Director's Notes丨Huawu Village: Under the cliff, melodious Miao songs

Introduction to the editor and director

Zhou Xiaoxiao, editor and director of the "Remembering Nostalgia" column group

Representative works: "Zunyi - the Eternal Loyalty City at the Turning Point of the Revolution" and "Cuo Mai Village - The fragrance of highland barley under the blue lake" and so on.

"Returning home is like a dream, melancholy sinking into the waves of ink, thousands of miles of countryside are all captured in the frame of the camera.

——Zhou Xiaoxiao"

Melodious Miao songs under the cliff

In December 2021, we walked into this small village hidden under the cliff for the first time. The first sigh we uttered at that time It's "It's great to live here!"

If I could use one word to describe Wah Uk Estate, it would be, beautiful! The scenery is so picturesque that we feel like we are in the painting. Follow the spacious village road along the river and arrive at the relocation site for poverty alleviation. There are 34 neat and exquisite residential houses in northern Guizhou, scattered beside the clear water and green mountains, in the lush greenery. It is nothing more than the imaginary paradise. If you only take a quick glance like this, many people can't help but sigh, how happy the Miao people living here are.

But as we got to know this village bit by bit and walked into these cliffs step by step, we gradually felt the true situation of the people here - difficult!

The peaceful, quiet, and peaceful scene before us today is the result of the hard work of generations of Huawu people and local poverty alleviation cadres. In the long years, in the changing of the sun and the moon, they continued to challenge the cliffs and moved forward resolutely on the difficult and dangerous road, so that the beauty here had a soul and flesh and blood.

During the ten days of filming, we walked through muddy and rugged mountain roads, climbed through dangerous paths less than one meter wide on cliffs, and climbed through rock walls that almost required us to climb up with our limbs pressed against the rocks. , experienced a series of problems such as fear, collapse, and physical exhaustion. However, this was only about ten days of filming. Over the past 300 years, generations of the Miao family living here have been facing such difficulties and obstacles.

When tracing the history of the village, we found that the relevant records and documentation were not very detailed. How the Miao people, who were the first to come here, built their homes in such a difficult situation, we don’t know the detailed process. But we found that there are silent records on their bodies. The flowers, birds, fish and insects embroidered on their clothes are the natural world in which they live; the folds on their skirts record every mountain they climb. Although these are not as detailed as words, they are worn on their bodies, engraved into their lives, and unforgettable.

In the 1970s, in order to irrigate the mountain fields, villagers had to dig a canal on the cliff. Because the project was extremely difficult, some people died. In order to tell this story better, we went to the place where the story took place and filmed in the most dangerous tunnel in the middle of the cliff. Shooting on the cliff was far more difficult than we imagined. One side was a vertical cliff, and the other side was a thousand-foot abyss. The narrowest part of the road under our feet was less than one meter wide, and it was rugged and overgrown with weeds.

After finally reaching the tunnel, before we could breathe a sigh of relief, we faced a new problem. The tunnel is extremely narrow. The lowest point is only about half a meter high. At the narrowest point, you can only squeeze through sideways. Several "XXXL" camera teachers and sound recording teachers in the film crew can only crawl through on their knees.

After shooting this scene, on the way back, when I looked back from a high place, I saw a stunning scene of "all the traces of people disappeared". And this stunning scene is also the desperate situation where the Miao family has been digging canals for five years, fearing death.

It was already five o'clock in the afternoon when we returned to the nearby villages and towns. Along the way, the person that our film crew admired the most was the protagonist of the story, Yang Siyu. The old man is 80 years old. We are more worried about his physical condition and whether he can complete this shooting. But in order to tell this story, the old man walked all the way on the cliff and kept saying, "I have no problem, it's nothing for us to walk this way."

"The old man hid his fatigue, and his face was full of perseverance and tenacity. From him, we saw the bloody character of the Miao family shaped by the accumulation of time and natural hardships.

Another paragraph deeply touched us. It is the story of relocation for poverty alleviation. There are more than 30 local villagers living in a mountain depression called Mawozhai. When village tourism began, the more than 30 households in Mawozhai still lived without water, electricity and water. Life in Tongtong. When we first walked into Mawo Village, it was hard to believe that this was where they lived 5 years ago.

However, the spacious new homes in the relocation site for poverty alleviation have been built. At that time, many of the people living here were unwilling to move out and live in beautiful new homes. Why were they unwilling to live in beautiful two-story buildings and live a convenient life with complete water, electricity, roads and facilities? We initially expected it to be a shocking reason.

During the process of filming the old site of Mawo Village, we found the answer to the question. We met many people when entering and leaving Mawo Village. As the villagers walked in and out of Mawo Village carrying baskets on their backs, we learned that although all the villagers in Mawo Village have now moved out, some villagers are still growing vegetables and raising chickens and cattle in their original yards.

In the process, we gradually understood that the people living here have been connected with this mountain for generations, and this is the home they built with their own hands. No matter how dangerous the environment is, this is home.

After filming this program, the deepest feeling is that we, as documentary creators, sometimes have to put aside some personal-based thinking and judgment. , learn to let go of inherent logic, I often joke with myself, empty out my soul first, and then put myself among the mountains, rivers, fields, and people I want to walk into, and see through their eyes. To think, to understand.

Editor | Li Yuting