NR | 42 mins | Drama, Foreign
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00.
00:19People live in different time zones,
00:24but not just in the physical sense.
00:28Their minds and hearts can live in different eras,
00:33different centuries or even a different universe.
00:38There is always a time difference between people
00:43and within people.
00:46.
00:56Time Difference
01:00Once upon a time,
01:02in the small town of Batsaan, Mongolia,
01:06a huge sandstorm occurred.
01:09It was 1988,
01:11800 kilometers away from the capital city of Mongolia.
01:15That storm occurred in another century,
01:18the 20th century.
01:21At that time, Mongolia was under the socialist regime.
01:26It was a completely different time zone than today.
01:33During the repression of the 1930s,
01:36socialists killed about 30,000 Buddhist lamas
01:40and destroyed over 700 temples in Mongolia.
01:45One of the ruins was near Zayas block
01:48in the center of the town of Batsaan.
01:51Mysterious, scary,
01:53the kids named it Black House
01:56and believed that the Black House was haunted.
01:59Zayas mother used to scold him by saying
02:02that she would lock him in the Black House
02:05if he kept making trouble.
02:07But, in a very strange way,
02:09the scary Black House was quite serendipitously
02:13demolished by that sandstorm.
02:16Zaya! Zaya!
02:22Religion was strictly prohibited during socialism.
02:25Therefore, especially as a kid,
02:28Zaya had never seen Buddhist scripts and images.
02:31It was only two years ago that the democratic revolution
02:35gave people the right to practice religion.
02:41When Zaya was small,
02:43he was a very mercurial, nimble, active and unstable kid.
02:47He was always running and jumping.
02:50Who knows what he was up to or where he was.
02:53He would never just walk in calmly.
02:56He would always jump.
02:58I didn't pay much attention to Zaya's talent in drawing
03:01and never really thought about cultivating his skills
03:04or anything like that.
03:06We had five boys after all.
03:08I would often just rush off to do my job.
03:11I was a workaholic.
03:25The images of dark demons he saw in his findings
03:29from the demolished Black House
03:31had truly touched the boy's soul.
03:34How can they have so many arms and legs?
03:38Why are their canines so big and menacing?
03:42Some of them even have three or four heads.
03:45These images were so bizarre and weird,
03:48the boy was truly astonished
03:51and became obsessed with drawing them.
03:54But for his father,
03:59the principal of the only school in town,
04:02what Zaya was doing was unbearable
04:05and stood in direct contradiction to his communist ideology.
04:11Zaya's father used to draw.
04:13He had many talents in fact.
04:15He could play music, sing songs, draw paintings,
04:18write beautiful scripts.
04:20You know, during the socialist era,
04:22there was a need to create many propagandist posters,
04:25flyers, etc.
04:27And he used to write and design them all.
04:29He was pretty well known not only in our town
04:31but in the whole province.
04:33He even directed stage plays in the theatre.
04:36He was a very persuasive lector.
04:38At that time it was called party agitator.
04:41I would joke with my kids,
04:43none of you inherited your father's talents.
04:46Only Zaya has a bit of his talent in drawing.
04:51To make it up to his father,
04:53the boy spent the whole night drawing the white Tara goddess.
04:57He proudly hung it on the wall across from his father's bed
05:01and went to sleep at the break of dawn.
05:04When his father awoke in the morning,
05:06he saw the painting and cried out.
05:19I have experienced life in two different societies.
05:23Even though I was a kid during the socialist regime,
05:29I grew up in a fully experienced area.
05:34Then I witnessed the collapse of that system
05:39and the transition to democracy.
05:43It is a completely different time zone.
05:52All non-socialist histories,
05:54including the history of the Mongolian Empire
05:57and the great Genghis Khan,
05:59were prohibited from study or even simple discussion
06:04during the socialist era.
06:06Such subjects were only enabled by the democratic revolution in 1990.
06:15After the democratic revolution,
06:18when I was already in my twenties,
06:21I learned about Mongolian history
06:24without the lens of socialist propaganda
06:27for the first time in my life.
06:30To my generation,
06:32it was like a foreigner studying Mongolian history
06:36for the first time in his life.
06:39It brought such a delicate and sad feeling,
06:44like an orphan who had grown up in a foreign land
06:51and met his birth parents for the first time as an adult.
07:00That feeling brought me to another time zone
07:05in which I felt a unique desire to draw our own country,
07:12to learn more about this aspect of Mongolia
07:17and to become closer to my origins.
07:22I realized that this was what made me different from anyone else.
