砻谷纪

“砻谷窸嗦，碓米落锅；雷公轰轰，雨子点点；驮张脚锄，游天井” ——昔日流传于闽西客家地区的一首童谣。 稻作农耕辛苦。砻谷碓米亦辛苦。 砻，南中国几千年农耕历史延用的一种脱谷壳工具。 本片纪录的可能是最后一台土砻的钉制。 机械化碾米机出现之后，就注定土砻永远消失的命运。 也说不清为何寻找钉砻师傅流水，让他帮我钉制一台已经没有用处的土砻。 他把一份out的手艺做得一丝不苟、不温不火，正如他的纯朴、本份、怯于言谈、口齿不清，这个中国版图上最底层的山村老实人，把日子过得不紧不慢，象小溪流水一样。 流水的钉砻过程，其实不亚于艺术家创作一件装置作品，而那些所谓艺术家的创作有如此纯粹、质朴吗？哪件艺术品不是头上安头，自圆其说。 作者尝试着与这个农民兄弟拉家常、交朋友，把自己浮躁的心安静下来。

In the sound of rice huller, the rice falls to the jar; and in the booming sound of thunder, the rain drops falldown on the ground. Witha shovel on shoulder, we're farming under the sky. -- This is a children's folk rhymes used to be very popular among the Hakka people lived in the westernpart of Fujian Province, China. While farming is not an easy work, rice hulling is an even more laborious work. Rice-huller is a tool used by the peasants in southern China to hull the rice for thousands of years in theirfarming history. This documentary films the making of probably the last rice-huller ever made by mankind. The use of rice-hulling machine tells the tragic destiny of traditional rice-huller. It is hard to tell why Icontacted Mr. Liushui, a master of making traditional rice-huller, to help me make a rice-huller which maybe of no use at all in the real life. He is so scrupulous about every detail and is skillful, just a vividreflection of his personality of being pure, humble, silent and even a little bit stuttering. As an honestvillager from a bottom level of this society, he lives a calm and balanced life, just like the running water ofriver. I think the whole process of rice-huller making by Mr. Liushui is just to produce works of art. But can thoseartists be so pure and simple? Any works of art always needs some decoration, or tells a story of its own. I tried to talk with this farmer brother as much as possible, have some small chats, trying to make friendswith him, hope I can calm myself down...