Film description

A feature debut of an independent documentary filmmaker from Beijing, made in Hong Kong to avoid censorship. To show the modern, nouveau-rich China, the director uses various film genres and poetics, from social satire, through a ghost movie and erotic drama, to a mystical but simple quasi-documentary, resembling the works of Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

The protagonist, a young, unemployed wife, lives in a quiet, passionless relationship. She takes care of her daughter, the immature husband, and the sick mother-in-law, and meets with her "emancipated" friend. The situation changes when she enters a strange, entirely erotic relation with a man who comes to her in her dreams. A conflict between motherhood, family, and her lively sexuality, the space for the controversial freedom in an oppressive society, has to end with a disaster. But in Yang Lina's vision, it becomes a liberating experience. The salvation lies in Buddhism, which opens the way for the contact with the shamanist, animistic roots of womanhood.

Agnieszka Szeffel