Shihi Buhuo
China / Hong Kong,
1992, 90 min
Shown in 1993
CREDITS
- dir
-
Li Shaohong
- prod
-
Cheng Zhigu, Andrew Leung, Wu Jian
- scr
-
Liu Heng
- cam
-
Zeng Nieping
- editor
-
Zhou Xinxia
- cast
-
Li Xuejian, Song Dandan, Ye Jing
- source
-
ERA International (H.K.) Ltd.
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Li Shaohong in person. Her feature, y Morning, also showed in the 1993 Festival.
OTHER
Cao Depei (Li Xuejian), a freelance photographer, divides his time between a darkroom and the flat he shares with his wife Duan (Song Dandan) and their son Hanhan, an endearing six-year-old dynamo. One day Cao receives a puzzling phone call from the authorities; they want him to come claim a child purported to be his son. The bewildered father installs ten-year-old Xiaomu (Ye Jing) in his darkroom, awaiting an opportune moment to break the news to his wife. But before he finds the courage, the cat's out of the bag, throwing Cao and his family's life into emotional upheaval. Unlike her epic tragedy Bloody Morning (also SFFF 1993), Li Shaohong's third feature is an intimate and deceptively low-key family drama set in contemporary Beijing. In a refreshing departure from the vast canvases of socialist realism, Family Portrait remains finely attuned to the personal, genuine voice of the situation. From Cao's confusion and regret to Xiaomu's loneliness and fear of abandonment to Hanhan's ambivalence towards his new sibling and finally to Duan's chronic frustration, Li deftly captures and balances the emotional nuances of each character, thus casting the fragility of family structure into poignant relief. With pathos and humor, Li offers an unusual glimpse of contemporary urban China as experienced through the lives of ordinary people.
—Laura Thielen
FACTOID #177
In 2000 animator Faith Hubley was the recipient of the Persistence of Vision Award. One year later, her daughter Emily appeared at the Festival with her bandmates, Yo La Tengo, to perform a score accompanying the silent underwater films of Jean Painlevé.
