Extreme Orient 2a

A double bill brought us into contact with a perspective on contemporary city life in China, and a parallel lifestyle which exists still, but is a seemingly archaic world in the mountains of Yunnan. Seemingly, because Yunnan is regarded as the most biologically as well as culturally diverse region in Chinon. Juxtaposition can be an interesting and useful tool.  Both had French subtitles. 

The first presentation, Mystery, is a 2013 film highlighting the burgeoning comfort of the young middle-classes against a seedier backdrop of city life, hidden behind a facade of acceptability. A class-ridden and complex drama, the director Lou Ye combines flashback with actual time to explore not only the tension between traditional mores and contemporary attitudes, but the lengths an individual is prepared to go to, to achieve self-gratification and avoid being caught in the process, regardless of the cost to others. Issues that are more often discussed in terms of 'western decadence', whereas in reality, they have as much to do with Peking and Moscow, as Washington and London.  The film certainly lived up to its name. The story went off in all sorts of directions and because if the clever use of time, kept you wondering till the end.

After a short break we were back to see Les Trois Soeurs du Yunnan. Another Chinese film, directed by Wang Bing - love this name. It's a fly-on-the-wall documentary, which follows the daily life of three sisters aged four, six and ten. Their mother has abandoned them, their father works away in the city to try to earn enough money, only returning occasionally. They are 'looked' after by others in the village, referred to as aunts and uncles, although that is a term of respect rather than the description of family connection.The only dialogue is what occurs naturally among the people in the village. The conditions are tough and very very basic. At two hours thirty it was a long introduction to a way of life, that by all accounts even the Chinese aren't aware still exists. It wasn't comfortable viewing and life for the children is already mapped out as the generations before them. The future is to survive. The children sleep and work in the same clothes. Their shared bed is on damp straw with unwashed covers. They are lice ridden. Washing, means hands and feet which are mud covered, because shoes and boots are worn out and leak. A sharp cultural shock and a life-style that bears no relation to anything we know or have experienced. Yet amid the projected squalor you'll find mobiles and a televison. At a certain level, technology knows no bounds, but there remains an overwhelming sense of loneliness.