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The documentary film "Small Garden" is the first theatrical film in Chinese film history to depict Suzhou gardens. It focuses on the stories of three families, namely Suzhou epigraphy artist Cai Tinghui, Suzhou-style architectural designer Wang Huikang and Suzhou antique collector Ji Jianping, who each built their own private gardens. It vividly describes how they did their best to make due contributions to Suzhou's construction of a "city of a hundred gardens".

The film was selected for the 2024 Beijing International Film Festival and the Beijing University Student Film Festival, and was shortlisted for the 13th China Documentary Academy Awards and the main competition unit of the 2023 Guangzhou International Documentary Conference. After the film was released in domestic cinemas at the end of June this year, it also received a lot of praise and praise from the audience.

As a documentary film with unique ingenuity and style, the success of "Little Garden" also provides us with some useful aesthetic inspiration.

Poster of "Little Garden"

1. See the big picture from the small, reflecting the changes of the times

As we all know, Suzhou gardens are famous both at home and abroad. Among them, Canglang Pavilion, Lion Grove, Humble Administrator's Garden and Lingering Garden are collectively known as the four major gardens of Suzhou. They represent the garden art styles of the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties respectively, and are known as the four famous gardens of Suzhou. In addition, there are some other well-known garden buildings such as Yiyuan, Net Master's Garden, Huanxiu Villa, etc. As the famous garden artist Mr. Chen Congzhou said: "Suzhou gardens are the most preserved today, and they are also the most complete. If they can all be organized, it will be nothing less than a garden city. Therefore, when talking about Chinese gardens, Suzhou should be recommended. I once praised it: 'Gardens in Jiangnan are the best in the world, and Suzhou gardens are the best in Jiangnan'." This evaluation is appropriate.

Although Suzhou has so many famous gardens, the creator of "Small Gardens" did not shoot this kind of classical garden architecture with a long history and famous both at home and abroad. Instead, he took a unique approach and chose several newly built, small-scale and "lively" private gardens as the shooting subjects. The selection of materials and ideas focused on seeing the big picture from the small. Through the stories of the three families of Cai, Wang and Ji who began to build private gardens after the 1980s, it reflects from one aspect the tremendous changes that the era of reform and opening up has brought to Chinese society and ordinary people's families. It also shows how Suzhou citizens, after becoming economically prosperous, try to improve the ecological environment of human settlements, pursue poetic living, and realize their life dreams through their own efforts.

Since the 1980s, reform and opening up have strongly promoted China's social and economic development, making some people rich first and also greatly changing people's life concepts and pursuits. After the three families of Cai, Wang and Ji in Suzhou became rich first, they began to build private gardens with their own family financial resources. This move not only inherited and developed the artistic tradition of Suzhou gardens, but also improved the ecological environment of their residences. Whether it is the "Quanshi Xiaozhu" of the four gardens built by the Cai family, the "Jiashutang" built by the Wang family, or the "Daoqin Xiaozhu" ("Qinyuan") built by the Ji family, they are all unique and pleasing to the eye. After their private gardens were built, they were also open to the public for citizens and tourists to visit and become new cultural attractions in Suzhou. Undoubtedly, the historical trend of the times has left a clear mark here, and the history of Suzhou gardens also records their unique contributions. The film truly records the process of three families building their own private gardens, and the time, energy and efforts they put into it, and depicts their thoughts and actions during the process, so that the audience can not only understand their creations and pursuits, but also truly feel the significant changes that the development of the times and social changes have brought to the lives and thoughts of ordinary people. This artistic conception of seeing the big picture from the small and reflecting the changes of the times gives the film a deeper ideological theme.

Poster of "Little Garden"

2. Use clumsiness to show truth and express ordinary life

As a documentary film, "Little Garden" focuses on highlighting the reality of life and strives to show the true face of ordinary life. The process of three families in Suzhou building private gardens reflected in the film is closely related to their daily ordinary life, full of fireworks that are very familiar to the audience, which can make the audience empathize and resonate when watching the film.

To this end, the creators used a "stream of life" narrative method. On the one hand, they truthfully recorded how the three families planned, designed, built and managed their private gardens, as well as the debates over different opinions within the family; on the other hand, they filmed the different living conditions of several generations of the three families one by one, such as three meals a day, family reunions on holidays, receiving various visitors, and holding opera performances in the courtyard; thus, the elegant and quiet romantic poetry of the garden with the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers is organically integrated with the daily life of the family's firewood, rice, oil and salt, and family affairs.

At the same time, the film uses the cycle of the four seasons as its narrative structure, and its narrative begins and ends in winter. It is in the cycle of the four seasons that not only the three small gardens of "Quanshi Xiaozhu", "Jiashutang" and "Daoqin Xiaozhu" ("Qinyuan") gradually show their new appearance, which is eye-catching; but also the mental outlook and inner emotions of the main members of the three families are well expressed.

