At the core of 2003's Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, a film directed by a man adapting his own novel, is a bond shared between two men at a time of oppression and punishment - something which is threatened into disintegration on account of a young woman seemingly coming between them. Much later on, when one half of this masculine double-act embraces the titular Chinese seamstress, his long-time friend peers through slats in a nearby shack at their lonely coming together up on a rock beside a stretch of water - itself a highly romanticised image within a film about nastiness at a time of political and cultural strife. As he looks on, there is a looming sense of whatever little fondness the film infers he has for her is clashing with the fact she is coming between him and his friend; in spite of the fact the film is somewhat of a love story, this sense of men and males bonding in harsh circumstances takes centre stage - Dai Sijie's film deceptively about the fondness two people share for a member of the opposite sex and more-so about the understanding two of the same gender have with one another; those around them and their predicament.
If one were to say that the sorts of films Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress feigns to be more often than not end with a heterosexual embrace, the final few scenes of this film display a muted mutual understanding of what two people of the same gender went through: thinking along the lines of 'we experienced all of that, lost it, but still have each other'. The characters we observe during the opening shots move in a very robotic manner; they lumber up steep hills to the backdrop of mountains but both the reasons they're there and the tasks they must carry out whilst there do not match up with the picturesque view on display. Where they are is a punishment camp in the nether-regions of early 1970s China, a nation undergoing change what with its cultural and political crises then-presently unfolding closer to the top - a nation deeming it worthy to send a man to one of these rural correctional facilities if it means they were a dentist who corrected a bad tooth for someone in support of the present government's opposition. Such a man is Luo (Chen), a young adult suffering through the same hardships with a good friend named Ma (Liu), of whom is a bit of a musician.
From robotic foundations comes the film about characters exploring books and music and other texts at the higher end of culture; items which touch the characters so much that they decide to print verses from their favourite banned material on their shirts so they may feel how they feel. Such a thing strikes us as being akin to people in our contemporary Western world walking around with song lyrics or images from their favourite movies on their T-shirts; we take it as a given, these people must hide their enthusiasm. The film is a piece about two, gently mutating into three, fellows broadening both their creativity and thinking whilst at the same time their feelings for one another. It begins with a finding of a small shed housing banned material, instruments and books by the eponymous Balzac among others. Ceturies old classical works by famous Austrain composers are allowed to be played by the likes of Ma, but only if it means successfully fobbing off the superior officer on guard with promises that it is in actual fact a recent tune promoting the regime.
It carries on with the arrival of Xun Zhou's character, an attractive young woman arriving at the camp to hear Ma play and coming to stick around a while longer when she discovers their illegal lust for such things matches that of hers. It progresses further still when Luo and the seamstress get closer than they perhaps should; their occupying of a police-governed and totalitarian state run nation, in which power-play and control plays a large role in factoring how people live; exist and behave, leads to a deep fondness when the seamstress is charged with flogging his back to cure his malaria – this symbolic occurrence of power exchange ultimately leading them to an embrace and affecting their own existence and behaviour. On the one hand, the film is a deftly played love story following three people deeply involved in what they've got themselves into, but it is an affecting dialogue driven drama that slides into believable tragedy as the circumstances they find themselves in, due to certain complications, befall the threesome. Its sense of advancing its characters, in having Ma and Luo enjoy sneaking up on the female population of the camp during the opening exchanges as they bathe nude in a natural spring, is prominent as they come to indulge the seamstress' presence and begin to understand women much more in that regard. The fondness characters develop for one another is believable, while Sijie, what with all the expectancy lumped onto him given it is his novel; his screenplay; his adaptation and his whole project, brings to life this vision's story with punch – the thing totalling up into a worthwhile experience.
If one were to say that the sorts of films Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress feigns to be more often than not end with a heterosexual embrace, the final few scenes of this film display a muted mutual understanding of what two people of the same gender went through: thinking along the lines of 'we experienced all of that, lost it, but still have each other'. The characters we observe during the opening shots move in a very robotic manner; they lumber up steep hills to the backdrop of mountains but both the reasons they're there and the tasks they must carry out whilst there do not match up with the picturesque view on display. Where they are is a punishment camp in the nether-regions of early 1970s China, a nation undergoing change what with its cultural and political crises then-presently unfolding closer to the top - a nation deeming it worthy to send a man to one of these rural correctional facilities if it means they were a dentist who corrected a bad tooth for someone in support of the present government's opposition. Such a man is Luo (Chen), a young adult suffering through the same hardships with a good friend named Ma (Liu), of whom is a bit of a musician.
From robotic foundations comes the film about characters exploring books and music and other texts at the higher end of culture; items which touch the characters so much that they decide to print verses from their favourite banned material on their shirts so they may feel how they feel. Such a thing strikes us as being akin to people in our contemporary Western world walking around with song lyrics or images from their favourite movies on their T-shirts; we take it as a given, these people must hide their enthusiasm. The film is a piece about two, gently mutating into three, fellows broadening both their creativity and thinking whilst at the same time their feelings for one another. It begins with a finding of a small shed housing banned material, instruments and books by the eponymous Balzac among others. Ceturies old classical works by famous Austrain composers are allowed to be played by the likes of Ma, but only if it means successfully fobbing off the superior officer on guard with promises that it is in actual fact a recent tune promoting the regime.
It carries on with the arrival of Xun Zhou's character, an attractive young woman arriving at the camp to hear Ma play and coming to stick around a while longer when she discovers their illegal lust for such things matches that of hers. It progresses further still when Luo and the seamstress get closer than they perhaps should; their occupying of a police-governed and totalitarian state run nation, in which power-play and control plays a large role in factoring how people live; exist and behave, leads to a deep fondness when the seamstress is charged with flogging his back to cure his malaria – this symbolic occurrence of power exchange ultimately leading them to an embrace and affecting their own existence and behaviour. On the one hand, the film is a deftly played love story following three people deeply involved in what they've got themselves into, but it is an affecting dialogue driven drama that slides into believable tragedy as the circumstances they find themselves in, due to certain complications, befall the threesome. Its sense of advancing its characters, in having Ma and Luo enjoy sneaking up on the female population of the camp during the opening exchanges as they bathe nude in a natural spring, is prominent as they come to indulge the seamstress' presence and begin to understand women much more in that regard. The fondness characters develop for one another is believable, while Sijie, what with all the expectancy lumped onto him given it is his novel; his screenplay; his adaptation and his whole project, brings to life this vision's story with punch – the thing totalling up into a worthwhile experience.