Tuya's wedding

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title Tuya's wedding
Original title 图 雅 的 婚事
Túyǎ de hūnshì
Country of production China
original language Mandarin
Publishing year 2006
length 96 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Wang Quan'an
script Lu Wei
Wang Quan'an
production Yan Ju Gang
camera Lutz Reitemeier
cut Wang Quan'an
occupation
  • Yu Nan : Tuya
  • Bater: Bater
  • Sen'ge: Sen'ge
  • Zhaya: Zhaya
  • Baolier: Baolier

The Chinese feature film Tuya's Wedding ( Chinese  圖 雅 的 婚事  /  图 雅 的 婚事 , Pinyin Túyǎ de hūnshì ) from 2006 is set in the northern Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region . Director Wang Quan'an staged the film as a drama with comic elements and tells of traditional shepherds whose way of life is being called into question by rapid economic change as well as by urbanization and ecological problems. Wang cast the role of the self-confident title heroine with the Chinese professional actress Yu Nan , for the remaining roles local Mongolian laypeople were hired. The German Lutz Reitemeier was at the camera . At the 57th International Film Festival in Berlin, the jury awarded the work the main prize, the Golden Bear . The film was released in German cinemas on August 23, 2007.

action

The Mongolian shepherdess Tuya maintains a flock of sheep. She has to look after her two children almost alone and her husband Bater, who had an accident while trying to dig a well and has since been disabled. She pushes her limits every day. In addition, she sometimes picks up her neighbor Sen'ge from the street when he falls off his motorcycle while drunk. The good-natured loser is betrayed by his wife and is secretly in love with Tuya. One day she collapses under the workload and is no longer allowed to do heavy physical work. In this situation she comes up with an unusual solution: She divorces Bater and declares that she is ready for a new marriage, provided that the husband is also willing to take care of Bater.

Mongolian yurt

Numerous interested people come to her, but because of the condition they all refuse. Only Baolier, a former schoolmate of Tuya's who made his fortune in the oil business, goes into this. He puts Bater in a nursing home and has planned a life in his villa for Tuya and her children. But Bater, who lived all his life in the steppe, cannot cope with life in the home and makes an attempt to kill himself. Sen'ge saves him and calls Tuya back, who was on her way to her new home. She renounces her marriage to Baolier and returns to her yurt with Bater . For Tuya the arduous work begins again. To relieve her, Sen'ge begins to build a well for her behind the house so that the exhausting work of getting water is no longer necessary. At first, she reacts with displeasure to his efforts. Finally he makes her an open marriage proposal, but disappeared the next day because his wife turned up in a nearby town. Disappointed, Tuya joins the proposal of a clumsy but well-to-do man who agrees to take care of Bater. The wedding date is approaching soon, the flock of sheep has been sold, when Sen'ge suddenly appears with a truck with drilling equipment. He went to see his wife to divorce her. So Tuya and Sen'ge still marry - but this is clouded by a quarrel between Sen'ge and Bater. Tuya is crying.

To the work

Classification and origin

Director Wang Quan'an belongs to the so-called "sixth generation" of Chinese filmmakers. The achievement of the previous fifth generation consisted in overcoming the Maoist understanding of film as a means of propaganda and restoring its status as an art and personal vision. Its members included artists such as Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou , whose works were widely recognized at Western film festivals from the mid-1980s to the end of the 1990s. Historical fabrics in polished aesthetics were characteristic. The sixth generation can build on this, but relies on an unaffected, documentary style and is dedicated to everyday life in the present. These directors are strongly based on European models such as Italian neorealism and the Nouvelle Vague . They show figures, mostly women, between economic growth and future hopes on the one hand and personal insecurity and hardship on the other. Both Wang's first (2002) and his second (2004) feature film were shown at the Berlinale.

The film was privately financed with no involvement from the Chinese state. It is one of those small productions in China that young filmmakers realize far away from state structures, with modest means and often in the provinces, in order to be left in peace by the censors. The cultural authority sent employees to the shooting, but these mostly young people had no overseer mentality, said Reitemeier. Actual censorship only takes effect when the film is put on the market or registered for a festival abroad. The main role is played by Yu Nan , a professional actress who has already played a role in Wang's two older films. To prepare for her role, she lived with a Mongolian shepherd family for three months, adopted their gestures and learned to ride horses and camels. The others are non-professional actors that Wang recruited around the location. They appear by their real names in the film. As Wang reported, Sen'ge was a married rider with a penchant for grating licorice, a feature Wang incorporated into the narrative. Bater was actually physically disabled. However, they do not speak their usual Mongolian , but the Mandarin taught in school . He wanted to achieve maximum reality with the layman, revealed Wang, but at the same time he needed a professional actor who was able to show the dramatic aspect.

