The greatest travelogue I have ever seen! It is amazing and tremendously reassuring, that one of our own Chinese film directors is exhibiting such humanist depth.
This is one of the documentaries that are actually made as if it were a feature film, complete with carefully sought-out characters, atmosphere, and recurring themes, albeit with a horizontal "plot" development; but those familiar with art-house films should not find that out of joint. The choice of characters is simply mesmerizing, be it the 84-year old priest, smiling awawy his decades of sufferings, or the 104-year-old tough granny talking about her men, or the non-too-clever wife-sharing brother who nevertheless believes deeply in family values, or the 82-year-old merchant who talks of his past as if it were a different life, or the beautiful Tibetan girl whose life seems doomed to be a tragedy unravelling...... Reality is indeed far more interesting than fiction, and who are we to patronize those fate we could very well fall into, but for God's grace (I am no Christian; just rhetorically)?
The film perfectly captures the (now-strange-sounding) feeling of 旅途况味, the wonderful being-there, live-in feel, and the stillness of life in border territory, the boredom, and the monotoneity, that we come to appreciate only when we return from the trips to ordinary life. One almost physically senses the endlessness of the day, and the way time weighs on your hands.
田壮壮 has proved himself as one director of his generation who has NOT sold out. The only one, by my count.
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