Archive - 7th Five Flavours Film Festival
Bends
Awards and festivals
Film description
Anna is an elegant wife of a businessman, living in Hong Kong. Fai, her driver, comes from China. They both face a dramatic situation – Anna's husband takes all the credit cards and disappears without trace. Fai's wife is in the third trimester of a second, illegal pregnancy, and the couple cannot afford the second baby fee. Both protagonists go through their dramas discretely, like nothing extraordinary was going on. But the silence in the limousine is becoming denser by the minute.
The young director was able to gather an experienced crew – the charismatic Carina Lau ("2046", "Ashes of Time") controls her face perfectly when her character, Anna, tries to save her marriage with Feng Shui; the Chinese idol, Chen Kun ("Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress"), balances between the emotions of a desperate father, and the role of a silent car accessory. The classic, subtle narration, is elevated above ordinariness by the exquisite cinematography by Christopher Doyle. The shots, unusually empty for a Hong Kong film, the cold panoramas of the city, and the prolonged, stylish scenes, change this simple story into a tale of the barriers - between people, social classes, and bordering cities, which form one organism, but cannot communicate with each other.
Jagoda Murczyńska
Flora Lau
Born in Hong Kong, graduated from Colombia University in New York, later studied at London Film School. She directed short films ("Dry Rain" received the Best Film award in the Hong Kong New Wave program in 2009). "Bends" is her feature debut.
2008 12:30 (k.m.)
2009 Dry Rain (k.m.)
2013 Start From Zero (k.m.)
2013 Guo jie / Bends