07:32When I met him,
07:34I could have said that Zaya was a historical painter
07:39who used modern techniques to create a very fresh take
07:44on the history of the greatness of Mongolia.
07:48His early work is very much about Mongolia,
07:53Mongolia's culture, Mongolia's history, Mongolia's present.
07:59His work was telling us a story that was even less known in Mongolia.
08:06He often tells us these historical stories from the point of view of women,
08:12where we tend to hear the story from the point of view of the warriors and the conquerors.
08:18We get to experience Mongolian history through his women.
08:23And that is refreshing in a sense, but it's also quite important.
08:35Going back to the socialist time zone,
08:38it was so symbolic that the scary black house,
08:42which used to frighten Zaya when he was a boy,
08:45stored such unique and priceless treasures that he had been searching for.
09:08Zaya needed to find out what story was hidden in those strange scripts,
09:13written on his findings.
09:15He wanted to learn that script.
09:18When he heard that only lamas knew that script,
09:21Zaya decided to become a monk at the age of 15.
09:39The parents didn't approve.
09:41So Zaya escaped on his way to a summer camp.
10:09It was a different town in which an old lama lived.
10:13At that time, the old man was the only one near Zaya's hometown
10:18who knew the Tibetan script.
10:23It seems like around then I started giving up.
10:28It was the first time in my life I wanted to give up.
10:35It was the first time in my life I was away from my home for a long period of time.
10:42Plus, I starved.
10:45Moreover, I had to sit for a long time learning and reading Tibetan books.
10:52That I barely understood.
10:55I was a very impassioned kid.
10:59For whatever reason, the thought that I should give up entered my head.
11:05It turned out that I was more interested in paintings.
11:12As a small country, there was only one fine arts college that was owned by the socialist state.
11:19As it was the country's only art school, the competition was high.
11:24Zaya couldn't make it.
11:27You know what, I felt so jealous and competitive.
11:33I prepared for the following year's entrance exam for a whole year.
11:39Passing the exam, moving to Lombard city at the age of 17.
11:47Free from his parents' control, Zaya went wild in the big city.
11:53Perhaps he couldn't adapt quickly enough to the new environment.
11:58Eight months after his entrance into the art college,
12:02he got into a fight with some teenagers, got into trouble and was expelled.
12:08Zaya's father had just gotten diagnosed with liver cancer and became very ill at the time.
12:16Zaya didn't have the guts to tell his father of the expulsion in that difficult and sincere time.
12:24He lied he was still going to school.
12:27In truth, he had been expelled from the dorm as well as the school and had become homeless.
12:36The most hurtful feeling is the feeling of your beloved ones
12:43leaning against their desires and wishes like hell.
12:50The judgment coming from your beloved ones is the most heavy and horrible.
12:58Zaya is someone who is in touch with himself.
13:05But who is also in conflict with himself.
13:09I have a belief that two different personalities live inside of one person.
13:15An inner person and an outer person.
13:19I think even as a child I knew that sometimes someone different existed inside me.
13:29The inner person is your true self.
13:34The outer person is more like a pretender.
13:39He is more volatile and mutable and too kind.
13:45Like a prostitute.
13:48It can even take on an evil side.
13:52With time, the true inner personality develops and grows more and guides the other.
14:01A human will feel dilemma, feel both good and bad feelings.
14:11He can feel both love and hatred, positive and negative.
14:16In other words, humans are truly, I think, psycho animals.
14:23After a year of being schoolless and homeless,
14:26Zaya enrolled in the first private art school of Mongolia
14:29through the impact of the democratic revolution.
14:33Lots of private schools were established at that time,
14:36like mushrooms sprouting after the rain.
14:40It was winter, with temperatures of minus 20 to minus 40 degrees C.
14:47And there I was in the middle of that,
14:50a student with no place to live, in a fight for survival.
14:55The newly opened private schools couldn't afford to provide dorms for their students.
15:01Zaya's classmate ended up helping him by offering to let him stay at his summer hut.
15:07It did little to shield him from the freezing cold.
15:13At that time, there was a massive food shortage in Mongolia.
15:17The Russians had cut off its subsidiaries to the state budget fund
15:22right after the democratic revolution in Mongolia.
15:26So the whole economy quickly collapsed.
15:29The convenience stores had become barren.
15:38Zaya's story
15:43As a boy from the countryside, I was coming to the city with nothing
15:50but the dream to become an artist and draw.
15:55But remember what kind of life we led at the time,
16:00when we were so poor.
16:03During the difficult time, I was the student.
16:06It was really hard to continue with my dream of becoming an artist.
16:14Zaya did not have much to eat.
