of them often fell into a cycle, both of whom were very entangled, but they were helpless and could only bear it. One day, I had to go out from the North Fourth Ring Road to to in the North Third Ring Road. Gu Tao borrowed a flat three-wheeled board at the fruit stall downstairs, laying a board on it, and his wife sat on it. "The wind was very strong that day. I was riding a tricycle and facing the wind. She was sitting behind tremblingly, and I didn't dare to look back at all."
In 2002, Gu Tao was 32 years old and divorced. "She didn't want to stay in Beijing, and I didn't want to go back to Inner Mongolia." At the age of thirty, he was alone. Gu Tao described it as a "untied bondage". He no longer felt that he was dragged by an invisible thing. He could briefly withdraw and deal with his relationship with him first, "not always feel that he was dragging down another person." It was also in those years that Chinese photography began to turn its concepts. At that time, the foreword of the third issue of "New Photography" magazine wrote: "Involving concepts into Chinese photography is like a window suddenly opened in a long-closed house, breathing more comfortably." Unfortunately, this comfort actually brought Gu Tao a kind of "suffocation".
In the same year, Gu Tao accidentally participated in the Pingyao International Photography Festival that year, and the banner it launched was called "China's New Photography". There was a man named Bai Yiluo who sewed up a single photo for the first time, like a big blanket, and a photographer named Xu Lei used his own pinhole camera to take pictures of the carousel of the amusement park and the daily landscapes of Tiananmen. The pinhole filtered out all moving objects, and finally the only thing that stayed on the film was still. The coldness of the carousel and the silence of Tiananmen Square, the photos flashed in front of my eyes. In addition, Gu Tao remembered a word he learned in Chinese textbooks when he was a child, "there is a shortness of money."
To this day, Gu Tao still remembers the "Chinese" series taken by photographer Liu Zheng that year.While people at that time were still following the "documentary" of Bresson , crowding to capture the "decisive moments", Liu Zheng had already begun to create a scene, which made people more concentrated in the author's consciousness and expression. The photographer is still on the scene, but he is in the scene he created, and others cannot imitate it.
Stills of the movie " Have Something to Say Well ".
"I know myself well and know what my things are. When your heart is humble, your works will be very fragile." At that time, Gu Tao vaguely felt that he wanted to express, but couldn't figure out what to express.
In 2003, the countdown for the New Year's Eve arrived as scheduled. The people around him still seem to be infected with the momentum of the beginning of the new century, but Gu Tao feels that "the transition from the old and new century to the end of the new century and the non-community have nothing to do with him."
That Spring Festival, he returned to his hometown in Inner Mongolia at a loss. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Spring Festival Gala that I don’t know how many times it was replayed on TV, and Gu Tao’s father found out his diary when he was young. When his father Gu Deqing was young, he was a librarian at the Oroqen Autonomous Banner Cultural Center. Since the 1980s, Gu Tao has been remembering that his father has been "missed" for several months. When he came back, he brought photos to wash, recording fragments of his life with the hunters. When Gu Tao was a child, he was often arrested to wash photos and copy things. He copied several large books, but he never looked at the content carefully. The reindeer, forest in the black and white world, the hunting rifle and the yurt in the yurt... are both strange and familiar.
Gu Tao asked his father, "What are these people doing now? I'll go see them for you."
Gu Tao's father Gu Deqing.
The father advised him, "This matter has been done, don't go," but he turned around and wrote down the notation of the names of five people. "He still misses them." In Aoxiang, more than 200 kilometers away, most of the five names of that year remained in that year. While he was walking, Gu Tao was led into the house of the son of the family that his father photographed, and sat cross-legged on the kang. After a while, Ewenki people came in one after another in the house and heard that "Gu Deqing's son is here again." In the living room not far away, two retired hunting dogs were in heat, while on the other side were villagers in Ao Village talking about the relocation for the next year. For the first time, Gu Tao felt that the standard camera lens could not capture this picture, "I would have moved."
"I'm staying there, not to wait for anything"
Although Gu Tao had this idea at that time, he didn't move for the next two years. After returning to Beijing, I returned to the familiar rhythm of life, worrying about the rent for next month. Every day, my friends come and emptied social engagements. The momentum that night seemed to be a little relieved again.
"It's not only physical preparation, but also psychologically. You will start to hesitate. I'm not a talented person, I can do whatever I do," Gu Tao admitted that he was indeed a little cautious during that period.
In the summer of 2004, one night, it was so hot outside that Gu Tao turned on the TV to change the station and changed to a news. The red banners were all over the screen. The reporter recited with a serious expression, "The Ewenki people moved to their new homes, and moved into their new homes happily." I changed several more stations. In those years, it was Ecological Immigration , and everyone in the news was talking about this.
Gu Tao remembered the scene that night before the New Year and was stunned in front of the screen for a while, "This world is simply too magical." Not long ago, Wei Jia said on the phone that they had pulled the reindeer back to the mountain not long after they went down the mountain. The deer couldn't adapt to it when he arrived at the foot of the mountain, and he didn't even drink water, and he died a lot. During those days, Gu Tao really couldn't stay in Beijing anymore. Stills from the documentary "Bondahan".
But, what to shoot? Gu Tao once tried to cooperate with the TV station, and there would be a column called "Art Starry Sky". Several friends who had learned to draw before did this program on the TV station. Gu Tao opened his mouth with a thick face. Can he borrow a machine? They asked, what are you going to take? Gu Tao said that he wanted to go to Aoluguya to shoot a tribe. They asked again, how long will it take to borrow. Gu Tao said that he wanted to shoot for ten years first.
"They were all confused at the time and thought I was joking. They reacted for a while and said, that's impossible." Gu Tao touched the edge of the glass with half a cup of water left on the table, "They also helped me analyze, Lao Gu, don't shoot documentaries, that thing, you might as well make movies." Later, it was a "Treasure in the Palm" that retired from his ex-girlfriend's brother, which solved the urgent problem.
After the winter of that year, the shooting officially began. At the beginning of the shooting, Gu Tao spent most of her time, asking herself to "exist" first. The Ewenki people do not raise idle people. In the forest, they must be a labor force first. Gu Tao, who didn't know how to cook before, started cooking, and he even made a "refrigerator". In summer, the temperature in the forests of Daxinganling is very high. The remaining vegetables are easily broken if they are not eaten on the same day. He found a stainless steel bucket of forty or fifty centimeters on the mountain and dug a hole in the ground. The depth was just enough to put the bucket. The hunters put the vegetables and meat in it and stored it for a few more days, which was "very interesting".
Maria So is in Tareba. (Photo by Gu Tao)
What really prompted Gu Tao to pick up the camera was emotions. In the camera, the drunk Liu Xia once swung the triangle stool on her younger brother Wei Jia's face. Wei Jia was stunned and did not fight back. She lowered her head with blood on her face: "The Ewenki people respect women." When the silent Maria Soe silently rubbed the flour on her hands when she heard that Gu Tao's father passed away, she went into the tent to stuff Gu Tao a pair of gloves, "This is for your father."
For eight years, Gu Tao has become more like a "living person". "I stayed there not because I was waiting for something to happen, but because I felt like I was in the same fate as them."
"I have never directed it, nor have people acted it. Why did you call me director?"
"Aoluguya Aoluguya" was roughly edited in 2006. Gu Tao sent the film to his teacher Idel , and later Idel gave the film to Li Xianting, who is a contemporary art. Li Xianting said to Gu Tao, "Your movie is an independent movie, you can put it at the Songzhuang Film Festival."
Gu Tao was puzzled in his heart, "What is an independent movie? Is one person independent? What should two people call it?" But he pretended to be calm and responded to it. Speaking of this, Gu Tao suddenly smiled and asked me if young people nowadays like to use the word "independent". In one word, they are "independent photographers", "independent directors", and even "independent writers" and "independent poets". At that time, no one thought this was enough to say.
The independent film at that time was also nicknamed "underground movies". Although many creators still maintain their existing connections with public institutions, such as TV stations and studios, they have gradually begun to shoot more atomic content, caring about the way individuals exist and people are connected. At the same time, the differences within the group are becoming more and more significant.
Gu Tao remembered that at that time, people gathered a table and surrounded the dining table. It is likely that eight of the ten people came from different provinces and industries, let alone professional background. Hu Xinyu, who was later called the "original originator of private images", once taught Italian opera in college; Lin Xin, the director who took root in Tongchuan and spent his spare time filming works such as "Gas" and " Classmate ", was once a bank teller from 9 to 5. Of course, Gu Tao, who cares about the ethnic groups and shamanistic beliefs in the northern border areas, also had clothing photography to make a living. All of these sounds like "documentary". You will never guess what kind of experience the next person who pushes the door will tell you. Stills from the documentary "Classmate".
In this way, the mountain wind in Daxinganling began to blow towards the Central Plains. In 2007, Gu Tao participated in the film exhibition. There are various signatures on the table, " Geng Jun director", "Lin Xin director", " Qiu Jiongjiong director" and "Director Gu Tao". At that time, Gu Tao felt a little embarrassed, "I have never directed it, nor have I ever acted it. I just started the filming. I came back and cut it and connected it together." So I became the director?
accepted this identity, and Gu Tao spent several more years.During this period, someone called him director in public, but no one responded for a long time. Gu Tao didn't know that he was calling him. Compared to "director", Gu Tao felt that he should be called "producer" and documentary producer. But over time, he accepted it, "correct it over and over again, trouble", not to mention that not many people really thought about this title seriously.
What Gu Tao did not expect was that the most difficult thing to adapt to was not the "director", but the identity played by the "director". From then on, no matter at home or abroad, there will always be a link called QA after the movie is played. Some viewers stood up and asked, "What do you think of the nation you filmed?", "What do they think of your film?", and even in the Beijing Book Market event two days ago, there was still a sound during the questioning session, which was transmitted to the other end of the screen thousands of miles away, "How do you think about the relationship between this lost civilization and modern civilization." At first, Gu Tao couldn't answer these questions. "I didn't want them (Ewenki people) to watch my films," Gu Tao felt that the selection of images in the film was tribal life from his perspective, but just one way he looked at it, not the only correct way. He neither needed to agree nor cared about other people's opinions.
"Aoluguya·Aoluguya", written by Gu Tao, Yuefu Culture | Beijing United Publishing Company, July 2022.
After the "Ewenk Trilogy" came out, it was often only screened in the small hall, and the maximum number of audiences was only forty or fifty. Almost ten years ago, a screening curator agreed to discuss a theater chain that he wanted to play "Ban Dahan" and invited Gu Tao to interact on the spot. At that time, the standard for the cinema was 260 people. When Gu Tao arrived, he found that the corridors were all sitting in the corridors, which made him nervous, who was used to seeing small scenes. Unexpectedly, as soon as the lights were dark and the documentary came out, people began to get up one after another before ten minutes, and by the end of the film, there were another forty or fifty people sitting in the hall. I asked Gu Tao, "Are you embarrassed at that time?" Gu Tao said, "I just thought it was fun." Is there such a big difference between a movie that is liked by forty or fifty people and four or five hundred people?
The spiritual nomadity of modern people
Over the years, Gu Tao's life has also begun to shrink to his family. The younger son Xiaohan is about to go to elementary school. He doesn't have that much time. He dives into Aoluguya for many years like he did when he was young. The caravan that stopped and left seemed to be a good choice. "If you don't have enough funds, go home. Go back and save some and then continue." He took pictures and walked along the way, visiting the lost shaman and also searching for old friends.
In recent years, the old friends at the film festivals in the past have also undergone new changes. Huang Xiang from Yiyuan Cinema went to the United States, Cong Feng and Ma Li left Songzhuang, Han Tao returned to Laiwu, Shandong to set up an art museum, Lin Xin held a grandson, and Geng Jun became single again. The new movie " Siberian Tiger " that has been silent for many years won the Dragon Biao and entered the theater. Under the polarized film reviews, Geng Jun still acted the same: "What others commented is his freedom." Speaking of this, Gu Tao looked out the window, "Those people from all over the world really miss them a little."
Perhaps, the caravan has begun to plan the next destination. Before Gu Tao pushed open his old friend's door with questions, we first pushed open his courtyard door:
Gu Tao, an independent documentary director and photographer. In 2003, he filmed his first documentary, "Aoluguya Aoluguya", which won the top ten annual exhibition of China Independent Image Annual Exhibition and the gold medal of the 16th Shanghai International Television Festival. In 2010, the documentary "Hugo's Holiday" was filmed, which won the highest award of the "Asian New Wave" unit of the Japan Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Shinsuke Ogawa Award, and the Asian TV Award Best Documentary Award. In 2013, he filmed the documentary "Bondahan", which won the Best Documentary Feature Award in Phoenix Video Documentary Awards. There are also works such as "Shenyi" and "Ulubu Tie".
Beijing News: After the "Ewenk Trilogy" ("Aoluguya Aoluguya", "Bondahan", and "Hugo's Holiday") came out, many people said that your shooting was a kind of "anthropological image".
Gu Tao: I pay attention to the survival and mental state of northern ethnic minorities in the current society, the relationship between northern ethnic minorities and nature, and the relationship with large ethnic groups. But more than that, I am actually paying attention to a few people, such as the trans group. These are not necessarily anthropological images, they just say that I value human emotions more.
documentary "Hugo's Holiday" scene. The boy in the picture Hugo was sent to Wuxi to school by the foundation since he was a child. During the summer vacation of 2007, Gu Tao took a picture of Hugo meeting his mother Liu Xia for the first time after returning home.