A German cameraman

In addition to documentaries, Tuya's wedding was the fourth feature film that the German cameraman Lutz Reitemeier shot in China, and also his second with director Wang. With this work he earned about half of what he would have got in Germany, there were more assistants available to him than is usual in Germany. Wang used it because there were hardly any cameramen with documentary training in China, because in the course of the Cultural Revolution , propaganda films were made , but no documentaries . Wang himself explained that in the Chinese film people are pushed very far away and cannot be seen. In Tuya's wedding , the camera should come as close as possible to the protagonists, according to Reitemeier, you learn that with documentary films. He used a hand-held camera for emotional scenes, and camera trucks and a crane for landscape shots . “I tended to look for the beautiful views, with the snow-capped mountains in the background, while Wang Quan'an wanted the dryness of the desert.” He persuaded Wang to show the beautiful landscapes for the sake of the western audience. “The Chinese understanding of images tries to keep everything symmetrical and to place the people in the middle. We in the West avoid the middle. ”Rather unusual for sixth generation filmmakers, you could shoot on 35 mm film material - mostly they have to be recorded digitally because it is cheaper, missing filming permits force you to clandestinely and films are developed in the state copier must, what interventions by the censorship made possible. Due to the low temperatures on site, Reitemeier feared that the perforation of the material could become brittle in the camera. During the shoot, he was unable to see the footage for almost three months.

Traditional way of life under pressure to modernize

In Inner Mongolia, the Han Chinese make up about 80 percent of the population, the ethnic Mongols constitute a minority of about 15 percent. Tuya's wedding has an almost ethnological aspect. As Wojtko analyzed, the ostensibly magnificent drawing of the simple pastoral life can suggest that Wang wanted to transfigure it. In fact, the filmmaker raises fundamental questions that he leaves open. Likewise, some critics saw the subject of the film not in the folklore of a form of life, but in its gradual disappearance. It is "one of those films that could be played anywhere where a traditional culture that has grown over centuries is being disintegrated by outside influences, in the many transition zones where yesterday's world meets tomorrow's technical civilization." Understood film in this way, he had external doubts about the modern as well as the tradition, sometimes it was found that Wang chose the narrative perspective of traditional culture and took sides with it.

The director explained the background as follows: “My mother was born near the location in Inner Mongolia. That's why I've always liked the Mongolians, their way of life and their music. When I learned that the massive expansion of industry was making the steppe more and more desert-like and that the local administration was forcing the shepherds to leave their pastures, I decided to make a film that would capture all of this before it finally disappeared. "Many were already withdrawn to the cities. “Material improvement doesn't just create happiness. The film tells what true happiness is. The story takes place in Mongolia, but it could happen anywhere in China. Everyone works hard for a better life, but can you become even happier? ”The economic change is brutal for the individual Chinese because they have to adapt very quickly; what has happened over centuries in the west takes a few years in China. Moral values ​​in particular have collapsed and new ones have to be quickly rebuilt. However, he wanted to make an unobtrusive film that was not a political declaration.

The narrative casually sheds light on the consequences of the Chinese one-child policy , which led to a demographic shortage of women, without addressing the issue directly. The excess of men is expressed in the number of wooers who attend Tuya with their family entourage. He also shows how the desertification of pastureland makes it increasingly difficult for shepherds to survive.

Struggle for survival and comedy

A trample in the steppe.

The main character Tuya reminded some critics of Gong Li in the 1992 film The Story of Qiu Ju . She is solely responsible for ensuring the family's survival. Just as she commands her trample and drives the flock of sheep, she resolutely commands the children and men. Her most important goal is to keep the family together. She has “simply too good a heart”, acts “out of a love that almost corresponds to responsibility, also to care”. But there is no place for feelings and romance in the inhospitable environment, there is a simple pragmatism. For Tuya the behavior of Sen'ge's wife is unacceptable: “A woman who does not have to work and cheats on the husband is an imposition for the shepherdess; a man who drinks his mind, a fool. ”Her own husband Bater, although hardly capable of physical labor, takes care of the children lovingly. Her husband's disability makes her a “free” woman against her will. Wang compared his film with the film Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1979) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , which he values ​​as important and which gave him a lot of impulses. Tuya and Maria are actually quite ordinary women who show the greatest strength of will in difficult situations. Just as Fassbinder's Maria has to prove herself in the economic miracle of the Federal Republic immediately after the war, Tuya is confronted with the hardships of a similar economic upheaval.

The film combines the comedy with the sad. The former is particularly evident in the sequence with the visits of those interested in marriage. The director relies on the basic rules of comedy by having two serious candidates, Shenge and Baolier, who are completely different in character and social status, compete. The German distribution title emphasizes this side of the film, the original title of which means "Tuya's marriage", and brings it closer to comedies such as Muriels Hochzeit (1994). The end of the story is ambivalent and shows Tuya crying, in a "heartbreaking, soul-moon-dark happy ending".

criticism

The "small, great" film deserved the Golden Bear, said the film-dienst about the staging, because it has "material for the very big cinema and has the rare gift of presenting this wonderfully modest, close to life." He tells the varied, surprising and yet coherent plot in a quiet, reduced way. “(...) on the whole, formal minimalism does not become an artificial end in itself or, conversely, a technical deficiency. The distant, straightforward staging outgrows the world it tells about. ”The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung assessed the narrative style in a similar way . Wang does not romanticize poverty and "dissolves (...) the event into brief and apt scenes that hint at a lot without saying too much." The Frankfurter Rundschau also found that "his style, which focuses on simple effects, adapts to the requirements in a moving way of nature and life. ”However, in some places the film falters when it criticizes the seductiveness of women or creates a dispensable, shabby picture of urban life. If most of the critics found the narrative style "entertaining", "dense", "brisk" or driving, Ray missed the necessary speed and criticized too many twists.

Yu Nan, who embodies Tuya, is "overwhelmingly intense" and carries the film with a whole range of emotions. Your Tuya is forced to marry: "This watch as their resistance is transformed under the pressure of circumstances in wild defiance as buckles and rebelled again, and finally adds cunningly to the inevitable, the real spectacle of this film." ( FAZ) The Neue Zürcher Zeitung commented on the amateur actors : “Their lack of acting skills is only evident in a few emotionally dense moments and, by the way, also accommodates the documentary character of the film.” Cinema wished the “touching and humorous” drama a large audience . The emotional world of the likeable characters hardly differed from ours despite the exotic backdrop.

Compared to Wang's two earlier works, epd Film noticed that the narrative structures had become more linear and the images more pleasing. Two reviews drew comparisons with the fairy tale film The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003). Tuya's wedding is aesthetically different, as faces and bodies are more in the focus than folkloric “mood painting” ( Die Presse ) . The NZZ stated that, unlike in the usual Mongolia films such as The Weeping Camel or Urga , Wang does not create an idyll, but rather shows the struggle for survival in memorable images. Others spoke of the “simple, artistic, unsophisticated beauty of the pictures”, saw the “beautiful proof that one can also indulge in a barren landscape”, or found “the arid land and the high sky” bestowed the pictures size.

The unsentimental Wang leaves no illusions that Mongolian nomadic life is doomed, Der Spiegel interpreted . The fact that the film was "regrettable, but inevitable" in Mandarin was explained by the audience in Inner Mongolia, where the Mongols are a minority of less than 20 percent. On the other hand, Die Presse saw a lack of sensitivity towards the population. The strip had "an unpleasant political aftertaste, as it piqued a minority into a successful export good."

Awards

At the Berlinale 2007 , the jury, chaired by Paul Schrader, awarded Tuya's marriage , as the film was still called there, the Golden Bear for best film. Schrader called it "a quiet but powerful film" with "beautiful landscapes of Mongolia". He was also awarded the Ecumenical Jury Prize. At the Chicago International Film Festival , there was the “Silver Hugo” in the “Best Actress” category for Yu Nan and the Jury Special Prize for Wang Quan'an.

literature

conversations

  • With Lutz Reitemeier in der Welt , August 25, 2007, p. 24: "The camera is consecrated on the first day of shooting"
  • With Lutz Reitemeier in the Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 2007, cultural calendar p. 2: The officials played along

Review mirror

positive

Rather positive

Other contributions

  • Nikolai Wojtko: Alone between two men . In: Margrit Fröhlich, Klaus Grenenborn, Karsten Visarius: Made in Chna. The current Chinese cinema in the context of social upheavals. Schüren, Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89472-688-1 , pp. 126-137

