sundance 2006 - Zoael

Sundance Thinks Globally
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17
LITTLE RED FLOWERS
(CHINA, ZHANG YUAN, WORLD
CINEMA DRAMA)
One of the trailblazers of the new
Chinese cinema, Zhang Yuan returns to
Zhang Yuan in Little Red Flowers
the screen with his emotional and overtly
political film yet. The film is based on
a semi-autobiographical novel by Wang
Shao, the best-selling “bad boy” of contemporary
Chinese literature.
The film covers one year in the life
of four year-old Qiang, who is deposited
into a government-sponsored
kindergarten in 1949 Beijing after the
Communist takeover of the country.
Qiang is a natural rebel, an adorable
tot with large, expressive eyes but a
precociously indomitable will. He
clearly does not fit into the highly
organized, closely-regimented world
he has been thrown into. He balks at
the indoctrination lessons designed to
train children to be good members of a
collective society. Qiang is a fierce
individualist in miniature, whose
nature prevents him from collecting
the reward of little red flowers given to
students as tokens of their good
behavior.
The red flowers are both symbol
and metaphor for the mind-numbing
conformity and subservience to
authority that are part and parcel of
the Chinese social experiment. “I con-
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ceived the film like an animated cartoon
played by real people,” director
Zhang explains. “It is like a parable,
not meant to be realistic, although it
has real lessons about it.”
Zhang uses his visual gifts and intimate
storytelling to explore the genesis
of power—how power shapes personalities
and defines character. How
does one balance free will with control,
the individual with the masses. This
fascinating story of early childhood
illustrates how power relations are
created right from the beginning.
Zhang has made a potent film on the
rewards and risks of taking an individual
stand.
A LITTLE TRIP TO HEAVEN
(ICELAND, BALTASSAR KORMAKUR,
PREMIERES)
The trailblazing Icelandic filmmaker
Baltassar Kormakur, whose debut film
The Sea was an international sensation,
is back at it again, only he has
traded in the ice flows of Reykjavik for
the similarly frozen tundra of northern
Minnesota.
In his first English-language project,
Kormakur delves into the mysteries,
secrets and hidden passions of small
town America. Forest Whitaker stars
as an acclaimed investigator (with an
Irish brogue no less) who comes into
the snowy, small town of Hastings,
Minnesota to confirm the death by a
notorious con artist named Kelvin
Anderson. Kelvin’s sole beneficiary, his
sister Isolde (played hauntingly by
Julia Stiles) is anxious to collect the
money, but, as so often happens in
great crime noir, things are not exactly
as they seem.
Kormakur has a nose for deception,
corruption and the secrets that only
families can keep. His hard-edged
camera breaks through the seemingly
apple pie environment to uncover a
hornet’s nest of lies, deceit and hidden
agendas. The film keeps it audiences
guessing, as characters move in and
out of dark shadows, beautifully contrasted
with the purity of the snowy
environment. Kormakur returns the
genre to a place of both credibility and
true danger, cruising on the ambivalent
moral winds of the twists and
turns of the plot.
As an Icelander, Kormakur
knows that the volatility of nature
is a force that is only barely controlled
and he uses the richly photographed
frigid landscape as a
metaphor for loneliness, isolation
and desperation. The shadows and
the pure snow creates a contrast
of right and wrong, which the
skilled filmmaker continues to
muddy in what is destined to be
one of the most talked about foreign
films of the year.