Until then, my son
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Until then, my son |
| Original title | 地 久 天長 (Di jiu tian chang) |
| Country of production | People's Republic of China |
| original language | Chinese |
| Publishing year | 2019 |
| length | 180 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Wang Xiaoshuai |
| script |
Ah Mei , Wang Xiaoshuai |
| production | Liu Xuan |
| music | Dong Yingda |
| camera | Kim Hyung-seok |
| cut | Lee Chatametikool |
| occupation | |
| |
Until then, my son (original title: Di jiu tian chang , Chinese 地 久 天长 ; English-language festival title: So Long, My Son , German: "Take care , my son") is a Chinese feature film by Wang Xiaoshuai from 2019 . It is the first part of Wang's planned “Heimat Trilogy”. In flashbacks, the film tells of the life of the befriended Chinese families from the 1980s to the present day.
The drama premiered on February 14, 2019 in the competition at the 69th Berlinale . The German theatrical release took place on November 14, 2019.
German translation of the film title
The Chinese title of the film refers to the Chinese version of the old English song Auld Lang Syne , which is repeatedly heard in Chinese in the film. Translation of the English song title: 友谊 地 久 天长, in German: Friendship forever and ever.
action
The city of Hou Wan, Fujian Province , in the present: The couple Liu Yaojun and Wang Liyun from northern China run a boat repair shop in the south of the country. In non-chronological flashbacks, her life and that of a family friend over the past three decades are reported:
In the early 1980s, Yaojun and Liyun are married and have a son, Liu Xing, whom they affectionately call "Xingxing". They work in the local factory and live in a workers' dormitory. Li Haiyan also works in the factory, who with her husband Shen Yingming also have a son, Shen Hao, called "Haohao". Both children were born on the same day. Against the backdrop of the one-child policy , one day Liyun realizes that she is pregnant. The director for family planning in the company stands in the way of the possibility of secretly giving birth to the child in the country. An abortion is performed on Liyun's orders. The procedure leads to complications and Liyun becomes sterile. As a consolation, Yaojun manages to get the couple the 1986 Family Planning Award and financial compensation. His love for English-language pop music was fatal for his friend Zhang Xinjian. He is arrested and imprisoned at a notorious "dark party". He later marries Gao Meiyu, who is also employed in the factory.
In the course of time, Yaojun and Liyun's life continued to blow. Her son Xing drowns while playing with Hao in the retention basin of a dam. Liyun is the victim of a mass layoff in the factory as part of the economic reforms , which leads to violent workers' protests . The couple decide to move to southern Fujian Province, where Yajun repairs boats and Liyun mends fishing nets. Both adopt a child, whom they name of their deceased son because of the resemblance. Her "new" son Xing is developing into a reserved teenager who reacts to the bullying in his school by stealing a Walkman. With a heavy heart, Liyun lets her adoptive son go, who joins a group of semi-strong school dropouts on motorcycles.
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Wang Jingchun (left) and Yong Mei play the couple Yaojun and Liyun in the film
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At the New Year, Yaojun and Liyun avoid seeing their former friends. Yaojun is secretly having an affair with the divorced Shen Moli, Shen Yingming's younger sister. Moli met him as a young trainee in the factory and plans to continue her current university studies in the USA. After meeting them together, Yaojun makes her pregnant. She offers him her unborn child as a replacement for the prodigal son because it stands in the way of career planning. A short time later he is offered a divorce from Liyun, which Moli had seen by chance in town. Yaojun refuses to do either.
Years later, Haiyan is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The treating doctor is Hao, who is now an adult and is expecting his first child with his wife. His terminally ill mother, Haiyan, is plagued by guilt, while father and husband Yingming have made wealth as building contractors. At their invitation, Yaojun and Liyun travel by plane to their hometown, which they find modernized and changed, and are accommodated at their own request in their old apartment, which has remained practically unchanged since they moved out. In the hospital they meet again with their former friends.
On the death bed, Haiyan asks for forgiveness and offers financial help. On the occasion of the funeral service, the big reunion takes place with the two families who were originally close friends and who were separated for years. Hao drives Yaojun and Liyun, whom he talks to father and mother, back to their old apartment after the party and confesses to them that he is responsible for the death of their son Xing Xing. He reports that he forced Xing Xing against his will to go to the reservoir to avoid the mockery of the other children, and when the child clung to him in fear, he pushed him into the water, causing him to drown. At least now it becomes clear that Hao's parents also knew about this act all these years.
Yaojun and Liyun still forgive him and continue to treat him like their own son. Yaojun is later visited by Hao's father, Yingming. Yingming hands Yaojun a kitchen hatchet and tells him to kill his own son Hao as compensation: "An eye for an eye" should apply, but Yaojun refuses indignantly, because "Xing Xing is dead and Hao Hao must now be taken care of".
Later, Yaojun and Liyun visit their son's weathered grave, where they picnic. There they heard from a phone call that Hao's wife had given birth to a healthy child. At the celebration of the return of mother and child from the hospital, Moli from the USA is also connected via video. She proudly presents her son Sunny, who, to the relief of Yaojun and Liyun, is half-Chinese and therefore could not have been fathered by Yaojun. In the meantime, the adopted son, who was once rejected by the foster father Yaojun, has returned with his girlfriend to her place of residence in southern China. He calls Yaojun and Liyun and tells them about his homecoming. The two are very touched and Yaojun offers him to take over the workshop. The film ends with Liyun's words: “Dad and mom have missed you very much”.
background
For Wang Xiaoshuai Bis then, my son is his 13th independent feature film as a director and the first since Chuang ru zhe (2014, English-language festival title Red Amnesia ). In between, he had excelled as a producer of projects by young Chinese filmmakers. The production of the film took over four years. Wang presented his film project in June 2016 during the Shanghai Film Festival . Before the premiere, Bis then, mein Sohn was announced as Wang's most extensive work to date. It is the first part of his planned “Heimat Trilogy”, which is to portray the People's Republic of China over the past 40 years.