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Positif, September 2007, p. 22: Wang Quan'an , Introduction, and Elise Domenach: Le Mariage de Tuya. La mariée était en larmes , in the same issue, p. 23
  2. ↑ Karsten Visarius: Introduction . In: Made in China . Schüren, Marburg 2009, pp. 7–8 and 10
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Gerhard Midding: Tuya's wedding . In: epd Film No. 8/2007, pp. 32-33
  4. ↑ Lutz Reitemeier in conversation with Die Welt , August 25, 2007, p. 24: "The camera is dedicated on the first day of shooting"
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Urs Jenny: Bride to sell . In: Der Spiegel , August 20, 2007, p. 152
  6. ↑ Lutz Reitemeier in conversation with the Berliner Zeitung , 23 August 2007, Kulturkalender p. 2: The functionaries played along
  7. ↑ a b c Jan Schulz-Ojala: A kiss forever . In: Der Tagesspiegel , August 22, 2007
  8. ↑ Yu Nan at the press conference at the Berlinale 2007, included on DVD, 3:20 and 8:50
  9. ↑ a b c Maik Burst: "The heart beats outside". In search of China's “sixth generation”. In: Margrit Fröhlich, Klaus Grenenborn, Karsten Visarius: Made in Chna. The current Chinese cinema in the context of social upheavals. Schüren, Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89472-688-1 , p. 60
  10. ↑ Yu Nan at the press conference at the Berlinale 2007, included on the DVD, 11:20 am
  11. ↑ a b Wang Quan'an in conversation with Positif , September 2007, pp. 27–28: Entretiens avec Wang Quan'an
  12. ↑ a b Lutz Reitemeier in discussions with the Berliner Zeitung , August 23, 2007, Kulturkalender p. 2: The functionaries played along , and with Die Welt , August 25, 2007, p. 24: “The camera is consecrated on the first day of shooting”
  13. ↑ Lutz Reitemeier at the press conference at the Berlinale 2007, included on the DVD, 14:40
  14. ^ Brunhild Staiger, Stefan Friedrich and Hans-Wilm Schütte (eds.): The great China Lexicon. Primus Verlag, Darmstadt 2003, ISBN 3-89678-462-5 , p. 333; Tara Boland-Crewe, David Lea (Ed.): The Territories of the People's Republic of China. Europa Publications, London 2002, ISBN 1-85743-149-9 , p. 221 (based on the 2000 census).
  15. ↑ Nikolai Wojtko: Alone between two men . In: Margrit Fröhlich, Klaus Grenenborn, Karsten Visarius: Made in China. The current Chinese cinema in the context of social upheavals. Schüren, Marburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89472-688-1 , pp. 129-130
  16. ↑ a b c d e f g Christoph Egger: Tuya's marriage, Tuya's marriage . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , August 17, 2007, p. 39
  17. ↑ a b c d Andreas Ungerböck: Tuya's wedding . In: Ray , No. 12/2007
  18. ↑ a b c d e f Andreas Kilb: I don't need Genghis Khan . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 22, 2007, p. 29
  19. ↑ a b c Heike Kühn: The sky over Mongolia . In: Die Welt , 23 August 2007, p. 29
  20. ↑ Wang Quan'an in the film data sheet and in the program booklet (PDF, 225 kB) of the Berlinale 2007. See also his statement at the press conference at the Berlinale, contained on the DVD, 4:20.
  21. ↑ a b Elise Domenach: Le Mariage de Tuya. La mariée était en larmes . In: Positif , September 2007, pp. 23–24
  22. ↑ a b c d Stefan Volk: Tuya's wedding . In: film-dienst No. 17/2007, p. 26
  23. ↑ Focus, August 16, 2007: Berlinale Prize Winner starts
  24. ↑ Wang Quan'an at the press conference at the Berlinale 2007, included on the DVD, 2:40 and 17:30.
  25. ↑ a b c Michael Kohler: A comedy of futility . In: Frankfurter Rundschau , 23 August 2007, p. 33
  26. ↑ a b Cinema No. 9/2007, p. 67: Tuya's wedding
  27. ↑ a b c Markus Keuschnigg: The Mongolian Minority Mascherl . In: Die Presse , December 10, 2007
  28. ↑ Awards of the Berlinale 2007 , accessed on April 29, 2017.
  29. ↑ For the reasons given by the jury, see Asianfilmweb
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on July 16, 2010 in this version .