'So Long, My Son' made in 2019 by Xiaoshuai Wang and presented at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2020 is proof that Chinese cinema is much more diverse and interesting than the mix of historical, martial arts or political propaganda movies that film lovers outside of China know superficially. It is a complex and ambitious film in itself, with a duration of 3 hours of projection, which is the first series of what is planned to become a trilogy that deals with the history of China and the impact of the great transformations that this huge country and its people has gone through in the last 40 years. On many respects the film is sincere and courageous in addressing historical processes and economic and social changes that have been paid for with a huge human price: the policies aimed at restricting families to at most one child per couple, and the transition from planned economy to capitalism market, with dramatic consequences in the lives of millions of Chinese workers who lost their dull but safe employment due to the closure or downsizing of state-owned enterprises, people forced to re-profile and migrate to ensure their livelihoods. The film's size and the ambitions of director Xiaoshuai Wang did not stop him from making a deeply human movie based on a well-written story anchored in China's recent history, with characters that viewers in China and anywhere else in the world can identify with.

We are following the saga of two families from northern China during over three decades, from the ideological relaxation and economic liberalization of the 1980s to the capitalist abundance and socio-economic inequalities of the present. The Liu and Chen families live in the same crowded house, they all work in the same factory, they are neighbors and friends, the two boys of the families were born on the same day and grew up as brothers. The two families symbolically represent different destinies in these times of change. The Liu family remains at the level of simple workers and then small entrepreneurs, they hardly survive the economic shocks that will cause them to migrate to the south of developing China but also a personal tragedy when their only child drowns. The Shen family is more adaptable, earlier the woman reaches a political leadership position, later they succeed economically and make a fortune. Although families break up to reunite only in the end, their destinies remain tied to a secret that cannot be forgotten or erased, perhaps only eventually forgiven.

The two actors who played the roles of the Liu couple impress with the depth, realism and sensitivity of performances. They also convinced the Berlin Festival jury, which awarded them both acting prizes, and I can understand the reasons. The tragedy of losing a child has been represented on screens before, but so far we have not seen such a deep interpretation of the consequences of the demographic policy of the only child at the level of the family cell. Those who see will hardly forget. Director Xiaoshuai Wang alternates the broad takes that describe the complex landscapes of a country in transformation and industrialization, with the intimate ones in the inhabited (but not private) spaces that become familiar to us in all details. Realism alternates with aesthetics and the results are remarkable. The props are chosen carefully, every detail counts. The makeup is perfect. If we pat attention we realize how the director visually expresses messages that he could not make explicit in words. For example, some of the factory-filmed scenes depicting the 1980s include an implicit critique of dullness of life, clothing uniformity and ideological regimentation. The narrative of the film is divided into two parts with different structures, which could belong to different movies. In the first two hours we reconstruct the story of the two families, the conflicts and their evolution in sequences of flashbacks that gradually compose the image and develop the characters. The last hour of the film describes the reunion that takes place in or near contemporaneity, and proposes a reconciliation and a resolution of conflicts. Personally, I liked the first part more, the solution in the end has something too idyllic and too forced which made it look not completely credible. I was left with the impression that Xiaoshuai Wang is a director of great strength and depth who when allowed to develop his artistic and historical vision can lead a movie to admirable results.

"Di jiu tian chang" is a Chinese movie also in the Chinese language from 2019. This one was directed by Xiaoshuai Wang and he is also one of the two writers here. He has worked for a quarter of a century already in the Chinese film industry, but this award-winning film here is maybe the one that also makes him famous internationally and I am curious if he is going to direct a Hollywood film at some point. Anyway, this is a really really long film at over 3 hours and actually this is the second Chinese 2019 film i have seen I believe and the second with such a massive runtime, so it is not completely unusual I guess for films from this country these days. It has turned into quite a success with awards bodies already, so it surprises me a bit that China did not pick it to represent the country at the Oscars this year. Maybe the reason is that it is at least partially critical when it comes to how it depicts China and its politics and traditions. I am talking about the one-child policy here specifically, but I'll get to that later in detail. The one thing that is always really a big factor in Chinese films is the subject of family and here it is really the defining aspect. We have two families and their kids are born the very same day and they are friends and one character says during a birthday party that they will be friends for life. It is a pretty memorable quote in my opinion. Well, he was partially right because tragedy strikes and one boy is killed and the other is not completely innocent of what happens and at the very end there is this confession scene. However, the other boy's parents do not bear a grudge because they were just children and that was actually the way I expected them to react. Also if we look at the very end, it was a bit surprising to me really how the mother of the dead boy for the first time looks relatively healthy and in peace with everybody and everything around her because she has been suffering a lot. And it is also a bit ironic because the other mother, the one who died from brain cancer, always seemed to be the healthier one. But that is just one little snippet that came to my mind.

