Producer/Writer/Director: Song Chuan
Director of Photography: Wang Xiang
Cast: Tian Yuefang, Liu Xiang
China, 2011
27 March 2012, Walter Reade Theater, NYC
Immediately recognizable to anyone who has sought escape from a hopeless backwater town, pastoral scenes frame human misery compounded by an inexorable One Child Policy.
A pretty girl with a blemished face smokes at the shore. Desperate to leave her one-horse village, she’s been sleeping with a married doctor who promises escape, but bowing to pressure from her parents she weds a local gambler, the son of a shopkeeper. After multiple bribes to the local Buddhist temple, she becomes pregnant, engulfing her world in a firestorm of suspicion and violent retribution.
Fuxian Lake in Yunnan has beautiful, clear water. They say a woman killed herself in its depths. Swimming is forbidden. “I used to come here when I was little. Lots of people. Where did everybody go?”
Stunning.
Song Chuan was denied a visa by the US Embassy to attend New Directors/New Films for the first screening of his debut feature film outside of China. What has happened to our country?