In the summer of 2016, director Zhu Jie carried a camera into a gathering of children with rare diseases called the "Porcelain Doll Conference". He was originally invited by a friend to shoot materials, but he was struck by a special figure at the scene - a five-year-old girl named Linglong, who used her arms to support her body and "ran circles" back and forth in the venue, smiling all the time. When the atmosphere of the entire venue seemed depressed and tired because of the illness, only she was like a ball of fire. "At that moment, I was actually deeply attracted to the little girl."
Over the next three days, Zhu Jie's camera was unconsciously always searching for the girl. While focusing on Linglong, he also got to know her family, thus beginning a 10-year record.
The documentary is still going on, and more changes are quietly happening in the meantime. Zhu Jie realized one thing: after so many years of filming, the camera can only record their lives, but it is difficult to film their dreams. "Only movies can create a dream", so he decided to make this family's story into a movie. The girl Linglong also participated in the filming of this movie.
On March 25, the movie "The Pursuit of Happiness" was released in the National Art Film Alliance theaters. The film was directed by Zhu Jie, starring Nan Ji, with Yang Chao as the artistic director, and starring Liang Ji, Wu Yulinglong, Wu Yukun, Qiao Ke, and Dang Jian. During the release of the film, Zhu Jie and Nan Ji accepted an exclusive interview with the reporter of The Paper, telling the story of this decade-long journey of "pursuing happiness".
A group photo of the main creative staff at the premiere
Documentaries only show life, but movies show their dreams
Brittle bone disease is a rare hereditary bone disease that can cause fractures from minor collisions or even daily activities, so patients are also called "porcelain dolls."
During the many years in Beijing, Zhu Jie got along with Linglong's family like friends, often visiting and recording from time to time. This is his habit as a documentary director, without any special purpose. Compared with writing, he prefers to use documentary shooting to accumulate "first-hand life" for the film. Linglong and her parents are also very happy that there is an "outsider" who can bring information and perspectives outside the closed circle of life.
The turning point came in 2016. Linglong was old enough to go to school, but no school dared to accept this fragile "porcelain doll". Her mother Ding Qiao could not go to work because she had to take care of two children, and her father had to stay in the big city to work hard to earn money. Therefore, Linglong had to return to her hometown to enjoy compulsory education, and the family had to face separation.
Zhu Jie suddenly realized that he had always been recording the life of this family, but he could not use documentaries to present their aspirations. "What kind of life do they want to live? What kind of hopes do they have in their hearts? It is difficult for me to touch upon them in the form of documentaries. There is only one way that is best suited to dreaming, and that is film."
Stills from "The Happiness Chaser". The child in the middle is Linglong, who plays Fuling in the film.
Zhu Jie recalled the process of jointly constructing the whole story with the screenwriter, "I am very grateful for the documentary filmed in the past few years, because we have known each other for a long enough time to jump out of the focus on Linglong's illness." He did not want the film to be presented as a "curiosity" film that only focuses on rare diseases. "If that were the case, the audience would first be attracted by the drama brought about by the illness. But we are concerned about more common living conditions."
Poster of "The Man Who Chases Happiness"
In the film, Qiaoqiao (Nanji), a small town girl, went from a small town girl to a factory girl working in the south and then to a migrant mother of a child with a rare disease in Beijing. Over the years, she has been "fighting" with life one after another. Under heavy pressure, she should have been defeated, but Qiaoqiao tried hard to play every "role" of her own in the extremely difficult "life script".
And Qiaoqiao's life does not just revolve around her daughter. From the city to the countryside, from family to society, she is surrounded by factory sisters, her former classmates, her family and friends. Through the setting of these characters, the director connects realistic issues such as migrant workers, urban-rural migration, and left-behind children layer by layer, weaving a vivid picture of China's social development for the audience.
"People often come and go in our lives, and we have to find ways to continue our lives." This is the message that Zhu Jie wants to convey through the people around Qiaoqiao.
Director Zhu Jie
Many viewers were impressed by the plot in which Qiaoqiao's parents-in-law died unexpectedly while burning charcoal for heating. On the one hand, this is based on the real events of the prototype characters, and on the other hand, it also reflects the asynchronous changes in concepts and lifestyles in rural China under the background of rapid development. "When I heard about this change, I felt so touched. Life is changing too fast, and many people will be left behind."
As the plot develops, despite experiencing unimaginable difficulties, Qiaoqiao never gives up or accepts her fate, hoping to pursue her own happiness.
At the film's Beijing premiere, the prototype character Ding Qiao traveled more than 1,300 kilometers and told the audience through the screen about their family's current living conditions: their daughter is in junior high school, their son is in elementary school, and their husband is back home. The family of four is reunited and lives a peaceful and happy life.
"I have always liked the image of 'chasing'. Even though the road may be full of thorns and bumps, life still has to move forward, and so do we." Zhu Jie explained his understanding of the title and theme of the film.
Working as a nanny to experience life and show women's "determination not to leave"
When actress Nan Ji first met the documentary prototype Ding Qiao, she admitted that she was like a helpless observer. This rural woman who always had a smile on her face puzzled her - when her daughter broke her bones, Ding Qiao accepted it with a smile, comforted the teacher and said "it's okay", and joked with the doctor that "she was like a robot with nails in her arms". This made Nan Ji feel a little difficult to accept, "I spent two weeks trying to figure out the motivation behind this smile".
Nankichi
Graduated from the Performance Department of Beijing Film Academy, she has been in the film industry for more than ten years. She has appeared in works such as "White Deer Plain", "Old Chinese Medicine", and "Goodbye, Nanping Evening Bell". Playing Ding Qiao has become an extremely unusual experience in Nanji's acting career.
