The organisers of the 7th Osian's-Cinefan Film Festival, an annual event that is seeking to reinvent itself, could not have chosen a more appropriate opening film.
Shanghai Dreams, the tale of a family impacted by the turmoil of 1960s China, marks a new beginning for the 39-year-old underground filmmaker, Wang Xiaoshuai.
Certainly not as well known as China's Fifth Generation masters Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, Xiaoshuai had waged a battle for freedom of expression against his country's cultural czars for well over decade.
He was denied access to Chinese movie theatres, official sources of funding and the government-sponsored promotion machinery. With Shanghai Dreams, he has turned a corner. For the first time ever in his turbulent filmmaking career, Xiaoshuai has secured the right to screen a work of his in Mainland China.
Shanghai Dreams is a film that is fully deserving of the Special Jury Prize that it won at the 58th Cannes Film Festival this year.
On the surface, Xiaoshuai, who decided to become a filmmaker when he discovered the brilliance of Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou as a teenager, approaches his tale as a conventional family drama. But he informs the narrative with a degree of emotional and seminal depth that isn't usually associated with the genre.
In the 1960s, many families from China's big cities had migrated to the villages when the government, fearing a bloody war with Russia, relocated a large number of factories in rural areas. It is one such family that Shanghai Dreams homes in on.
Wu Zemin and his wife Meifen, former city dwellers, haven't achieved the prosperity that they had hoped for following their move to the village. Two decades on, China is in flux and cities like Beijing and Shanghai are on the threshold of unprecedented growth. Wu is disgruntled, especially because he had moved out of the city on his wife's persuasion.
{{/usCountry}}Wu Zemin and his wife Meifen, former city dwellers, haven't achieved the prosperity that they had hoped for following their move to the village. Two decades on, China is in flux and cities like Beijing and Shanghai are on the threshold of unprecedented growth. Wu is disgruntled, especially because he had moved out of the city on his wife's persuasion.
{{/usCountry}}The conflict between husband and wife gets worse and, as a result of his growing frustration, Wu turns overbearingly possessive about his beautiful daughter, Qingjong. The latter falls in love with a local boy, Honggen, and that doesn't go down well at all with Wu. As the family prepares to move back to Shanghai, there are surprises and shocks in store - both for the family members and the audience.
Shanghai Dreams is a slow, somewhat ponderous film. Yet, Xiaoshuai succeeds in turning it into a saga that is never less than engaging. The characters are etched with great insight and the twists and turns that cascade inexorably through their lives are orchestrated with outstanding control.
Xiaoshuai's narrative has a well-embedded philosophical level: it provides a lucid commentary on the contradictions inherent in a society in the throes of dramatic change and the effect that socio-political developments have on the lives of common people. Besides dealing with the chasm between conservatism of 1960s China with the modernity of the new generation, it explores and captures the inevitable tensions that arise between deracinated people and those who are rooted to the soil.