In addition to Wang, the novelist Ah Mei worked on the script, which began in 2013, and who contributed the literary template for Zhang Yimou's film The Tree of Heroes (2010). The shooting lasted three months in various cities in China. The film was produced by Liu Xuan for the Beijing Dongchun Films . She spoke of a project in which many difficulties had to be overcome, including for director Wang. The film project was financed by Hehe Pictures and Fengshanjian .
"On the other hand, cinema is not life and life is not film."
Director Wang Xiaoshuai called the construction of the film risky because the story spanned 30 years. A linear narrative was out of the question for him, so he re-edited the film. According to his own statements, his focus was less on the story than on the feeling. “The feeling should tell the story and even when I look back now, I realize that I have succeeded in the adventure, the risk of telling this film, and overall it is so that […] technical means are used to To show the change of times in the film, but we found that none of that was necessary. We can actually directly remember what it was like, and I tried to capture this memory perspective too, so I didn't resort to any special means to frame the flow of time, ”says Wang.
Wang did not focus primarily on the one-child policy in the film . It was about how people dealt with their injuries and how they could forgive each other and look in the eyes. Nevertheless, according to Wang, despite the injuries, people would still be optimistic about the future and do everything possible to create a better life. That moved him and was also part of the story as a message.
The Chinese film title itself comes from the piece of music of the same name, which is taken up as a leitmotif in the film and is very well known in China. It goes back to the English song " Auld Lang Syne ".
reception
After its premiere at the Berlinale, the film received mostly positive reviews. Until then, my son received 2.6 out of four possible stars in the international reviews of the British trade magazine Screen International . Together with the Canadian contribution Ghost Town Anthology , the film took 5th place among all 16 films in the Berlinale competition. Emin Alpers A Story of Three Sisters and Nadav Lapid's Synonymes (3.0 each) topped the ranking.
Fabian Tietke calls the film a “ray of light” in the taz and performs “So Long, My Son” jumps through the different time levels for three hours, fades back and forth and is held together in an impressive way by the convincing performance of the actors and the formal design . ”Gregor Dotzauer writes in the Tagesspiegel that the film portrays“ the contingency of political circumstances combined with the coincidences of fate in a unique way - and with great acting power. ”Joachim Kurz describes the film on kino-zeit as:“ A great humanistic fable and a social portrait of China, condensed and compressed in the tragic fate of two families. "
Awards
With Until then, my son was competing Wang Xiaoshuai for the third time after 2001 ( Grand Jury Prize for Beijing Bicycle ) and 2008 ( screenplay prize for In Love We Trust ) at the International Film Festival in Berlin around the Golden Bear , the top prize of the festival. Actors Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei were honored with the Silver Bears ( Best Actor and Best Actress ) for their performance . In the same year, Wang's film received the audience award at the Uruguay International Film Festival, and the director himself received a special prize from the jury.
Web links
- Until then, my son in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Profile at berlinale.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Frater, Patrick: China's Wang Xiaoshuai Wraps First Part of Homeland Trilogy . In: variety.com, December 21, 2017 (accessed February 2, 2019).
- ↑ Competition and Berlinale Special: Agnès Varda, Agnieszka Holland, Hans Petter Moland, Isabel Coixet and Wang Quan'an in the competition program / directorial debut of Chiwetel Ejiofor in the Berlinale Special . In: berlinale.de, January 10, 2019 (accessed January 10, 2019).
- ↑ Recording of the Berlinale press conference . In: berlinale.de, 23:40 min ff. (Accessed on February 15, 2019).
- ↑ a b 王小帅 曝 新片 计划 十年 拍摄 《地 久 天长》 三部曲 . In: ent.163.com, June 16, 2016 (accessed January 24, 2019).
- ↑ a b Shackleton, Liz: Wang Xiaoshuai wraps first installation in 'Homeland trilogy' . In: screendaily.com, December 19, 2017 (accessed January 24, 2019).
- ↑ Recording of the Berlinale press conference . In: berlinale.de, 24:10 min ff. (Accessed on February 15, 2019).
- ↑ a b c Recording of the Berlinale press conference . In: berlinale.de, 32:43 min ff. (Accessed on February 15, 2019).
- ↑ Recording of the Berlinale press conference . In: berlinale.de, 40:00 min ff. (Accessed on February 15, 2019).
- ↑ Recording of the Berlinale press conference . In: berlinale.de, 36:15 min ff. (Accessed on February 15, 2019).
- ^ Dalton, Ben: Two films tie for top spot on Screen's final Berlin jury grid . In: screendaily.com, February 15, 2019 (accessed February 16, 2019).
- ↑ Fabian Tietke: Ein Kindertotenlied, taz, February 15, 2019
- ↑ Gregor Dotzauer: Guilt and Reconciliation in the Shadow of the One-Child Policy, Tagesspiegel, February 14, 2019
- ↑ Joachim Kurz: Lost Sons, Lost Parents, kino-zeit, February 14, 2019
- ↑ Awards in the Internet Movie Database (accessed November 14, 2019).