New Chinese Cinema: Day Four

Inspired by a novel by famous Beijing writer Wang Shuo, Zhang Yuan explores the claustrophobic relationship between a young nurse with a troubled family history and the young man she drives into a hasty marriage. After the first few weeks of honeymoon, their obsession with each other gradually turns to irritation, jealousy, and violent fights. As the couple sink further into their folie à deux, Zhang films them mostly in close-up, as if to extract the fragile truth hidden under the skin of the protagonists. The actors improvise, reaching moments of naked truth shot in a pseudo-documentary style.

Based on the novel Get a Kick and Die by Wang Shuo. Producer: Yan Yiyan, Shi Xuo, Zhang Yuan. Screenplay: Wang Shuo, Zhang Yuan. Cinematographer: Zhang Jian. Cast: Xu Linglei, Tong Dawei. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 94 min.

In her masterfully directed first feature, Emily Tang draws a subtle yet harrowing picture of the despair that struck her generation after Tiananmen Square Incident of June 1989. Focusing on small gestures and mundane situations, Tang keeps all violence off-screen and constructs her film around the unbearable silence of repression, occasionally broken by drunken laughter or confused poetry. In the cold winter of 1989, Guo Song and Xiao Qing sneak into empty buses to make love. Later, they move into a hovel they try to turn into a shelter against the outside world. Yet the memory of their friend "Finger Foot," still 'missing," continues to haunt them.

Producer: Gina Nie. Screenplay: Tang Xiaobai. Cinematographer: Sun Ming. Editor: Ken Wong. Cast: Qiang Yu, Zhao Hong, Tian Yu, Huang Wei. Presented in Mandarin dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 97 min.

For further information, visit the website of the Film & Television Archive

www.cinema.ucla.edu