Chinese film critic went to the Shaolin monks for healing and made her debut movie
[ad_1]
The best thing in the program of the 45th MIFF, which is taking place these days in Moscow, is documentary films. Game pictures globally lose to him in all respects. Thanks to documentaries, you can make a trip to the Shaolin monks, to the village film festival, to the natives of the Amazon.
The Brazilian film “Inventing the Other” by Bruno Jorge participates in the out-of-competition program “Free Thought”. For two and a half hours, the audience, along with the characters, make a dangerous journey through the Amazon rainforests, where, by decision of the Brazilian government, an expedition led by Bruno Pereira was sent in 2019 to search for the indigenous population. People there live like primitive tribes, and it is not so easy to establish contact with them. Aborigines walk naked, tying up intimate places in a special way, eat the fruits of peach palms, roast monkeys on a spit, which look like people on a spit. At the same time, children constantly carry small cubs on their shoulders. A monkey is to them what a teddy bear is to a city kid. During the time the film is on, you are physically tired of the hubbub of the characters, their inexplicable behavior, sometimes aggression. And the members of the expedition absorb it all around the clock, keeping calm. They save the natives from disease, defeating mistrust and fear. It is impossible to break away from the very flow of outlandish life, you sit and freeze from what you see. At the end of the film, Pereira is reported to have been killed. Not by locals, but by poachers.
In the documentary film competition, the world premiere of the film “Fathers” by Alexander Sokurov’s student Yuri Mokienko took place. By first education, he is a sound engineer, works as a computer graphics artist, took part in the creation of the painting “Fairy Tale” by his master. A documentary comedy about his family: his father, older brother, his wife and children living in the village, Yuri shot in 2021 without any funds. “These are all my relatives. They live in the Pskov region, arrange crazy holidays. My father had a great-grandson yesterday,” Yuri told us. His father Mikhail Mokienko studied acting under Igor Vladimirov. The eldest son Nikita constantly turns to him as a writer, urging him to compose stories. He himself is a theater producer, travels around the country with children’s performances. Together they shoot a film on the phone, organize the first inter-village children’s film festival, which will be held this year for the third time. The festival even gained international scope, as it featured a film from Ireland. At the festival, amateur films made by children or adults with their participation are shown in a clearing for a dozen local residents. Brother’s wife – clowness Olga Tirskaya. She is very good in the amateur film and appears in the forest in the form of a guide. For what? Yes, it’s just that amateur filmmakers had only such a form available. The heroes are making movies, and Yuriy Mokienko is already filming how they do it. Someone compared him with Alexei Fedorchenko, but he had not seen any of his films. And Tarkovsky turned out to be not the person and director in which Yuri “finds fuel”.
I ask if Sokurov forbade viewing his paintings while studying in the St. Petersburg workshop, as it was on his Kabardino-Balkarian course. “Forbidden, but we sometimes broke the rule. Now I can admit it. I know that in Nalchik the guys even stayed overnight at the university, they had a bed there. We have a slightly different education, it is like an additional education, and we didn’t spend so much time together, ”Yuri explained.
We were the first viewers of the film “In the Shaolin Temple” by director and film critic Hongyun Sun from China. She is an assistant professor at the Chinese Film Institute, PhD, lecturer in New York, and has written a study on the new Western documentary. “In the Shaolin Temple” is her directorial debut, which was made possible by depression. It was necessary to somehow change the situation, and our guest went first to the monasteries of Beijing, then to Shaolin, where through spiritual practices and martial arts they come to enlightenment. There are many guests in the monastery, including one of the heroines of the painting, anthropologist and graduate student Marta from Serbia. She is 26 years old, and she lived in a monastery for three years, studying practices for her dissertation. “I was in a depressed state of mind, I wanted to become impassive like monks, so I went to Shaolin, where they train their body and soul,” Hongyun Sun told us. And that saved me. Once there were exclusively secret practices. Now monks all over the world give performances, demonstrating their dexterity. About 300 monks live permanently in Shaolin. On May 1, for the holiday, about 30 thousand guests come there. And around the monastery there are martial arts schools, where 30-50 thousand students each. The monks communicate with the laity, but there are areas where outsiders are not allowed to enter. Monks meditate 49 days a year, and any contact with them is interrupted. There are masters who practice martial arts picturesquely. Many people dream of becoming like Jackie Chan. But they didn’t interest me. Much more important were the aspirations of the monks. I am a scientist and researcher. Do women have problems in the monastery? Shaolin monks are well educated and immediately stand out. Any conflicts are quickly resolved. The monks do not go outside the monastery. Each of them has a Buddha in their heart, and it is felt. You saw in my film how they train with boxes, which are a symbol of fate, the limitations of existence.
The spectacle of the coffin-like boxes that the monks enter makes a strong impression. And the boys who got into the monastery, as a rule, have a difficult fate. One of them is a calligrapher, and once saved on everything, even washing his hair, to save money. Children and adult monks live in silence, are engaged in self-improvement, and the development of martial arts is associated with physical pain for them, bringing teenagers to tears. “For four years I shot a picture,” says Hongyun Sun. “The first year was spent getting to know the monks and gaining their trust. I became a part of their private lives, but I didn’t use footage from that period in the film.”
The 17-year-old hero of the film lost his father at the age of four. The man died at work. Mother married someone else. Soon the guy is 18, and, according to Chinese law, he can become a monk. With this, he comes to his grandparents, who do not approve of the choice of their grandson. The upset grandfather declares that they are nobody else to each other, and this is a dramatic moment, the resolution of which we do not know. “When a person goes to a monastery, he leaves his family, encounters resistance from loved ones, because he deprives them of the possibility of procreation,” Hongyun Sun explained to us. It’s not easy for young people in China. They are under a lot of pressure and many go to temples, which is not forbidden.”
Newspaper headline:
The monkey became a teddy bear and a treat
[ad_2]
Source link
