“Always”, which was wonderfully presented in a picturesque cinematic filming, offers a contemplative look and a patient in the life of a teenager in the rural areas of China. But poetry is not limited to the words of the protagonist, which appears as intertwined all over the movie; It is also present in the pictures taken from him, his family and his colleagues in the classroom, his small village and their people. This is an amazing and amazing appearance of director Diming Chen, which should be created as a new and vital voice in this documentary.
The film opens in colors, then turns black and white as if to return to a more innocent time. Later in the movie, the color, the unsaturated and the fainting returns although it is beautiful, and it represents the passage of time. Chen, who works as his own cinematic photographer, continued the protagonist Gong Yunb from the age of 9 to 13 years. In this picture of the slide of life, Chen explains how childhood experiences can form a person, explaining how childhood passion can broaden his horizons without being in a state of life invitation.
The director wanted to make a movie about poetry. Then Gong decided to stop writing. This initial instinct remains intact, as the images that he took keep the hair aura. This change, of course, allowed the inclusion of Gong’s colleagues in the chapter, making a more expansionist movie as a group of teenagers finds their voices and is affected by the terrain and the economic hardship of their surroundings. Whether confronting their difficult facts or fleeing to a world of dreams, their poems always give their “beating heart”.
However, Gong is still in the middle of the story. He lives in a multi -generational family with his father and grandparents. Patriarch amputated his arm in an accident that hindered his ability to provide his family. The three generations work together, at home, on the farm and in the fields. They may live in poverty and search for government subsidies, but this is a family with perseverance and humor. Gong and his family members realize film makers, to mention the filming, yet they remain largely unconscious in front of the cameras. The film does not ask for sympathy for this family or presents it as pity things. Instead, it appears patience for them to live and flourish despite hardship.
The clear shock in Gong’s life is the fact that his mother escaped when he was very young. Although implicitly she may have wanted to escape from the harsh economic conditions that her husband’s disability has exacerbated, the answer is never clear. In an impressive scene, Chen asks him about his mother, with the camera that follows him escapes and try to hide under the rest of the straw. Gong may not be able to clarify the effect of this abandonment of words, but “always” makes it painfully clear.
This film is also about the landscape and the environment. The camera takes the hardest in the vicinity of Gong: fields of crops, half -super -fogy mountains, insects move in the soil, and the faint dust of the stars at night. The most passionate, it shows the elements that these people work with. The earth gives them life. There is no educational change on climate change. “Always” shows that the Earth and what you give is how people flourish. Some of these simple beautiful pictures look like the paintings come in life shortly on the cellular. Dialogue is separate in this slow cinema exercise. It may experience patience but also reward those who surrender and embrace its rhythm, and take their time to look at each of its beautiful tools.
When using both words and pictures as hair, Chen made a movie about the end of childhood that beautifully embodies this stage in all its complexity and beauty.