>> Catalog 2001

Days in Those Mountains

CHINA / 2000 / Chinese / Color / Video / 162 min

Director, Script, Photography, Editing, Producer: Wang Haibing
Assistant Director: Gu San
Sound: Zhu Guanghao
Music: Ling Youping, Ling Yaping
Narrator: Jiang Lu
Production Company, Source: Sichuan TV Station
World Sales: Zhu Guanghao, Sichuan TV Station
No. 40, Dongsheng Street Chengdu, Sichuan, 610015 CHINA
Phone: 86-28-6643413 Fax: 86-28-6635195
E-mail: senser@elong.com

Deng and his family live in a remote village deep in the Daba mountains of China’s Sichuan province. From 1968 to 1999, Luo visited this village to meet Deng and his friends, and was welcomed by the whole village. We see scenes of roadwork undertaken by the whole village, a traditional marriage ceremony and the innocent, smiling faces of the local children. This film evokes Luo’s paintings while often gently describing the villagers’ daily lives as they unfold against the backdrop of the four seasons.

[Director’s Statement] This story about mountain villagers unfolds around the artistic activities of Chinese painter Luo. The hero, Deng, is the grandson of the model for Luo’s oil painting Father. We concentrate on Deng’s family and truthfully record the bits and pieces of their daily life in order to achieve an understanding of the basic social unit in the countryside: the family. Apart from this, we also highlight another figure, Dagui, the village leader, through whose activities we outline grassroot social organization in the countryside, namely the farm-collective.

The Daba Mountains in the hinterland of China have retained their naturalness, and the living conditions, ways of behavior, thinking and emotional life of peasants in the mountains are tinted with a distinct cultural characteristic which represents rural life in China and the essence of life for generation after generation of Chinese people in their growth, change and struggle.

This film is conceptualized in the framework of our concerns and thoughts over the connections between the persistence of the timeweathered spiritual integrity in the people and drastic changes in the social life. We endeavor to make a detailed record of the life, work and affection of the mountain villagers, through which we express our concerns for the destiny of the ordinary people, our thoughts about the grassroot communities in the social life of China, as well as the inalienable relationship between humans and their homeland. Meanwhile, we also hope that the integration of art and life in the film spark people to think and to reach a sublimation of affection.

Wang Haibing Born in 1956. Deputy director of the International Department of Sichuan TV and a senior journalist. Graduated from the TV department of Beijing Broadcasting Institute majoring in photography. Has worked in TV news and documentaries for 18 years. More than sixty of his works have been awarded over eighty prizes at the provincial level, fifty national prizes and many honors in international film festivals. Representive works include Families of Northern Tibet (1991), The Boatman of the Baili Gorge (1993) and Returning Home (1995).