MWFF 2015: WOLF TOTEM

WOLF TOTEM

2015, Colour, China, France, 121 min., World Greats 

Production Team

Director : Jean-Jacques Annaud

Screenwriter : Alain Godard, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Lu Wei, John Collee. D’après le roman de/Based on the novel by: Jiang Rong

Cinematographer : Jean-Marie Dreujou

Editor : Reynald Bertrand

Cast : Feng Shaofeng, Shawn Dou, Ankhnyam Ragchaa, Yin Zhusheng, Basen Zhabu

Music : James Horner

Film production and Sales : Prod.: Max Wang, Xu Jianhai, China Film Co., Ltd. / Beijing Forbidden City Film Co., Ltd..

This is a beautiful film to watch. It shows the vast vistas of grasslands and hills in Inner Mongolia, a northern region within China that borders with Mongolia, a country north of China. The cinematographic shots of the landscape and the sky are truly spectacular. The colours are rich and the light is used in the way to depict the true depth of the vast vistas.

The films documents the daily life of a nomadic tribe of horsemen that for centuries had lived in harmony with the surrounding nature and the animals, mainly wolfs and deer that inhabit it. They learned to adjust to the cyclical rhythms of their environment and various dangers the wilderness presented like the seasonal changes, extreme weather events, or the aggression of the wolfs. They also had a deep rooted respect for everything that surrounded them, a spiritual understanding of how everything is connected and how things affect each other, and a knowledge how to do live in harmony within their world.

The film also shows how the tribe's world of living in harmony and respect for surroundings began to fall apart as law enforcers and settlers encroach on their territory from the south. The ecosystem that functioned in perfect harmony for ages becomes all messed up, aggressed and annihilated, and the entire wolf population destroyed.

This film might not be for those who like high action movies, though it has quite a few tense, fast-speed-action moments. It might be rather for those who love to discover the old, traditional wisdom of living and surviving in the harsh, dangerous, natural environments and who would like to learn more about the tribesmen's innate understanding about all that exists in nature around them.

Film's Official Synopsis

In Jean-Jacques Annaud's film adaptation of Jiang Rong's best-selling novel, a young Beijing student is sent to live among the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Mongolia. Caught between the advance of civilization from the south and the nomads’ traditional enemies -- the marauding wolves -- to the north; humans and animals, residents and invaders alike, struggle to find their true place in the world. “Annaud is also clearly taken with the ecological message of natural balance that plays such a big part in the tribe’s relationship with the animals and landscapes around them and one of the film’s tangential pleasures is how Wolf Totem suggests the passing of the seasons, its impact on the yurt-dwelling nomads and the way it implicitly acknowledges how a centuries-old lifestyle is quickly being destroyed by the enormous country’s need to feed its ever-growing population.” -- Boyd van Hoeij (Hollywood Reporter) 

Director

French film director, screenwriter and producer Jean-Jacques Annaud began his career by directing television advertisements in the late 1960s. In his first feature film, BLACK AND WHITE IN COLOR (1976), he used personal experience obtained during his own military service in Cameroon. The film won an Oscar for the Best Foreign Language Film. His third film QUEST FOR FIRE received two Césars for best film and best director. Among his subsequent films: THE NAME OF THE ROSE (1986), THE LOVER (1992), SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET (1997), ENEMY AT THE GATES (2001), TWO BROTHERS (2004), DAY OF THE FALCON (2011). 

Projections

Saturday August 29, 2015 - 07:00 PM - CINÉMA IMPÉRIAL
Saturday August 29, 2015 - 09:30 PM - CINÉMA IMPÉRIAL