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Watching Dragon, Hidden Growler |
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INDEX
Many
Chinese and East Asian films are very successful due to their fantastic
creativity and innovation.
Here
are a selection that deserve your attention.
This article was also featured in Chinatown
- The Magazine.
Rawle
Austin presents...
An
Interview with director
Byambasuren Davaa on her latest film.
The
Cave of the Yellow Dog centres around a young girl from a Mongolian
nomad family and is a thought provoking mix of drama and documentary.
It
provides a unique insight into this part of Mongolian life.
It's director, Byambasuren Davaa, was nominated for an Academy Award
(OSCAR) for her previous feature The Story of the Weeping Camel.
The
interview was conducted with the aid of an interpreter (thanks,
Martin) to translate spoken German into English. |
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Rawle
Austin: When and how did you get into film making?
Byambasuren
Davaa: As a child I had a couple of small role in films in Mongolia
so that was my first contact with cinema.
I
worked also in television at that time, presenting a children’s
program.
After
I finished school I went to the film school in Ulaan Bataar, the
capital of Mongolia.
I
wasn’t happy with what they had to offer, particularly in
terms of the technology, so that’s why I went to Germany,
to continue my studies there.
RA: Who inspired you to make movies? |
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BD:
Generally, I’d say the whole question of telling stories actually
came from my grandmother. Because she used to tell us stories every night
before we went to bed.
Going
to bed was exciting because we were waiting for the next story.
And
she would always ask us “what did I tell you yesterday?” Every
day she came up with something new and told us new stories.
It
was a tremendous adventure as a child to hear her stories.
But
in relation to film itself there are many films I admire and filmmakers
that I admire but I can’t really name a specific one or a
specific film that was an inspiration.
RA:
What do you enjoy most about making movies?
BD:
In many ways it’s like a game, at least that’s how I
personally do it when I’m making a film. |
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You
don’t necessarily know where it’s going but, on route, you
get this presence.
These
are things that happen that are just right, in one way or the other, and
what I try to do is then to integrate these into the story, which is like
a kind of game really.
Perhaps
it’s different with the big directors who have their screenplay
and perhaps they don’t have the same sort of fear or fever that
I get in the process of doing it.
What
matters to me is the people, I don’t want to influence them
and say to them “look, you should do this and you should do
that”.
I
want them to tell their own story.
It’s
almost a bit like playing with a toy or a game and at some moment
you now know it’s going to work.
It’s
really a matter of a gut feeling.
RA:
How would you describe ‘The Cave of the Yellow Dog’
to Growlersworld.com readers?
BD:
I’d say that when you look at the poster for the film or the
image for the film you can see there’s this dog.
But
of course the dog isn’t actually yellow, the dog is white
with black patches on it. |
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It’s
a black and white dog but the yellow dog is the thing that the audience
has somehow to find in the film, every member of the audience will find
their own yellow dog in the film.
RA:
Can you describe what it was like working with the Batchuluun
family?
BD:
As already suggested what I tried to do was to fit myself in with their
lives.
I
mean to put it the other way round, the family, the nomads respect
nature and they subordinate themselves to nature.
They
don’t just sort of go out and say, “oh, horrible weather
today, it’s too hot or it’s too cold”.
Instead,
they fit in with the weather as it is and similarly what I wanted
to do when I made the film was to fit in with their rhythm, with
the way that they lead their lives.
Not
make them do things that they wouldn’t normally do, and out
of that came a good degree of trust in the process of making the
film. |
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RA:
What was your favourite experience making this movie?
BD:
I would pick out working with the children was the thing that was particularly
great.
Although
they could be very tough on the nerves at the same time.
I
mean one of them was one and a half, the next one was four and the
eldest was six years old and they all made different demands because
they were such different characters.
And
what was exciting was watching them, observing them and if I put
something there, in the middle, in front of them they’d all
react differently to it in one way and another.
Discovering
them and learning about the children, that was what was really wonderful.
RA:
What are you working on next? |
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BD:
Not sure. Lots of ideas but not sure.
It
always takes some time for something to come to fruition.
RA:
You say every person has their own creativity, what advice would
you give to someone who wants to develop their creativity?
BD:
I couldn’t really give anyone any advice but everyone has
their own history, everyone has their own story and my story is
my capital in that sense.
That
means the bad times as well as the good times and all of it together.
Everybody
has a lot of creative strengths and that’s the point.
RA:
How would you describe today’s Mongolia?
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BD:
Obviously the principal thing I’d pick out is it’s a country
of massive contrasts because you have those who live in the country, the
nomads of course, yes their life have got modern elements in it like the
ladle in the film, the green ladle in the film, but still, that’s
the nomadic life that’s been like that for hundreds of years.
And
then you’ve got the other side which is city life where of
course everybody wants McDonalds or Coca Cola and all the things
like that.
Many
people are looking to the West, so it’s a country of contrasts.
Yes,
tradition and modernity.
RA:
And finally, one of my favourite scenes in the film was
when the old lady was telling Nansa (the young protaganist) the
story about the needle and the rice. I thought that was a very powerful
scene.
BD:
Yes, that’s really, in a sense, the message and the
fable of the film itself. |
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The
old lady tries to demonstrate the value of every single individual life
because the chances of coming back again are so slender that you have
to value it when it’s there.
The Cave of the Yellow Dog was released on 30 June 2006 by Tartan
Films and is now available on DVD.
An
Interview with Bai Ling>
<Dumplings
- A Review
Check out
Dianying.com for an extensive
database of Chinese films.
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