The Case, by female director Wang Fen, is a story about one man's emotional challenges and family difficulties. It won the Best First Feature award at this year's Beijing Students Film Festival. The plot goes that He Dashang is a bored, middle-aged man who runs a small guesthouse at the foot of a snow mountain in Yunnan Province. One morning, he comes across a trunk, which is floating along the river and, upon opening it, is astonished to find it filled with the frozen body parts of a woman. Meanwhile, a strange couple arrives at the guesthouse.
The director said that The Case is about desire and freedom. "It is about a nightmare of the man, but sometimes there is just one step between dream and real world," she said. "The man is tired of his family life, without any exciting and fresh elements any more. He meets up with the young woman, who gives him a much more colorful life but also drags him into a bottomless hole."
"Everyone is searching for a new and different life and it is easy to get lost," Wang said.
Actually, Wang is not a professional filmmaker and before dedicating herself to the creation of documentaries, Wang worked as an actress and a professional model. With no notion of her behind-the-camera abilities, she almost ended up a housewife before discovering the wonderful world of film. Wang' s debut documentary Unhappy Person is More Than One (2000) received the New Wave Prize at the Japanese Yamagata International Documentary Festival 2001.
A sensitive and creative filmmaker, Wang's first feature, The Case, is a striking example of these sensibilities.
"Films should give people a message of hope, helping them to transcend sorrow and pain. So we can always find a self there," said she.
Meanwhile, the music in The Case is made by folk music artist Xiao He, inspired by the beautiful Yunnan scenery.
The Case is the first film among the Yunnan New Film Project series, which was first launched in 2001 by the Chinese Government's Publicity Department to commemorate the Chinese film industry's centenary. Ten young female directors, from Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, led by chief producer Luo La, who preferr to be called Lola, each lead the production of one film at a different location within Yunnan Province from 2006 to 2007. The plots and aesthetic will therefore be in part inspired by Yunnan's diverse culture, climate, and geography.
Lola believes the project is a bold venture with real potential not only to stimulate the Chinese film industry, but also to encourage China's growing cultural dialogue with the global community. In 2006 Variety Magazine based in US named Lola as one of China's Twenty Most Influential Female media personalities.
The ten films will be shown before this September. Besides The Case, the rest are Pu'er Tea directed by Xiao Jiang, The Big and The Little by Li Hong, The Woman with The Horsegangs by Mak Yan-yan, Here is Shangri-La by Ismene Ting, Blogger's Journey to The West by Cao Fei, Chinese Father by Yin Lichuan, Sing A Love Song by Yu Jiangying, The Kingdom of Women by Li Guang and The Peach Blossom Land by Huang Ruxiang.
In Chinese with English subtitles. 50 yuan. The Case will be shown at 8pm, June 1-2, at Cherry Lane Movies, Kent Center, 29 Liangmaqiao Lu. 6522-4046.
(China Daily 05/30/2007 page7)
