A Cinematic Odyssey

Odyssey, a Chinese Cinema Season, is the UK’s most extensive annual celebrations of Chinese cinema. It is one of the largest in the world but it is largely unknown by many international audiences. Outside the work of legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou, contemporary Chinese cinema is little known outside its homeland. So, the return of this wonderful festival is always a welcome treat. Amongst its selection of features screened this year are some of my personal favourites.

The Sparring Partner is a strange but innovative crime drama, directed by Ho Cheuk-Tin, which looks at the aftermath of a particularly violent double murder. The murder is that of a middle-class Chinese couple. What makes this crime particularly heinous is the fact that the chief suspect is their alienated son. Although his guilt is never really in doubt, what isn’t clear though are both his motives and those of the young man who assisted him in this crime. Was the co-conspirator the easily duped young man with learning difficulties he maintains he is? Or is there something far more sinister lurking inside him? That is the question, the film poses, and what follows is a fascinating examination of not only the psychology of murder but also a forensic look at the Chinese legal system since half way through the film transforms. What begins as a fascinating crime drama, turns into a kind of Asian twelve angry men as the jury struggles to decipher what really is at the heart of this terrible crime.

Another intriguing feature is the festival is the lyrical Butterfly, Yan-Yan Mak’s look at what happens when a married woman and a new mother, meets a young female student who professes love for her. Her encounter with this student triggers a reflection of her life, a life which, in the past included a passionate teenage same sex love affair. A love, due to societal pressures she ran away from. Butterfly highlights the compromises many in the Asian queer community in the past were forced to make while, also highlighting the difficulties a person will encounter coming out into the world after a lifetime of hiding. Butterfly also calls attention to the strength of Hong Kong filmmaking, whether a film such as Butterfly could be made today either there or in mainland China is very much open to debate.

Two shorts which stood out for me this year, were the lovely Photoshop on the Corner, a British Chinese co production which is a moving portrait of the effects of dementia on an elderly woman’s life. The woman runs a traditional photographic shop. We see her the moment her granddaughter, arrives, she’s there to tell her grandmother about her mother’s death. Unbeknownst to the granddaughter the woman is now at a very advanced stage of Alzheimer and does not recognise her, nor is she interested in hearing about the death of her daughter since she doesn’t remember who she was. The question the film poses is how can the granddaughter, find a way to break through her grandmother’s comforting confusion. The magical solution she finds is in many ways the film’s core message.

To say the theme of Happily Ever After is unusual would be an understatement, directed by Lau Wing Man, the film looks at a middle-aged male photographer, whose fascination with pole dancers is so strong that he ultimately decides to take it up himself. Much to the strained bewilderment of his long-suffering wife, who initially resist her husband’s choices but suddenly finds herself living with a much happier man. Happily, Ever After’s message is perhaps, that it’s never too late to pursue your passion even if it’s one society might initially frown upon.