“Soil” to the extreme is the “true”

Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “drama focal line” (ID: TVfocus), Author: drama focal line editorial department.

Wen丨Cai Jingling

Edit丨Zhang Fengyi

Douban has a score of 9.1, and the score of more than half of the episodes on the air has risen to 9.4. This tribute drama celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party-“Mountains and Seas”, changed the trend of the main theme of the sluggish theme, and it was still ranked as a hot book on Douban for nine days. The top of the audiovisual chart.

According to data from China’s ratings, the poverty alleviation dramas that have been broadcast in 2020 are mostly waist dramas, lacking hit dramas and head dramas, and the overall situation is stable. In addition, there are 43 major themed dramas to be broadcast this year, and many other works are in preparation and creation.

The main melody track is crowded, and the theme of poverty alleviation is mostly. How does “Mountain and Sea Love” stand out, with both popularity and reputation? Under the grand story, “The Love of Mountains and Seas” begins with small characters, with dialect stalks throughout, touching people’s hearts with the real background and story, and breaking the big theme with small cuts.

1

Farewell to the symbolization of tool people

Small people build large group portraits

The “mountain” in “Shanhaiqing” refers to the town of Minning in Ningxia, while the “sea” refers to the coastal Fujian province. “Affection” is the mutual assistance between the two of them 2000 kilometers apart, which lasted 20 years.

Under the guidance of the national policy and the counterpart assistance from Fujian, the poor people in Xihaigu area of ​​Ningxia were relocated, overcoming all difficulties and turning the “dry beach” into a “golden sand beach”, thus getting rid of poverty and becoming rich. This is the main story of “Mountain and Sea”.

The Xihaigu area of ​​Ningxia in the 1990s was historically known as “the barren and barren world” and was named “one of the most unsuitable areas for human survival” by UN experts.

At that time, the Xihaigu area of ​​Ningxia was drought and water shortage, and the people lived in extreme poverty. So poor that the three brothers have only one pair of pants, and they need to take turns to wear them when needed; so poor that for a donkey and a water cellar, the father will cruelly force his daughter to marry.

In order to change the poverty situation, the state encourages villagers to “diaozhuang emigration”. The so-called Diaozhuang is to mobilize villagers in poverty-stricken areas deep in the mountains to emigrate to the plains near Yinchuan, and then divide a piece of land for production and development and rebuild their homes.

The starting point of “Diaozhuang” is good, but the process of “immigration” is more difficult than clearing monsters. When the villagers of Yongquan Village came to their new home “Golden Beach Village” with longing and hardships, they found that the deserted Gobi Desert in front of them had nothing but sandstorms, and the conditions were even more difficult than before. Therefore, the villagers who had just moved here did not pass a few days. They all ran back.

The story began here, and all kinds of characters appeared in the land of Yongquan Village. There are basically two groups of people in the play: poverty alleviation cadres and villagers. The former requires inter-provincial collaboration and ideological work for villagers; the latter focuses on ideological growth and changes.

Ma Defu (played by Huang Xuan) is the central figure in the group portrait. This agricultural school graduate from Yongquan Village has dark skin and dry lips, but his eyes are bright and he is aggressive in doing things. Ma Defu, who wanted to give back to his hometown, was determined to pull the whole village out of the poverty pit after hearing the words of Director Zhang “Screw the south of the Yangtze River”.

A young man under the age of twenty is riding a two-eight bar bike on the yellow sand, and he will be greeted by unknown sand and flying rocks on the road to poverty alleviation.

Ma Defu’s father, Ma Huashui (Zhang Jiayi), is the acting village head of Yongquan Village. He has a shaggy beard and a crooked hat. He often has a leaf in his mouth when talking with villagers. An authentic Northwest dialect cursing, he looks like an old farmer who grew up in the countryside. But he is shrewd and capable, with a knife-mouthed tofu heart, so he is very popular.

