Little White Lies - 11.2019 - 12.2019

REVIEW 061

his ambitious, epic melodrama from

Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai is

delivered with historical richness and

staggering emotional gravity. Across three hours,

its story jumps back and forth between four

decades and documents significant upheavals in

modern Chinese life.

Of particular interest to Wang is how the

country’s one-child policy, designed to control

the population size and finally eliminated in 2015,

affects an ensemble of couples, their relatives and

their children. He also explores how those ripples

extend to years of rage and regret after two parents,

Liyun (Yong Mei) and Yaojun (Wang Jingchun),

fall foul of the rule. It brings the political reality

and monumental societal shifts right down to a

human level.

The film’s opening half hour focuses on the

apparent death by drowning of Liyun and Yaojun’s

son Xingxing in a northern factory town reservoir

during the mid-1980s. The narrative then quickly

propels us forward to some time later in a southern

province, where the same couple have a teenager

they also call Xingxing, seemingly adopted. A time

jump further back reveals Haiyan (Ai Liya), their

factory section boss and a close friend, forced Liyun

to comply with state policy and get an abortion

after she was pregnant with a second child, the

repercussions of which only come to the horrible

fore after the Xingxing tragedy.

Although he has never directed a film of similar

length to this one, nor anything that covers such

an expansive timeframe, the effects of So Long, My

Son’s fragmented style bring to mind the best films

by Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan. Works such

as Exotica or The Sweet Hereafter run on non-linear

narratives that begin with the gradual parcelling

out of one peculiar, often disorientating detail at

a time, until all the temporal fragments gradually

fall into place. Those films train you how to follow

their story, and the same goes for So Long, My Son.

Wang ’s ordering of his story’s chronology follows

a similar logic to The Sweet Hereafter, about the

sombre legacy of a school bus crash.

A scene taking place in a different decade to the

one that directly preceded it isn’t a gimmick used

just to make a viewer lose their bearings. Rather, it

serves as the connecting tissue between adjoining

scenes that serve to create a fluid emotional arc

where moments communicate with one another

across time. As a restult of this, the film juxtaposes

wildly different events to examine recurring

dilemmas and traumas. It presents similar states

of devastation or euphoria, and shows how the

full consequences of one swift decision can be

completely clear if you’d only been able to see a tiny

bit further into your future.

Yet the film is not purely a work of doom and

gloom, as reconciliations are slowly achieved, and

there’s even a suggestion that time can heal even

the deepest wounds to some extent. It says that

love between people can remain even if top-down

pressures generate unspeakable sorrow. On that

note, any minor gripes with one or two subplots fade

away long before the deeply moving conclusion.

JOSH SLATER-WILLIAMS

Directed by
WANG XIAOSHUAI
Starring
AI LIYA
DU JIANG
GUO-ZHANG ZHAO-YAN
Released
6 DECEMBER

ANTICIPATION.

At three hours, it’s so long (my
son). But two acting prizes at the
Berlinale bodes well.

ENJOYMENT.

The plotting rhythms take some
getting used to but this is an
incredibly immersive experience.

IN RETROSPECT.

A lingering, heart-breaking epic
of great subtlety, specificity and
ultimately universal power.

So Long, My Son

T