A first feature of great visual beauty and sensitivity, The Botanist (Zhi Wu Xue Jia) depicts a remote society of villagers who dwell near China’s northeastern border with Kazakhstan, in a loose collection of moments in the life of a 13-year-old boy. Written and directed by Jing Yi, who hails from the region and has a similar background, it carries the deeply personal feel of autobiography, as though it was a filmed diary set in a magical land hovering between nature and timeless legends. It was a breakout title in Berlin’s Generation Kplus section aimed at young audiences 10 and up, but much talked-about by adult festival-goers, too.
The great beauty of cinematographer Li Vanon’s lyrical imagery of the vast grasslands and rolling hills of the Xinjiang region wraps the delicate story of young love and loss in layered, highly textured shots that reinforce the connection between Arsin, played with off-handed naturalness by young actor Jahseleh Yesi, and his world out of time. It is a slow-moving film that refuses to be hurried; a story of great depth, but without surprises. Its strong aesthetics set it apart and point to Jing Yi’s unusual filmmaking talent – he became a quasi-protégé of Chinese art house star Bi Gan after they met at the Beijing Film Academy – that should earmark it for further festival dates.
It’s summer vacation in the village where Arsin lives with his grandmother, a spritely woman who milks the cow and cooks meals for him and his elder brother (Nurdaolet Jalen). The two boys are in charge of watching over a sizeable sheepfold while they read and daydream on the hilly grasslands burnt by the sun. The brother, who has had the overwhelming experience of working in Beijing but chose to return to the slower rhythms of his hometown, now finds himself caught between two worlds, one modern and full of money and opportunity to grow, the other an ancient way of life that has remained practically unchanged over the ages.
Arsin, a budding scientist who studies plants through a microscope and takes careful field notes about his discoveries, is so much a part of the landscape that it is hard to imagine him anywhere else. Though he swims and boxes with other boys, he spends most of time hanging out with Meiyu (Ren Zihan), a Chinese girl his age whose dad owns the village store. Their different ethnicities perhaps attract each other, but it is hard to say whether it’s a big deal. Certainly not for them. Arsin, whose thoughts are often expressed in an off-screen voiceover, awkwardly gets the message across when he reflects, “She may be Han Chinese, but so what?”
They play hide-and-seek in the forest, sunbathe under a striped umbrella, listen to music and dance. Each innocent encounter seems to bring them closer together, until one day Meiyu reveals she is being sent to boarding school in Shanghai. Arsin is shocked and calculates how far away she will be and how long it would take to visit her: the answer is 4,500 kilometers away and the trip would take “one month on horseback”. What is not stated is the mental distance that will soon separate them, because she is choosing modernity and he tradition.
Where The Botanist succeeds spectacularly is in evoking these traditions through little stories buried between the scenes. The film begins with a shadowy blue night sequence, recounting the legend of a man who wanted to live to be 100. He drinks from the fountain of eternal youth, but his life is unhappy and he impales his chest on a tree — but is still unable to die. Against leaves rustling in the wind, this ghostly story is heightened by artistically plucked strings, part of the film’s magical score written by top Iranian composer Peyman Yazdanian.
But these are not the only breaks in the narrative. There are moments that reach inside Arsin’s head all the way to his imagination, which may be visualized as a talking black horse that tells him about his uncle, who has gone missing under mysterious circumstances, or botanical comparisons that touch the boy’s instinct for adaptation and survival (a thistle grows thorns in place of leaves, to conserve water). The Botanist is only simple at first glance; like Arsin’s intricate drawings of his family tree, it is full of curious omissions and tantalizing connections if you look closely enough.
Director, screenwriter: Jing Yi
Producers: Shan Zuolong, Qi Ai
Cast: Jahseleh Yesi, Ren Zihan, Nurdaolet Jalen, Eramazan Sarhet, Jomajan Songhat
Cinematography: Li Vanon
Production design: Xu Yao
Costume design: Liu Lian
Editing: Liu Yaonan, Jing Yi
Music: Peyman Yazdanian
Sound design: Hao Gang
Production companies: Monologue Films (China), 28ST Films (China)
World sales: Magnify (New York)
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Generation Kplus)
In Kazakh, Mandarin
96 minutes