16:16He used to live on boiled noodles.
16:19The little hut was infested with rats.
16:22Since everyone was struggling financially,
16:25there was no one who would buy paintings in Mongolia.
16:29I think as an art student in my time,
16:32I tried to make some money by pestering foreign tourists.
16:38We used to call it going to hunt, you know, like hunting.
16:43Holding our portfolios,
16:46we stood in front of a Ganden monastery in the summers.
16:52Even the renowned, the talented,
16:55the very famous artists from socialist areas stood among us,
17:00trying to put their bread on their tables.
17:10One day Zaya encountered a German tourist.
17:14It turned out that he'd been researching shamanism
17:17and had written a book,
17:19but was still looking for something to put on the cover of the book.
17:23During the socialist period,
17:25there was no knowledge about religion and shamanism.
17:30Since 1937, it had been over 50 years since it was prohibited.
17:39When Zaya accepted the German tourist's request,
17:43he had no source material from which to look up shamans,
17:47nor anyone to advise him,
17:49so he ended up mostly drawing from his own imagination.
18:04Zaya is an artist
18:09who exceeds your expectations at every chance he gets.
18:16Zaya is an artist that is continually striving
18:20to explore new themes
18:24and to paint in new ways.
18:28Zaya is an artist that is not bound.
18:33It's an artist that you can't box.
18:36Zaya is an artist that defies definition
18:42with every show of his work.
18:46Drawing is like a voyage,
18:49to be a real journey.
18:51Of course, we must visit new places and explore new territories.
18:56The journey will also carry risk,
18:59so there is a crucial need for new methods
19:03or creating new ways of thinking and new inventions.
19:08This is what makes a journey into true adventure.
19:13It's boring to be visiting the same old places over and over again.
19:20Besides having great skill or execution,
19:24a great artist should have the ability to use their heart and mind
19:29to create something that inspires, awes and moves people.
19:34In other words, great art is born in the artist's feelings and thoughts.
19:40The few who can create art like that
19:43are remembered as truly great artists,
19:47and Zaya is one of them.
19:51I drew a piece called Octobius Lady,
19:54or perhaps it was called Madame Octobius.
19:58It ended up being an experiment for me.
20:02I had the option to draw an ordinary Mongolian woman
20:08with fat, red cheeks.
20:11But in the process, I faced some internal conflict.
20:17What to do?
20:19I had a sudden desire to draw a mixed mutant.
20:24Culture itself is a fusion and mix.
20:28The world is flat now.
20:31The standard of beauty can mix and mutate as well.
20:37So I experimented, and the result was beyond my expectations.
20:44I felt like I had to become a surgeon
20:49and that I had just conducted plastic surgery.
20:55It seems like progress continued in that way.
21:02Constantly transforming.
21:15To the early 90s, people still didn't have much trust in private schools.
21:20It was the case with Zaya's parents.
21:25Zaya had to keep lying about his expulsion from the state college
21:29to his ill father
21:31in order to protect his feelings in the last days of his life.
21:38Zaya's father died in 1996.
21:45Zaya felt so guilty when his father died,
21:49believing that his son had grown up
21:51believing that his son had graduated from the state art college.
21:59Zaya needed to turn his lie into truth.
22:09So Zaya graduated from the State University of Arts and Culture in 2002,
22:15specializing in Mongolian iconometric painting.
22:21There is a theory of Mongolian traditional painting.
22:27This method is particularly used in drawing images of gods.
22:34That method is the most common traditional standard method in English.
22:41It's called symmetric composition.
22:46When everything is divided into equal parts,
22:50the theory of flatness, which I learned in school,
22:56has a strong influence in my works.
23:00The Mongolian school imprinted in my mind
23:06the ability to see and portray objects
23:14in flatness, yet in 3D.
23:21This means that abstract thinking becomes much easier for me.
23:26There are many artists now who follow Zaya's style of painting.
23:31You can say that Zaya has already created his own school of art with his own methods.
23:37His school has become a brand now,
23:40and brands always create trends.
23:45Zaya left Mongolia 17 years ago.
23:49He lived in many different countries,
23:51including some European countries and the United States.
23:57He met his wife while he was living in the States.
24:00The young couple then moved to Japan and settled there.
24:10Zaya and his wife
24:16I don't think he can live in the same time zone as most of us.
24:21There are multiple reasons for that.
24:25First of all, he does not live in Mongolia.
24:29He lives in Japan.
24:31Just that alone gives you a perspective
24:37that is different from what most people in Mongolia would see.
24:41Even though it's the same general continent,
24:45it's a very different culture, very different histories,
24:49and many very different things that bring them together.
24:53But he speaks Mongolian, and he speaks English,
24:57and he speaks Japanese, and even some Spanish.
25:03All of these things are continually active within him.
25:08And when you think in different languages, you think differently.
25:14He needs to be in different time zones
25:17in order for him to have a vantage point
25:20where we can see where he has been, where he is, and where he wants to be.
25:24You can't do that if you're in a little box.
25:30And if you see things the same way everybody does.
25:34Zaya is able to see things affecting Mongolia
25:38from a very different perspective.
25:42He is also able to see the way that Japan is
25:47from a very different perspective.
25:50So his work is equally critical, and it gets you thinking equally.
25:56Whether you're a Mongolian looking at his work,
25:59or a Western Canadian looking at his work,
26:03or a Japanese person looking at the work he's making in Japan,
26:07it is simply not what normal time,
26:14using your metaphor, not what normal time would allow.
26:20The more things he saw outside, the more he developed.
26:24The more he learned, the more he leveraged.
26:28Not only had he done so,
26:30but Mongol painting methods had evolved a lot as well.
26:35Of course, wherever he traveled, there was always a different culture,
26:39different art, and different methods.
26:42Some of their cultural history goes back millions of years.
26:47Zaya is a great example of how Mongolian art can evolve
26:51and be adapted to a globalized modern world.
27:21¶¶
27:52¶¶
27:58It is hard to conceive the initial idea,
28:01but when you already start it,
28:04consequently the idea will flow into your mind.
28:10Of course, the final result is unpredictable.
28:16Every piece carries its emotion.
28:19The emotions are judged by your life experience, knowledge, and mentality.
28:26Sometimes I get swayed away by my emotion.
28:30In that case, the result is far different from what I had been expecting.
28:37But there are many times where I scrapped it.
28:43Everything started over in a completely, totally different piece.
28:48Creating art for me is not simply painting something on a flat canvas.
28:54It is finding yourself in the canvas.
28:58You have to create yourself.
29:01Then as you have found it, you must destroy it.
29:05You must be able to destroy as you are able to create.
29:09So this is the very unusual process.
29:12¶¶
29:18¶¶
29:21I think it is a struggle that allows him to paint music with his brush,
29:27to tell us a story in silence,
29:30to make us want to be in the painting,
29:34to almost hear the children's laughter,
29:37to almost, you know, join the dancer's dance,
29:42to hear the music playing in the instruments of these women on stage or in groups.
29:48It is really quite something that you feel you're almost inside the painting itself.
29:59That is the uniqueness of saya.
30:03The styles, the colors, the textures,
30:07all of these things come together
30:10and they lure you into this universe, into this world.
30:15And you feel like you're part of the world, too.
30:19¶¶
30:33I get the inspiration of paintings from anything.
30:37For example, I spent two years thinking about a piece called Clouds,
30:43but I only spent one month to paint it.
30:47Some ideas are born from nowhere.
30:50All of my favorite good pieces are different from their initial ideas.
30:56Those pieces are unique.
30:58I don't care if people won't like it.
31:02It doesn't even matter what I want to express through these works.
31:08The most important part is the adventure that led to its creation.
31:15In the ten years that I've worked with saya,
31:18I have seen a constant evolution with materials, textures and colors,
31:25techniques and themes
31:29that he is never static.
31:33He is always working.
31:36¶¶
32:05It's like this machinery inside his head
32:08that keeps working on different combinations
32:12and like musical notes or words or sentences.
32:17It's a visual poetry that drains him.
32:24He paints with such intensity.
32:29It's like an uphill battle, like an uphill fight.
32:33He paints with such intensity to such detail
32:37and often in a very large scale
32:41that it's like an uphill battle, like an uphill fight.
32:47¶¶
33:01Everything I see is reflected in my paintings.
33:05So life itself is my creative inspiration.
33:10I try to see every beautiful and nice moment of life.
33:15There are, of course, unpleasant and sad,
33:19dramatic and undramatic moments as well.
33:23Other art, culture, places like music and so on
33:29all inspire me.
33:32Without such sources of inspiration,
33:36I think we couldn't draw or paint anything.
33:40I myself am an artist.
33:42I have set up several exhibitions.
33:44I have also visited many art exhibitions by other artists.
33:49But in saya's exhibitions,
33:51most of the audience is composed of families with kids,
33:55lovers, friends in love and so on
33:58that come and fill up the halls.
34:00That's quite rare.
34:01People just fall in love with his paintings.
34:04They are somehow magnetized to them like magic.
34:07It seems like his art emanates love to the audience.
34:11Why can't a person express his love
34:15towards others through paintings?
34:20That's all I have to give.
34:23I guess I'm ugly and short, maybe mangy.
34:27I used to tease kids when I was young.
34:31That's why I don't have many friends.
34:34If I give someone a nickname,
34:36eventually everyone starts calling him by nickname
34:41and forget his real name.
34:44I might have had eyes like Gimlet
34:48even when I was a child.
34:52So I needed to express it.
34:55That's why I might have been teasing everyone around.
34:59Of course, I have changed now.
35:02I don't do actually.
35:04So I think I generally only tease myself now.
35:12Once upon a time,
35:14Saya's maternal uncle came to visit his home.
35:18There were red mountains nearby,
35:20a long mountain range for a small child.
35:23It was impossible to see what was behind those mountains.
35:27As Saya was a tremendously curious kid,
35:30he asked his uncle once.
35:54A nine-year-old boy started a journey
36:02to see the water that was located at the end of the world.
36:06It was a big mountain.
36:08After walking a whole day,
36:11Saya finally reached the peak
36:13and had grown very tired and hungry.
36:17Behind the bigger mountains,
36:19there was a vast steppe
36:22with a much bigger mountain range cutting through it.
36:26It left a huge memory of disappointment
36:29as well as a lesson
36:31that at the top of the mountain,
36:33there is always another mountain.
36:37I'm blown away, really.
36:39It's exciting to see all the new things
36:41that he's exploring.
36:43He's throwing out different techniques and colors
36:46up on the same canvas.
36:48He's taking new chances.
36:52He's learning new things.
36:55He's learning new things.
36:57He's learning new things.
36:59He's learning new things.
37:01He's learning new things.
37:03He's learning new things.
37:05He is looking at things differently.
37:08I mean, there is humor.
37:10There's tenderness.
37:12There's tension, both negative and positive.
37:14There's fear.
37:16There's stuff I don't understand,
37:19and I love that.
37:21There's stuff I don't understand
37:22that I don't have the answers to,
37:24and I keep going back to the canvas.
37:26I keep going back to the paintings
37:28over and over again.
37:30And I think that when a painting
37:32gets you to do that,
37:34that is a masterwork.
37:36And Zaya, I don't want to say
37:38that he's maturing as an artist
37:39because he's already at that level,
37:41but he is doing this
37:44in such a masterful way.
37:46I decide what color to use
37:49almost as if I am commanding them.
37:55As I get bored easily,
37:59I try not to use the same colors
38:02again and again.
38:04It feels like it must always be different.
38:20For his second exhibition,
38:22he used several different methods
38:24in his paintings,
38:26especially in the modern pop art style.
38:28If you saw them without knowing
38:30who the artist is,
38:31you probably wouldn't recognize
38:33that they were his works.
38:35So Zaya is a really
38:36unpredictable artist.
38:38There's a humorous element.
38:39I mean, I'm so glad to see
38:41Frida Kahlo, you know,
38:43dressed in traditional
38:45Mongolian costume,
38:46which I think is awesome.
38:48But she's holding a baby, right?
38:50She's holding a baby
38:52in a Mongolian costume as well.
38:55In this painting,
38:57I see less of
39:01a politically correct
39:02or politically incorrect piece
39:03and more something
39:05that is trying to cross boundaries
39:07and that is trying to highlight
39:10our shared humanity
39:11outside of a culture or nationality
39:14or political border.
39:28Well, I don't know.
39:30I don't have words to say
39:33that will justify my actions.
39:37Maybe now I'm in a process
39:40of creating myself.
39:43As the time goes on,
39:45a person starts to hold himself
39:48to higher standards.
39:51But after 10 years,
39:53I think,
39:54why was I so strict to myself?
39:59I was so young and beautiful
40:02and said,
40:03thought come to my mind.
40:07The Mongolian art and lifestyle
40:10closely resemble this feeling.
40:14The nomadic way of life
40:17that we all have lived,
40:19each have their own unique form
40:23scent and soul.
40:30People live in different time zones,
40:35but not just in the physical sense.
40:39Their minds and hearts
40:41can live in different eras,
40:44different centuries,
40:46or even a different universe.
40:50There is always a time difference
40:52between people
40:54and within people.
41:23The Mongolian art and lifestyle
41:26closely resemble this feeling.
41:29People live in different time zones,
41:32but not just in the physical sense.
41:35Their minds and hearts
41:38can live in different eras,
41:41different centuries,
41:44or even a different universe.
41:47There is always a time difference
41:50between people
41:53and within people.