Now you see I am already avoiding the actors' names because unsurprisingly I do not know any of them. But that is okay. Maybe you do if you are from China because they were all pretty good and I am sure some of them acted in a lot before this one here. I want to mention the one though who played the father of the deceased son because he was really really good through the entire film and maybe the best thing about the entire production. And just on a side-note, Xi Qi is really stunning. But that is just me maybe. Another thing I recognized was how they used several American songs at times or well i could say Chinese songs based on American melodies because Auld Lang Syne you will here in this one on several occasions. And also the film reminded me how much I like the song "Rivers of Babylon". In general, I felt the soundtrack was nice, also the score. One thing I did not like too much was that it was not chronological, but maybe that is just me. Here and there I struggled a bit with recognizing which time we are right now again. The looks of the characters did not always help. And I would like to say that, even if it is a major factor at the very end again, the film did not feel that much about two families as you could guess from the plot description here. The couple who lost their son is clearly in the center of it all and we actually do not find out too much about the other family compared to the one at the center. I mean okay they are their son's parents-in-law as we find out at the end and they were obviously really close friends, but still. The ending was also slightly too happy maybe with the other boy calling them out of nowhere again. But the last shot and the scene with the two at their son's grave was better again. I did like that one. So yeah I just mentioned the other boy. This is actually how the film starts with us seeing him with his "parents" and the "s are there because we find out quickly afterwards that he is adopted. Which may or may not explain the struggles they have with him because he really seems to be a rebel and even when his mother (the more pacific one) brings cookies to him and his friends and talks to him, there is no chance for them really making up again. So his call at the end surprised me. But also it was not the most loving statement when the dad told him that basically he was nothing but a proxy for their deceased son. Anyway, I somehow felt this film would be more about the adopted boy, but he quickly vanishes until the end then.

So as you can see from my description already, the father is not really a saint either. He has a one-night stand with his female, much younger protégé and the result is that she gets pregnant, but does not want to have the child, so she offers him that he can have it. Of course, he would have had to tell his wife about what happened and while they were really longing for a child, i still found it fairly absurd I must say to even consider this idea because the poor woman would have to look the rest of her life at somebody who is the evidence of her husband cheating on her. But it shows still what big of a role kids played back then in China and at least partially still do today. However, this scene also shows that he is a loving husband that he does not even consider the idea of telling his wife with how much she struggles anyway already, in terms of health and everything else. And at the end, it was really interesting to watch him how curious/anxious he is when he finds out that she may (or may not) have kept the child. I won't tell you the outcome. Back to the subject of pregnancies, this one is really important here too and I already mentioned China's one-child policy that was intended to prevent further overpopulation during the time when this film plays. There is no exception if your child dies either, which I did not know. When the woman gets pregnant already, she is forced to have an abortion and it is pretty ironic to watch the ceremony later on during which the two are honored as a role model example of China's one-child policy. This was maybe a bit over-the-top this scene, even if their fake forced smiles stay in the head with what happened to them before that. So now you know this film spans over several decades (no surprise given the running time) and it is also the small details (like mobile phones being used near the end) that makes this an interesting watch. In general, this film has nice attention to detail. Competent execution by everybody involved from beginning to end. The truly great moments were maybe slightly too scarce for me for a really enthusiastic recommendation and including this one in my 2019 favorites, but there is no hesitation for me in giving this one a thumbs-up. Go watch it if you have the steadiness for over three hours, especially if you like Asian films. We normally get a lot more from Japan than China, but if the quality is like in this one here, it would be nice if that changed at some point. The audience seems to be interested enough because my vieweing was really full which surprised me a lot. That's all.

"This consistently smoldering drama begins with ominous scenes of two young school kids, Xingxing (Wu Jiachen) and Haohao (Zhang Xinyuan),while the latter is mad keen in joining a bunch of skylarking kids near a reservoir, the former balks on account of the fact that he cannot swim. Then jumps to Xingxing's parents Liu Yaojun (Wang Jingchun) and Wang Liyun (Yong Mei),and Xingxing apparently returns home safely. Nothing happens, apparently. "

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks