New movie explores parent-child relations on Inner Mongolian steppe, Xu Fan reports.

Growing up in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, filmmaker Qiao Sixue witnessed a shocking scene at just 4 or 5 years old, which became an inspiration for her directorial debut feature, The Cord of Life.

In the family's yard, Qiao's grandfather slaughtered a sheep as part of the ethnic Daur people's long-standing tradition of preparing and storing food for the harsh winter months.

The artist, who describes herself as "a sensitive person", has since then been haunted by this vivid scene of death, especially when picturing such a possibility falling on someone she loves.

"The feeling that witnessing death brings is scary and leaves a big impression. You will come away afraid that the people closest to you will completely leave you one day too," explained Qiao in an interview with China Daily given shortly before the movie's premiere, held in a downtown Beijing cinema.

The movie, with dialogue entirely in Mongolian, was released in domestic theaters on March 18 and has so far obtained a high rating of 7.8 points out of 10 on the popular review aggregator Douban.

Born in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, in 1990, Qiao went to France to learn film editing in the late 2010s. Her childhood fear of death intensified after she encountered a middle-aged woman who appeared to be lost in thought on a street in Paris.

"The year was 2017 or 2018. The woman was about the same age as my mother, dressed thinly and wandering back and forth on the street. When I asked her what she was doing, she murmured she was looking for her home. At that moment, I had a complicated feeling," says Qiao, adding that it spurred her to call her mother, who was then fighting menopause.

Weaving together these memories with other sources of inspiration, the director wrote a script, which caught the attention of Cao Yu, a renowned cinematographer, and his actress wife, Yao Chen, during the 13th FIRST International Film Festival in Xining, Northwest China's Qinghai province, in 2019.

With investment from Bad Rabbit Pictures — a Beijing-based film company co-founded by the celebrity couple — the project shot its major scenes in the vast grassland of Inner Mongolia during the turn of the season from spring to summer in 2020.

Casting ethnic Mongolian actress Badma and ethnic Mongolian singer Yider as the mother and her youngest son, the 96-minute movie recounts the son, a musician living and performing in Beijing, returning to take care of his mother, who reveals severe signs of Alzheimer's after she causes trouble at his older brother's home.

The musician brings his mother back to their old house in the countryside, hoping to alleviate the burden on his brother and sister-in-law, but the mother — who is often lost in confusion — insists on returning to her "home", a place seemingly connecting to her childhood memories but perhaps merely existing in her imagination.

After discovering that his mother was repeatedly trying to leave the house to find her so-called "home", the son finally decides to load up some simple essentials — a tent and some kitchenware — onto his motorcycle and embarks on a quest to seek her "home". His only clue as to its whereabouts is an old photo, depicting a nondescript wilderness, the only landmark being a tree with its roots intertwined with another dead tree.

"The tale is very emotional and poetic. One could say it is both real and illusory, or even like a dream," says Cao, known for his iconic cinematography in several blockbusters such as director Chen Kaige's Legend of the Demon Cat and director Lu Chuan's Kekexili: Mountain Patrol.

Recalling that he first read the script at the recommendation of producer Liu Hui, Cao says he was attracted by the project for two reasons, one being its theme exploring universal anxieties about separation and passing away, the other being that the tale is about ethnic Mongolians.

"I have always been interested in the culture, landscape, customs and music of ethnic Mongolians. Besides, I haven't shot a movie entirely in a natural environment since Kekexili: Mountain Patrol, and I have been yearning to return to work in the wild," he explains.

He also mentions that Badma played a role in Urga, also known as Close to Eden, one of his favorite movies when he was studying at the Beijing Film Academy. Urga, which depicts an Inner Mongolian shepherd family, won a Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival in 1991.

"When I first met her (Badma), I felt that she was taller and had more vitality than I had imagined. But when she smiled, she looked exactly like the character in Urga who often wore a childlike smile," recalls Cao.

Also serving as the movie's executive producer, Cao, a Beijing native, says that the film has taught him how human beings are influenced and transformed by their surrounding environment.

While shooting in Inner Mongolia, Cao was captivated by the boundless pasturelands and leisurely grazing flocks, which deepened his understanding of the innate simplicity and tolerance of local herders. This experience made it challenging for him to readjust to the bustling city of Beijing.

For Cao, the film has a deeper meaning as it re-explores the relationship between parents and children. The Chinese title of this film is Qidai (the umbilical cord). In the film, the son, to prevent his mother from getting lost or encountering danger, ties a thick rope around both of their waists and keeps it fastened from day to night, even when he is working or sleeping.

"In the final moments of the film, the son seems to have become the father, and the mother has become the child. They are connected to each other by the rope, which symbolizes the 'umbilical cord'," says Cao, adding that he hopes the movie will help young audiences to value their relationship with their parents and reflect more deeply on the meaning of life.