The ancients said: "In civil engineering, the most taboo is extravagance." "In the design of a residence, it is better to be refined than gorgeous, to be novel and elegant than to be delicate and extravagant." And "the position of each flower and stone can reflect the owner's mood." The construction of the three small gardens not only roughly reflects this aesthetic pursuit, but also shows the different expressions and mentalities of the three builders.

Undoubtedly, the aesthetic style of "Little Garden" is simple and unsophisticated. The creators did not intentionally show off their skills or try to be mysterious during the filming. Instead, they made good use of the "rough edge effect" of recording daily life in smooth camera language and detailed narrative. The film is simple but not gorgeous, sincere but not pretentious, which makes the audience feel very cordial and interesting when watching it.

The ancients said: "The most straight seems like bending, the most clever seems like clumsiness, the most eloquent seems like silence." Obviously, compared with gorgeousness, simplicity is a higher aesthetic quality; because it contains ingenuity and sincerity, it can not only better express artistic truth, but also more clearly express the main connotation of the work. As the saying goes, "If the writing is not true, it is not worth reading." This is true for writing articles, and it is even more true for documentary filming. The more authentic and credible the content is, the more it conforms to the aesthetic laws of creation, and the stronger the artistic appeal of the film is.

Poster of "Little Garden"

3. Use reality to create a unique artistic conception

The ancients said: "Literature has a sense of reality, but it should start from reality, not from fantasy." That is to say, articles should express emotions and reveal connotations through concrete realism, rather than simply expounding on ideas and expressing emotions. The same is true for documentary filming. We should focus on starting from reality and using reality to carry fantasy, and organically integrate the main ideas and inner emotions to be expressed into the artistic display of the subject, the vivid portrayal of the characters, and the objective narration of related events. Obviously, if there is reality but no fantasy, the work will lack cultural connotation; and if there is fantasy but no reality, the work will be very empty. Only by combining reality and fantasy can the work be rich in content, clear in theme, and full of emotion.

In this regard, "Little Garden" also provides a good aesthetic experience. When creating and shooting the film, it not only focused on reflecting the documentary aesthetic style, and truly recorded the process of building the small gardens of the three families and the daily life of the three families; it also used the real to convey the imaginary, and turned the invisible into the visible, focusing on the vivid display of every brick and tile, every mountain and stone, every grass and tree in the small garden, and the specific description of the daily life of the three families, to express their thoughts, feelings and inner emotions, and thus reveal a certain cultural connotation.

At the same time, the creators also use the artistic technique of combining reality and fiction to create a unique artistic conception to enhance the artistic charm of the film. What is artistic conception? In short, it is the organic fusion of reality and fiction, scenery and emotion. In the spatial transformation of the four seasons, the natural landscape of the garden is integrated with the life landscape of the family, and the physical space of the garden corresponds to the spiritual space of the characters. "To describe the scenery is to describe the emotion, not to express the emotion by using objects, but to compare people to objects."

It is through the construction of three small garden eco-homes that the richness of the spiritual home of each family protagonist and the warmth of family life are revealed. The gardens are full of luxuriant flowers and trees, exquisite rocks, and gentle flowing water. Although the scenery is different in four seasons, all of them are suitable for people. For example, in winter, snowflakes are flying in the garden, while the family members sit around and laugh while dining in the house, enjoying themselves; in autumn, the garden is sunny, and the Ji family couple takes their children to play in their own garden, feeling relaxed and happy; Mr. Cai stands on the top of the rockery, appreciating his own garden while overlooking the scenery outside the wall, feeling relaxed and happy; the Wang family holds opera singing activities in their own garden, and the gurgling water is accompanied by beautiful opera excerpts, which not only expresses the inner emotions well, but also makes the audience enjoy the view. It can be said that "the harmony of people and hearts is fully seen, and the sky and intention are connected."

As we all know, Suzhou garden art is an important part of China's excellent traditional culture. It not only carries the long-standing Chinese cultural tradition, but also allows future generations to further understand and recognize the diversity of China's excellent traditional culture through garden art with a unique aesthetic style. The essence of the beauty of garden architecture lies in the beauty of culture and civilization.

As a garden documentary and ecological documentary, "Small Garden" tells the story of the Cai, Wang and Ji families in Suzhou who devoted themselves to building small private gardens. It not only reflects the new development of Suzhou garden art in the new era, but also shows that the excellent traditional Chinese culture also needs to continue to develop in an innovative way so that it can remain young and vibrant. At the same time, it also shows that only when the general public voluntarily participates in the governance and transformation of the ecological environment of human settlement can the construction of a beautiful home and a beautiful China be continuously accelerated.

Poster of "Little Garden"