Page - 147 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Festival Review: 35th Fribourg International Film Festival | 147 fight. In addition, the film was also criticized for the reactionary portrayal of demonstrators as wild anarchists. In fact, the film discredits social protests insofar as they are represented as the prelude and cause of the coup and thus the establishment of a fascist military dictatorship. I agree with these critics in my view that this film is an expression of a very reactionary, very bourgeois fear of the mob, of the crowd, which if not disciplined will only create chaos and disorder. In order not to end the festival review with these critical remarks, I turn to a last film that in this age of increasing ecological catastrophes is highly topical because of its representation of the relationship between humans and nature. Filmed in Moerdaoga National Forest Park in Inner Mongolia, China, Cao Jinling’s directorial debut, Mo Er Dao Ga (Anima, CN 2020), tells the story of a community of poor loggers. They earn their living by slowly but systematically cutting down a thousand-year-old virgin forest on behalf of the government. The exploitation is becoming more and more aggressive. We can observe the consequences of economic growth at different levels. On the one hand, the film shows us the unbalanced, profit-oriented use of natural resources. On the other hand, we see how the traditional way of life of the Evenks, an indigenous people of North Asia with a particularly pro- nounced animistic worldview, is thrown into crisis through the exploitation of nature and human beings. The film includes numerous scenes of breathtaking beauty: massive trees, filmed from above, make us feel tiny; snowy landscapes gilded by the rays of the sun at dawn; fog rising in the thick forest. The shots inside the lum- berjacks’ hut, where huddled bodies move in the smoke and steam, are par- ticularly striking. The plot revolves around the two brothers Tutu and Linzi, who work in the same lumberjack team. As a child, Tutu killed a bear – a taboo for the Evenks, a sacrilege against the spirits of the forest – to save the life of his little brother. The close relationship between the two is disrupted when Tutu and Linzi fall in love with the same woman, who chooses Linzi and marries him. When Tutu kills another bear, trying in vain to win the woman’s heart, the fundamental and irreconcilable difference between the two brothers becomes visible: Linzi’s deep, spiritual bond with the forest and its creatures collides with Tutu’s urge for self-affirmation and a much more profane worldview. The dispute intensifies because Linzi’s belief in the sanctity of the forest leads him to oppose his workmates, including his older brother. Despite his desperate attempts to save the forest, the conse- quences of the systematic clearing soon become apparent. One day, after www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 143–148