In fact, I have made some scattered responses on many previous occasions. This time, I would like to add a little bit of my new feelings in recent years. In my understanding, anthropology starts from the subject, which means that whether it is the photographer or the recorder, it is walking into a tribal group with specific questions, and the ultimate goal is to respond to these questions. But this kind of "problem awareness" is exactly what I prefer. I care more about the meaninglessness of people in their daily lives. What is important is meeting and getting along, which is the emotional resonance with the protagonist, rather than setting problems in advance.
Beijing News : But in fact, whether the problem is preset or not, the common thing is that it takes a long enough time. In 2005, at the age of 35, you went to Aoluguya alone again, and made up your mind to stay there, saying that you would shoot for ten years. But life has not been many decades, and after that, when the cost of time is repeatedly pushed up, will you be anxious?
Gu Tao: Yes, I will be 53 next year, from 35 to 53 years old, my way of understanding is also changing.
Recently, I am actually trying to change my working style, from a squatting and stacking with time to a nomadic one, extending from space. Basically, our generation of filmmakers are trying to change. For example, Zhao Liang , we talked about this issue a few years ago. He said that it is unlikely that he would spend another ten years shooting topics like petitioning. His energy and mental energy have changed a lot. He paid more attention to using contemporary art to intervene in the expression of works and add more conceptual explanations.
But to be honest, I lack this kind of "concept", so I can only find that transitional zone from my life course. For me, this thing may be "walking", and through "walking", it can form a transmission of experience as much as possible, which is also related to the genes of our ancestors. A shaman map, an independent director map, which is something I want to draw for the rest of my life.
"Diary of Hunter's Life", written by Gu Deqing, Yuefu Culture | Beijing United Publishing Company, July 2022.
Beijing News: Indeed, compared to "squatting", "nomad" shooting sacrifices time. Will this kind of shooting end up being the end? Are you worried that it will lose that power of the documentary itself?
Gu Tao: The question of is very direct, what I want to say is that this must be like this. But what I'm trying to do is a connection with young people. For example, on the shaman map, I will first learn about the folk shamans I will encounter in my walking map, their appearance in their respective regions or territories. They first have a connection with me, which forms a fixed point in the future archives. Maybe, I don’t have enough time to dig deep into every point, but as a brick and jade, I first open a road and paste the road signs on the map. Later people are interested, and then use their time to find their own expressions, enrich the map together, and respond to their respective "nomadities".
When I was young, I was inspired a lot, from my father's book to a movie I accidentally saw at that time. I often feel that a lot of learning does not necessarily happen actively, but more importantly, an environment. Now, I feel more and more that my body is not as obedient as Ao Luguya was when shooting, and I also want to take advantage of my ability to move and leave some gaps in possibility. Stills from the documentary "Aoluguya Aoluguya".
Beijing News: You have repeatedly mentioned the word "nomadity".In your opinion, does "nomad" still have any connection with people today?
Gu Tao: I always feel that, especially since the epidemic, everyone seems to be in a nomadic state now. It is not about the past way of living by pursuing water and grass for survival, but about a kind of psychology. Looking around, you will see that friendship is nomadic, marriage is nomadic, love is nomadic, nomadic, and even in a state of freedom, which is called spiritual nomadic, which is not just what urban people lack. Deep in people's hearts, they have lost a sustenance, and they cannot escape or endure it, so they keep searching. It sounds like they are always on the road, but in fact they are repeatedly expelled in reality, both expelled and self-expressed.
We often say that before the body moves, the mind is far away. Since you are already nomadic psychologically, don't avoid it.
Beijing News: After the publication of the Border Diary Series, will your expression be more tilted towards the text? After trying both, how do you view the relationship between text and images?
Gu Tao: As long as I go out to shoot, I will do some text records. The image is happening on the scene, it is a kind of progressive situation. It seems to be objective, but what if the electricity is gone? Is there not enough belts? So, at that time, I forced myself to write records of more than 500 words every night. I used to think that text is relatively subjective, but after rumination on and landing on paper, it actually reflects another kind of "objective" outside the lens, which truly fills the space that the lens cannot reach.
The expression of this generation has a kind of inward sharpness
Beijing News: In recent years, you have launched several "World Nomadic Film Festivals" in succession, and this year's film festival has just ended. You once said at the opening ceremony that you wanted to use this to provide a chance to be seen for young directors who are difficult to discover at major film festivals. After being exposed to more expressions from the younger generation, how do you view the issues that this generation is concerned about and how they express them?
Gu Tao: First of all, I would like to explain first that the "youth director" I mean does not refer to young people who are physically age-related. You are in your forties or fifties and have been a "worker" for most of your life. Suddenly you want to shoot something, but you are still a "youth director". What we are talking about is the time you enter this field.
016 Inner Mongolia Youth Movie Week. To be honest, I only got into new films after I started film festivals in the past two years. Including when I went to a foreign film festival before, I couldn't understand English and didn't bother to watch the picture. At that time, I was thinking about ending it quickly, and I had to come back to film. But now looking at these, I feel more and more a direct breath that is at the same frequency as the times. That kind of motivation is too similar to us in the 1980s and 1990s, but our vision was not that big at that time. Even if I voted this year, many of the authors are overseas returnees who study movies abroad. Even if they don’t go out, they will find a director he (she) wants to match the benchmark and start imitating it in the first film.
Beijing News: Are the traces of this imitation that obvious in the film?
Gu Tao: (laughs) This is what they said when they came. I just asked tentatively, you are quite like a foreign director. They immediately said, I just like that Dane or XXX...
Beijing News: Some people say that this generation is more imitating, and they always lack their own expressions. What about your feelings?
Gu Tao: No, I can’t talk so early. When you look at calligraphy, didn’t calligraphy be copied at the beginning? At first, you might think that there is always a place or there, why is it just not like it? But as I copied it slowly, I brought out my own things. The same is true for movies. After filming, you will have some new ideas, which is your personal style. When you have no understanding of movies, watching a lot of movies and imitating is indeed a kind of learning. What is important is whether you can get a sense of excitement from it.
Gu Tao and Gu Xue were at the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Nomad Short Film Exhibition.
Beijing News: So what about the topic?
Gu Tao: I don’t know if such an observation is true. My feeling is that the life of our generation and the things expressed always seem to be "not close or far away". Almost all the shootings are "familiar" things, or more accurately, in a relative position between strangeness and familiarity. For example, Xu Tong was able to shoot the "Battler Trilogy", because he himself was like a homeless man, and existed among those groups, but such a group of people is actually a certain distance from his daily life. This is what I always call "breathing". It comes naturally, and there is a rhythm between exhaling and inhaling.
The young generation today always feels that their expressions are more "inward" and have a sharp and sharpness. How do you say this? A considerable number of the films shortlisted for our film festival this year are revealing their own family, which is more direct. In the past, we called this "private image", which actually requires courage. Of course, some people in our generation have tried to shoot such things. For example, Wei Xiaobo, who lives in Hunan now, once photographed the daily life between him and his girlfriend, but it did not form any scale. Moreover, private images at that time rarely discussed intergenerational relationships.
This time, several films talk about the relationship between middle-aged couples, as well as the tension between parents and children, and even bring out discussions on the class. To put it too much, it is interaction with the times. A film that I remember most deeply was that its original intention was to help parents communicate better, but you will see a lot of daily details in it. The deep connection between middle-aged couples has long been broken down, but they still have to maintain a sense of peace in front of their children, but in fact they can't hide it from the children. Yesterday in the yurt, my son and Baofeng's son were playing together. I said you two would show how your parents usually quarrel. The two children are only in the third grade, but they can remember many details. Sometimes we may really ignore the screening of children's perception and memory. Stills from the documentary "Bondahan".
Beijing News: It sounds like this generation seems to be more keen? Is this word appropriate?
Gu Tao: is not completely "sharp". I think it may be, it is more capable of "making". This is not an adjective, but it does feel like that. The so-called "production" means that these videos extend the expression of individual emotions beyond the real scope of recorded reality. A considerable number of films present an invisible inner world through various plot settings, which is "experimental" and is actually very pioneering. Films like
may not be shortlisted at large film festivals, and there may be doubts - do you lack the elements of movies here? What you do is like some PPT? But for us, as long as the photographer is sincere, then those so-called immaturity should be encouraged.
Beijing News: Is there any "immature" that impressed you at this year's film festival?
Gu Tao: What surprised me this year was that the son of Tang Xiaoyan, the protagonist of Xu Tong's film, also started making documentaries. Later I sent him a WeChat message saying that I had watched your son's movie and my eyes were wet. He took a simple photo, saying that his family was like a "prison". He wanted to rush out of the prison and went out to wander with various friends for more than half a month. His camera recorded many details. Later, when he got home, he told his parents that he had found his direction and wanted to make a documentary. Whether it is given to the previous generation or the same age as him, films like
are all good movies. Will you still care about his skills at this time? The radio here is not good, the picture is too shaky - you won't use these things to consider.
Author/Shenlu
Edit/Qingqingzi
Proofreading/Yang Xuli
