On the Mountain

The future for farming and countryside life does not look very positive all over the world. But for now, the countryside still offers plenty of inspiration for film. In the visually impressive and -thanks to its almost documentary, calm approach -very convincing film début by Zhu Chiannming, not much is said. But On the Mountain is not boring for a moment. Zhu, who himself operated the camera, focuses on a simple kind of people, in this case in a not-precisely-named Chinese province. Protagonist Bang and his family live on the mountain. They earn their living by planting tea. It is a life filled with handiwork that has been carried out in the same way for centuries: endlessly planting tea, fishing, cutting down trees, chopping wood, etc. Time passes. Autumn has come and Bang’s life is not uneventful: one of his friends leaves, another dies suddenly. In addition, Bang’s secret passion for a girl ends before it has blossomed in any way. A simple, benign existence, that is disrupted when a policeman comes round because of a breach of the strict laws on having babies. The fine is impossibly high for the family. But even so, time continues to pass, the way snow falls to the ground.