The Chinese shoes
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Chinese shoes |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Tamara Wyss |
| script | Tamara Wyss |
| production | Mediopolis Film und Fernsehproduktion GmbH (Berlin) |
| camera |
Lutz Reitemeier Tamara Wyss |
| cut |
Anette Fleming Tamara Wyss |
| occupation | |
| |
The Chinese shoes is a documentary by Tamara Wyss from the year 2004 .
action
In 1997 the director's father cleared his basement. In the process Tamara Wyss discovered many old photos that she had never seen before, plus her grandmother's diaries, which she now began to read. When, while researching German archives, she found all of the consular documents from her grandfather's diplomatic days in China, the idea for the film came up. Fritz Weiss was consul of the German Empire, met Hedwig Sonnenburg during his vacation in Germany , married her immediately and took her to Sichuan with him .
Following in the footsteps of her grandparents, Tamara Wyss went up the Yangtze River to the Three Gorges Dam . The film was shot a few weeks before the dam was completed, old cities were demolished, new ones built, the world's largest dam is making the river that her grandparents still sailed disappear. It became more and more difficult to find the places shown in the old photos. The film keeps turning its attention to the people Tamara Wyss met during her trip, who could be the descendants of those who can be seen in the old photographs. With astonishing openness and a surprising serenity, they report on the upheavals in Chinese history and the consequences of current politics for their lives. Former boaters and hauliers who had to look for a new job were shown. A group of them have processed their experiences into a theater play for tourists and can therefore continue to pursue a job.
The second half of the film went to the big cities of Sichuan: Chongqing and Chengdu . It is modern centers that seem to overlay the amazing foundations of Chinese history. Here a visit was made to the architect of the Mao monument in Chengdu, who mischievously tells of the specifications for the building at that time, which will probably always remain the center of Chengdu. A lawyer researching his own grandfather's story offered a glimpse into the brief moments of multi-party democracy after the first Chinese revolution in 1911.
The title refers to the small shoes that the Chinese women had to wear because the growth of their feet was prevented by being tied . As a child, Tamara Wyss played with shoes like these, brought from China by her grandmother. At the end of the film, she met the 110-year-old Zhang Zhenhua, who showed her the souvenir her grandmother brought back from a time when both women were young and yet could never meet: the Chinese shoes.
production
The color film was made in cooperation with the China Intercontinental Communication Center Beijing and in coproduction with RBB , RBB- ARTE , NDR and SWR . The production was funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH and Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg mbH.
The world premiere took place on October 28, 2004 on the occasion of the Hof International Film Festival . It was first broadcast on television on November 6, 2006 on ARTE .
criticism
The lexicon of international films describes this film as a classic travel report, which, through the juxtaposition of the traditional and the modern, creates a tension that is naively enthusiastically accepted by people.
Web links
- The Chinese shoes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Chinese shoes at filmportal.de
- The Chinese shoes in Piffl Media
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Chinese shoes. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .