(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Up the Mountain gives a glow into a China that is probably unknown to most. The majority of the films about China today focus on cheap labor, human rights violations as well as the country's growing economic power and position as the world's largest commodity producer. These are important issues, but the unidirectional focus has made it difficult to see China from other angles. Zhang Yang's film breaks with this one-sided approach, reminding us that all countries – including China – carry different and complex narratives.
Up the Mountain is a portrait of a quiet village life in Yunnan Province, a place where culture is ubiquitous and the rhythm of life follows the rhythm of nature. Using multiple cameras and precise picture frames, this portrait is idyllic without idealizing it. The film sets aside condemnation and politics to tell a sincere story of fellowship and warmth, a story that evokes both inspiration and a real sense that everything is possible.
The heart of the local community
Artist Shen Jianhua, who left Shanghai in favor of a life at the top of the mountain, is the hub of the film, as fatherly and wise as he is enigmatic. He teaches art to the villagers and, together with his pregnant wife and teenage daughter, builds a home that quickly becomes the heart of the local community, a place where people come and go, meals are prepared and new artists are formed. Each fragment of this life is summed up in paintings and drawings; it creates a sense of an immediate connection between art, reality and storytelling. Yang's camera has an impeccable sense of timing when capturing these moments. Each scene is taken from multiple angles, with an atmosphere reminiscent of fiction films, while creating a sense of true intimacy.
The portrait of life in Yunnan Province is idyllic without idealizing.
Most of the artwork featured in the film is painted by a group of female folk artists who live further down the mountain side, but who spend the days in Jianhua's home circuit. They dress in traditional costumes and are always together – they appear almost as one character when they talk, sing, and paint the village life on their canvases. The women are the central characters in the film, along with Dinglong, a young schoolboy who stands at a turning point in life. He loves to paint and stay in Jianhua's house, but his father threatens to break up the life he lives by insisting that he must get married. Dinglong isn't sure if that's what he wants, at least not yet.
The ambivalence of change
Together, the young man and the older women represent archetypal villagers, at each end of adulthood. The women are the traditional bearers and show the beauty of living life, but also allow for reflections on the conventions and cultural symbols of a slowly declining China.
The young college boy belongs to another generation: His peers move to the city, where they get the opportunity to explore things other than village life. Despite Dinglong's love of art – and the gratitude of the environment that enabled him to cultivate it – he later succumbs to the same dynamic forces that cause so many young people to follow the dream of urban life. Thus, the young doctor boy becomes a face of the youth of a changing China; they constitute the generation that leaves home simply because they cannot stay and because they are unable to get rid of the feeling that life takes place elsewhere. Their youthful power drives them to challenge the boundaries of the communities that shaped them, and to be enticed by the city's airspace that life can offer so much more.
The urban landscape may have its charm, but living in line with the traditional, natural lifestyle should be more valued in today's society. Regular respite and a slower pace are a rare luxury, and Up the Mountain captures the atmosphere of this often underrated world of subtle joys and emotions. And strangely enough; the world Yang portrays is as specific as it is universal. When it comes down to it, a version of this village exists in most places on the globe. It is a universally lost paradise in the grip of change, which is subject to changing social values and priorities – the removal of the old to make room for the new. It is difficult to resist this attraction, but one cannot live a fast, urban life while enjoying the tranquility of the village. The village is left to the old and the eccentric, while for the young, success means chasing after urban dreams – at times perhaps in conflict with the inner longings of the heart.