On the other side, the villager’s head is headed by Li Dayou (You Yongzhi), He ran away with the first batch of hanging villagers, screaming “If you don’t go or go, don’t go”, the image of Diaozhuang nail households suddenly appeared on the screen.

Some villagers said that they have trachoma, and they burst into tears when encountering a sandstorm; some people complained that there are so many and poisonous mosquitoes, people used to improve the food for the mosquitoes; some said that they were too hungry and vomited. The acid water spit out sour in my heart; in order to detail the shortcomings of Jintan Village, some villagers even came to a stand-up comedy: One wind a year, from spring to east, strong winds three or sixty-nine, small winds every day…< /p>

The difficulties of the “diaozhuang immigration” policy and the poverty alleviation work of a few small people can be seen from this. Ma Defu couldn’t help but doubt himself, “Obviously it is to persuade others to live a good life, why is it so difficult?”

Li Shuihua (Reyiza), who contracted the audience’s tears in the play, is a stubborn, strong, filial and kind person. She was supposed to study and have a bright future, but was sold by her father. Obviously you can fly far away, but for the sake of her father, she still chose to return to the village to marry. When she saw the blessing of her childhood sweetheart, Li Shuihua’s sad smile caused the audience to cry.

Grand theme, civilian perspective. Starting from the stories of ordinary people and the daily lives of small characters, “Shan Hai Qing” uses daily expressions to show contradictions and conflicts in the short plot of the parents, and the characters live the story.

The drama created by the children’s escape, the “fraudulent marriage” turmoil, the villagers’ meeting, and the game between several groups of people and forces created an immersive look and feel for the audience.

2

Dialect attribute bonus

The main melody sinks to the ground

There have been many poverty alleviation dramas in the past two years, but few have been out of the circle. While grasping the main tone, how to balance drama, popularity and visibility is a difficult point in reflecting the grand theme. If you are not careful, the story will fall into the stereotype and appear rigid and boring.

“The Love of Mountains and Seas” attempts to balance the theme of the theme and the interpretation of the drama. Let the main theme of the story sink, become down-to-earth and the audience loves to watch, dialect is the best auxiliary. Dialects condense the local customs and customs of a place, and some native dialects and rough words only appear rude and cute when spoken in dialects.

In the play, Chen Jinshan (Guo Jingfei), a cadre of Fujian aid to Ningxia, appeared on the scene and the hot-mouthed Fujian Mandarin and Northwest dialect met each other and contributed a lot of jokes.

Chen Jinshan came to the police station when he encountered a thief on the train and made a joke because of his accent when he stated what happened. “Young lang (person) steals bags… It’s not easy for the old professor to run around in the Yellow River Basin.” “Suicide? Who committed suicide?” “Professor! That’s his task!”

Chen Jinshan referred to “sand control” as “suicide”, so things became weird: the old professor came all the way to Ningxia to commit suicide, and it was his task? The local police and Chen Jinshan had difficulty communicating, so they called Ma Defu, who could speak Mandarin. Fujian Mandarin meets Northwest Mandarin, and the tension in the drama is stretched.

The organizers revealed that in terms of dialect details, a similar reality did exist back then: Fujianese did not understand the local dialect after they came to the northwest, and the locals did not understand Fujian dialect. Therefore, the first hurdle for poverty alleviation workers is the language hurdle.

Second level: Sandstorm

It is worth mentioning that most of the starring actors in the play are from the northwest. For example, Huang Xuan, the actor of Ma Defu, is from Lanzhou, Gansu, and the old opera bones of the “Northwest Gang”: Zhang Jiayi, the actor of Ma Huanshui, and the county chief’s Played by Yan Ni. One side of water and soil nurtures one side of the people, and the yellow earth has pure Northwestern dialect, and “Mountain and Sea Love” has its soul all at once.

Because of the vast area of ​​the Northwest region, “ten li with different accents”, the pan-Northwest dialect is used in the play. In order to take care of the TV viewers who do not watch the subtitles, the main creative team used 10 days to urgently prepare the Mandarin version, but it was this version that caused controversy.

Obviously it is a standard Putonghua, but I have to say: “Listen to your accent, are you from Fujian?” The details in the Mandarin version are not very persuasive and easy to make. People play. Many viewers said: Watching “Mountain and Sea Love” is still a dialect versionJin, the Mandarin version “is out of taste”.

In fact, many of the dramatic conflicts in “Mountains and Seas” are demonstrated through dialect collisions. Dialect stems not only make the theme of poverty alleviation lively and interesting, but also closer to the trajectory of people’s struggle in that era. In the Mandarin version, it was the unique regional culture and life atmosphere of the Northwest that was removed, which was criticized by the audience.

It’s a pity that when the show was first broadcast on Dragon TV, Beijing Satellite TV, and Zhejiang Satellite TV, it was broadcast in Mandarin with dubbing. Southeast TV and Ningxia Satellite TV broadcast the dialect version, so the audience joked that they “will usher in the peak of Taiwan broadcasting with the dialect version.”

3

The culture breaks the circle of serious subjects

Reality leads to empathy

As the main theme and serious theme, “Mountain and Sea” has its own circle and threshold for viewing. The biggest problem is how to adapt to the audience’s watching habits and break the circle. In this regard, “Mountain and the Sea” uses real background narratives and real stories to win word of mouth with a sense of authenticity, arouse empathy and resonance, so as to harvest “tap water” audiences, step by step toward breaking the circle.

In 2018, a short documentary-“The Story of Minning Town” was quietly launched, telling the story of the poverty alleviation and immigration area in Ningxia, from a barrenness of “no flying birds in the sky, no grass growing on the ground, wind blowing sand and stone” It has developed into a characteristic town with more than 60,000 permanent residents.

Just a few minutes is simple and shocking. Many viewers expected it to expand into a growth film, and “Mountain and Sea Love” came into being, and the people and things on this land began to become familiar.

Screenshot of “The Story of Minning Town”

The endless yellow land and mountain nests, the gray-faced locals, poverty and backwardness take root here. The screenwriter Wei Xi revealed on Weibo that although “Mountain and Sea Love” is an original script, most of the plots in the play are true stories.

“It’s true to exchange my daughter for a cellar for a large animal;It’s true that the only remaining thatch on the top of the hill is filled with kangs for heating and beaten to bloodshed; it’s true that a family only has a pair of pants who wears them when they go out; it’s true that a family dragged all their belongings for seven days and nights to reach Yuquan Camp. Really, and all their belongings are a few picks, baskets and some rations…”.

It is these objective dilemmas that highlight the significance of poverty alleviation and impress the audience. In the real-time Weibo, there are many “tap water” viewers who are praised. The non-local audience is talking about “good-looking”, “upper” and “surprise”, while the local audience is more sympathetic and memory.

In the Douban Hot Comment, while expressing their impressions, local audiences also used the plot to tell the story of themselves and this once barren land.

“I have witnessed the poverty, backwardness and ignorance that happened in rural Gansu.” “I was born in 86 and lived in such an adobe house when I was a child. There are often sandstorms in winter.” “As a member of Xihaigu, I really want to say that the details and the local situation are very real”…

For a long period of time, television was almost full of bright urban elites, and the down-to-earth and vivid rural stories were not seen. What is the countryside like? What was the countryside like in the 1990s? What is it called “the most unsuitable area for human survival”?

The Yongquan Village in “Mountain and Sea” is not a virtual environment after beautification. A character with a local accent and a black face, and the background of the Gobi Desert, the true story reproduces the poor life of that era. Regardless of the disputes over dialects, as a tribute drama, “The Love of Mountains and Seas” should be seen as the connection between the mountains and the sea in the cross-domain era.