Highly Recommended
A sprawling multigenerational story about decades of social and economic change in China told through the sometimes tragic lives of a group of friends. It’s powerful, but as the title would imply, it’s long.
Director Wang Xiaoshua’s SO LONG, MY SON (地久天长) is not an easy film to digest. Clocking in just shy of the three-hour mark, Wang’s leisurely pace spans entire lifetimes and allows for character exploration that is not typically seen outside of novels. Even if it sometimes feels like it takes a lifetime to play out.
Told in an occasionally non-linear fashion with plenty of asides, the core story revolves around Yaojun (Wang Jingchun) and Liyun (Yong Mei), a couple who never really manages to get path the death of their young son. After moving to a regional area where they don’t speak the dialect, opening a repair shop and just getting by, their adopted son never gels with his parents and ultimately runs away from home. The film casually moves back and forth between eras to show the ripple effects of this one event on many lives.
Wang Xiaoshua, perhaps best known for films like Beijing Bicycle (2001) and Drifters (2003), isn’t interested in sensationalising the plight of the working class. His observational approach, evident in cinematographer Kim Hyunseok’s lingering wide shots, is more interested in the impact of transitional periods over time. We also see this in the repeat use of tunnels, corridors, and hallways (sometimes the same ones) as passages between turning points in their lives.
It’s not the only recurring motif that Wang employs. The traditional Auld Lang Syne becomes something akin to a symbol of revolution and subversive behaviour. Depicting an era when the government is cracking down on certain types of dancing, labelling it debauchery, quietly playing Western music in your studio apartment is a political act.
Yet SO LONG, MY SON is not necessarily a political film. The socioeconomic changes of China in the 1980s is the backdrop, and the lives of factory workers are inevitably impacted by the shift to a market economy. There’s also a subplot about Liyun becoming pregnant, and her friend Haiyan (Ai Liya), who is the official in charge of planned parenthood at her factory, ensuring that she follows official guidelines and has an abortion in line with the so-called one-child policy.
While all the performances are solid, Wang Jingchun and Yong Mei are particularly excellent, playing versions of their characters in three different eras. Qi Xi as Moli, the young sister of Haiyan’s husband Yingming (Xu Cheng), is also a standout, representative of a generation seeking to leave the country. Her story is the most obfuscated at first, and the true depth of her importance to Liyun and Yaojun is kept for much later in the production.
The hyperlinked tale of families beset by inherited sadness partially recalls last year’s An Elephant Sitting Still from the late Hu Bo, and not just because of their extended running times. SO LONG, MY SON might benefit from a minor trim here and there, but there is something special about allowing a film the space to develop characters and settings over an extended period.
2019 | China | DIRECTOR: Wang Xioashuai | WRITER: Wang Xioashuai| CAST: Wang Jingchun, Yong Mei, Wang Yuan | DISTRIBUTOR: The Match Factory| RUNNING TIME: 174 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 13-14 June 2019 (SFF)