Before the filming started, she entered this special family as a nanny to take care of Linglong. She took care of the family's daily life, wore clothes collected from the train station, and even went to pick up manure... In terms of appearance, she also gained 40 kilograms to get closer to the role.
It is not easy to get into the heart of the character. As a "beautiful aunt" who came to take care of her daughter, Nanji could feel Ding Qiao's politeness and alienation towards her at first, until a series of accidents happened one time, such as she accidentally lost her mobile phone and cut her hand while cooking, which gave Ding Qiao the opportunity to "help out". "After that, she really became my sister. When she found that I was in trouble and she could play a role and help me, she wanted to protect me like protecting her daughter, and the distance between us was shortened immediately."
Stills from "The Chaser of Happiness"
Although the special illness requires extra care, the child's unique naughty nature often makes the elders helpless. At first, Nan Ji was puzzled when she heard Ding Qiao scolding the child loudly, because she thought the child was already pitiful and should be cared for with gentle words. But until one time, when she was exhausted and got angry at the child who was still playing pranks, she suddenly realized that this might be the moment when she was closer to Ding Qiao and more like a "mother". In the interview, Nan Ji laughed and said that in the later stage of filming, outside the set, the child forgot to change his words and would call her mom, which made Ding Qiao, the biological mother, feel jealous and had to correct him, saying: "This is auntie, I am the mom."
Facing a special filming team composed of non-professional actors, Nanji admitted that this was the biggest challenge of his career. The documentary-style filming method puts professional actors in a dual role: they have to maintain their roles while guiding amateur actors. "The children's natural reactions can break the preset at any time, and the moving long shots have to be reshot many times if there is a slight mistake."
Nan Ji won the "Best Actor" award for his role as Qiaoqiao at the 4th Hainan International Film Festival. "Looking back, it's not just a simple portrayal of a character. This period of life is also imprinted in my life. Sometimes I can't really tell whether it's my own experience or just my experience of portraying a character. But for an actor, this unforgettable feeling is particularly precious. It even seems that through this experience, to some extent, the tenacity of Qiaoqiao has been woven into my own character and life."
The time she spent as Qiaoqiao gave Nanji new insights into life. She told the audience at the premiere that the film tells the story of another kind of woman's determination to "stay away from home." "If 'leaving home' requires determination, Qiaoqiao's story reveals another possibility - persisting day after day in an environment where there seems to be no choice; it may require more wisdom and courage."
Stills from "The Chaser of Happiness"
The slow loner
What is less known is that Nanji "saved" the film as a producer and producer during the epidemic. After the filming was completed in 2019, the film came to a standstill due to the epidemic. The director exhausted his savings, and the follow-up of the film was once unsustainable. Zhu Jie admitted that in the past few years, "several times I felt that I could do the best, and I had neither the money nor the energy to invest anymore."
"Until the end of the filming, I was participating as an actor and never considered doing work behind the scenes." Looking back at the changes brought about by this film, Nanji also felt very emotional. Unable to bear the project being aborted, Nanji established his own company, Daji Pictures, and promoted the subsequent post-production and publicity work as a film producer and producer.
Later, Nanji discovered that actors can not only passively wait for roles, but also contribute to good works. Later, he produced film projects such as "Light of the White Pagoda", "Snow Leopard" and "Xiaoyaoyou". "For my life, this event is very dramatic. I love acting very much, but when I stand behind the film, my perspective changes, and I can see more clearly more problems and vitality of the entire film industry and film process."
Director Zhu Jie has shot many documentaries such as "Going to Southeast Asia" and "If National Treasures Could Talk" series. For him, recording has become a creative habit that accompanies life. "Compared to adapting from literary works, making documentaries allows creators to get in touch with real people and fresh first-hand life. I have always insisted on using this method to master first-hand materials. I usually look for various opportunities to shoot all kinds of real people." Starting from documentary creation, Zhu Jie believes that the biggest impact of documentaries is that "the inspiration and touch it brings to you is far greater than writing in the studio, which will limit all life to your own imagination."
After the feature film was finished, the record of the girl Linglong still did not find a satisfactory ending. "I am not a particularly qualified documentary director, and I always don't know how to end it. I even thought that I should keep filming, filming Linglong finding a boyfriend one day, getting married and having her own children one day..."
Stills from "The Chaser of Happiness"
However, for now, the creators still hope to bring this touching dream to the big screen for more people to see. "Because of her special situation, this little girl has few friends and rarely sees people outside. She spends 90% of her life at home, 5% in the hospital, and only about 5% of her time may have any contact with the outside world. We really hope that this smart and lovely little girl can be seen by more people and become a shining star in everyone's eyes."
In this era where short videos are becoming more and more popular and people's lives are filled with more and more information fragments, will people who spend ten years or even longer recording a kind of life feel a little lonely? Zhu Jie said that he often felt the need to adapt to some changes in recent years. "I have reflected a lot in the past two years on the speed of our development and the changes in this era. Although the general trend is the era of short videos that is getting faster and faster, I think those who are tired of chasing this era may need to slow down and take a break, and need some works that can accompany them to rest."
Nanji feels that the creation process of this film is like a group of "seemingly lonely souls meeting each other". The "lonely" Linglong family in reality met the "lonely" creator in art, and then they jointly produced a sincere work, which brought its existing vitality to more people - those who are willing to take the time to go to the theater to watch this encounter.
If movies are a dream, some people are destined to meet in dreams.
