In his Film, “Until then, my son,” says Wang Xiaoshuai from the consequences of the One-child policy. And of pain, perseverance and death.
scene from “Until then, my son” by Xiaoshuai Wang photo: Piffl
When Liyun (Yong Mei) and her husband, Yaojun (Wang Jingchun) in their home town in the North of China’s return, a few decades have passed since their departure. The Taxi ride through the streets, you don’t know again. The work of residential settlements: demolished; of what was, remained only in the memory traces.
In the Background is a McDonald’s over flits’s, on the other hand, Mao greets in larger-than-life statue form. The Statue, which looks pretty new, too, disappears, however, almost in front of a Billboard of a huge Victory Mall. Liyun and Yaojun drive to the house, to the apartment in which you once lived, and it is almost see spooky that everything is exactly preserved as it looked then.
In a runtime of three hours moves “Until then, son,” through the decades. He tells of interesting and terrible times in China, but he does it in the focus on the bitter fate of his protagonists Liyun and Yaojun and a family of first friendship, then multiple mischief. It is a Film about the time of their Offense, in Private and as also in the Large. It’s a movie about pain, about staying power, over the generations, not least of all, a Film about the intervention of the state into the lives of the citizens and their consequences. He begins with death.
Two guys on a hill at the lake, a run to the friends. The other does not want into the water, then a cut, you see the boy, xing xing, he is the only child of Liyun and Yaojun, in the family circle, at lunch, slowly the camera pans to the table, the last common meal. Because then the back to the lake, you can see from a distance, excited running around, a misfortune is to happen, the father carries the lifeless boy in my arms, runs and runs, arrives at the hospital, but one realizes quickly: In his arms the child, xing xing, was already dead.
Of this zero point, my son goes back “Until then,” in knight’s move jumps forward and back. The flashback between the images from the lake is not the exception, but puts you right at the beginning of the narrative method of Betvole the film. This is confusing, at the very beginning, it will remain confusing. To open up especially since Director Wang Xiaoshuai dispensed with the insertion of figures for the year and it is so urged, the spacing on the jumps front and back of equipment, a mask and a narrative logic.
The attempt to substitute the child’s produced as much unhappiness as happiness
The story is a Puzzle made up of Parts, the chronological connection is revealed sometimes delayed just the right time. You can apprehend it as an attempt, a time to experience, to feel, produced by a traumatizing event: Never. the presence of the Last solve
How exactly it came to the death of the son on the lake, you know the very end – this is not the resolution of a mystery, but the closure of a circle to be the parents and also the movie only be in the end capable. Confusing, a strange desperate act Soon to adopt Liyun and Yaojun is another boy, you have him selected because of its Similarity with the deceased son, give him the name xing xing. The attempt at a replacement, the overwhelmed child and at least as much unhappiness as happiness produced.
It should be added: As the first xing xing was still alive, was Liyun, a second Time pregnant. Her best friend Hayian (Al Liya), in the factory responsible for these things, forcing you to implement the One-child policy: Liyun agreed to the abortion, Hayian is yet plagued to the death-bed of her bad Conscience.
“Until then, my son.” directed by: Wang Xiaoshuai. With Wang Jingchun, Yong Mei u. a.
China in 2019, 185 Min.
Liyun and Yaojun the reminder to try to escape. You pull away from the larger city to the South, in the province of and lose over the years the contact to Hayian and the other friends in your home. One of them was for deneme bonusu a long time in jail, because he belongs to the West, dressed, and Western music. His lust for Life is broken by the stay in prison, even if he and his wife enjoy the family Hayians from the economic upswing in the always kapitalisti shears China.
“Until then, my son”, how many movies Wang Xiaoshuais and other Directors of the so-called Sixth-Generation (the most famous of which is Jia Zhangke), the attempt to make sense of the rapidly changing China of the present. It is obvious that the is without In account of the past impossible.
Tells is of a country of Broken and Bent, of the simultaneity of non-simultaneity, of unpaid bills, a country of the desire for reconciliation needs. In Jia Zhangkes movies all the harsh and brutal side by side is. Wang Xiaoshuai, it is joined at the end of harmonic. The trauma, however, he does not deny.
