As mentioned two entries below, FilmFour recently screened five contemporary Chinese films -- in the middle of the night, since the strange schedulers there seem to think that film buffs will only accept Hollywood pap as the choice for peak-time viewing (wrong, wrong, wrong). So it behooves me to make a few comments on the remaining two, now that I have finally watched them:
Sunflower (2005): This was probably the more watchable film, and it was so well-meaning, that it is a little petulant to criticise it. It's the story of a village family between 1967 when their son is born and 1997 and beyond when he is a young man about to finally welcome his own child -- two abortions later! The father was a promising artist, but after spending six years in a labour camp where his hands were deliberately smashed, he can only express his artistic needs by driving his son to practice his drawing at the expense of other childhood pleasure. That the son does become a talented painter is only the bare frame on which the director shows how the fabric of Chinese life has changed over the thirty year period and how people's values have changed with it. The film holds additional interest for the Western viewer with the casting of Joan Chen as his mother; although Chinese-born she is best-known to us for her roles in English-language movies and TV.
The World (2004): This one was a pretty hard slog, although it started off well. Tao works as a dancer at a pretty crappy theme park in the Beijing suburbs where world landmarks are built in reduced scale so that locals can "See the world without ever leaving Beijing" as its slogan has it. Unfortunately this is something of a metaphor for the fact that most Chinese folk never will see the real world. We follow Tao and her security-guard boyfriend through a number of undeveloped situations in drab rooms, and soon come to realise that theirs will be a dead-end existence, quite literally if my understanding of the ending is correct. With numerous other sketchy characters and some pointless animated interludes, it was hard to stay awake for the very long running time.
If I had to choose a single word to describe these two movies, it would be "dour" and I think the reason I was so taken with "Devils on the Doorstep" is that it told its in fact serious story with a light touchand humour. "Little Red Flowers" was also told with affection. For my money these are the best ways to connect with a modern audience, rather than with the po-faced seriousness of the two above films.
1 comment:
The real problem with 'Sunflower' is the old.old story of a parent trying to relive his desires through his son which here left one with a strong dislike of the father even though the son is successful. Probably a good film but it was sufficiently distasteful for me not to appreciate it. 'The World' left me equally unsatisfied fora different reason - it lost its way (if it ever had one).
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