Summer Pasture

I had expected to be impressed and reminded again of the beauty of Tibet at the screening of the documentary Summer Pasture, which had its Canadian Premier last night as part of the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival. The film follows a young nomadic couple, Locho and his wife Yama, who along with their baby and a herd of mischievous yaks live in the community of Dzachukha, located in the Kham region of Sichuan, China.

What struck me most about this documentary was the intimacy captured by the camera, of the closeness that exist between this couple, as they bicker or tease or even sing to each other, while performing mundane backbreaking chores day in and day out.
“Nothing is more gracious than the land; nothing kills more than the sky,” Locho says.
Locho and Yama’s life is difficult, to say the least. There is a great scene early on in the film of an obnoxious alarm clock in the shape of a bear waking the family up with a song and dance at 4am. This is the time Locho has to start getting his yaks ready to go out for the day.
But Yama, the wife and mother, has the harder job. Before dawn even breaks, Yama is hard at work with her hands. We see her milking the yaks, cleaning the tent, boiling milk, churning butter, kneading cheese, collecting yak dung and spreading them out to dry as fuel for her stove, collecting drinking water, washing clothes, making dumplings, and when she has time, cuddling her infant baby as if it is a luxury.

The camera spends a lot of time focused on Yama’s daily tasks, partly because she never stops working and moving around and getting things done. But it also becomes obvious that these tasks define her, she is proud of her strength and ability to keep this household running efficiently given such lean conditions.
By the end of the film, we realize how intimately Locho and Yama depend on the land and what nature gives or takes away; we understand why they talk about their yaks as if they are their own children; and we can’t help but suffer along with them as they ponder the possibility of giving up this nomadic life for the city in order to provide schooling for their daughter.
“I wouldn’t give up my nomadic life for anything. This is the Summer Pasture,” Locho declares at the beginning of the film. But we know that is not true and perhaps he knew too.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAjFujwgXNA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
The Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival is running from Nov 8-13 in Toronto and Nov 18-19 in Richmond Hill.
To check out additional photos from the film, click here.
To read additional film reviews of Summer Pasture, click here and here.