Freud believed that at least for some of us will be blamed before the crime. Seeking punishment for an existing (probably oedipal) sense of shame and lack of, some of the imprisoned seeks a reality that suits their self -identity. For them, crime is simply a tool for the good things: punishment and Pariah status. Crime like Kink.
With its latest neo-noir, Cai Shangjun Offers complete approval of one of Freud’s more disputed theories with a story of a toxic romance required by an irresistible evil bicycle. Located in dirty, smoky guangzhou world’s sweatshop and home to “Shein village” of clothing manufacturer-Sangjun’s China is not a happy or a healthy place. Nor are his characters. But good people rarely make good movies.
Meiyun (Zhilei Xin) runs her own clothing brand in a nice shopping center, where she sends live reviews of her latest products to careful customers, who complain about questions beyond her control. Almost like Curt is the doctors at the local hospital: Meiyun is six weeks pregnant, but without audible heartbeat it is unclear if the child will carry. Her gynecologist shows a striking disinterest in Meiyun’s hope that it will come through; Even in Stoic China, the disassion is breathtaking, the first sign of a hard, unpleasant environment that Meiyun is well known. The child’s father is Qifeng (Shaofeng Feng), a handsome married man whose own daughter seems to suspect that something is off. Qifeng leaves much to be desired and apologizes to Meiyun for pushing her for having an abortion last time she became pregnant. Meiyun trusts, “The past will catch up with me. I will get what I deserve.”
It soon becomes clear what she means. Qifeng is Mr. Right compared to Baoshu (Songwen Zhang, in the best performance of the film). Now a cancer patient in a room is close to where Meiyun is consulted, he is an older man from Meiyun’s past, long before the mall and live streams and seizure of an honest life. Baoshu spent time in prison for a car accident that was charged as a hit-and-run. But Baoshu slept in the back seat and Meiyun was behind the steering wheel.
Baoshus’s decision to blame and spend five years behind bars – not even tell her late mother the truth – continue to haunt them both and cause an inevitable bicycle of debt. Meiyun continues briefly to see qifeng and set up a love triangle that is like a cursed Chinese interpretation of “materialists.” The two men’s cultural collisions are more fun than you can expect and credit to a filmmaker who grabs the tone of what would otherwise have been a Dour experience.
But it’s not fun for a long time. Baoshu utilizes Meiyuns admittedly well -placed debt, moves into her place and behaves like a pig (and worse). Meiyun is now forced to confront the shame she could ignore while Baoshu was locked up and out of her life. It sends her into a spiral that sets up an arresting second half of filmwhich is part of soap opera, some thriller.
One constant is the unfortunate couple’s gloomy surroundings. Shangjun’s China is a bleak environment. It is humid and gray, small crimes and exploitation is in abundance, and even the hospital can really use a sweep. This is not China from the 21st century that the state is keen to project in films that play abroad and these characters are also the Model 21st Century Chinese. The decision to allow its production and release (so far anyway) is probably the same reason that saw Khrushchev allow Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” another story of injustice and the debt burden, which is published at the height of censorship 1962. within his prison camp during a “almost happy” day. The same goes for Shangjun’s characters, whose accident is mainly caused by their moral mistakes. True freedom, suggests it, it is to take it if you can only break the bike.
Easier said than done. “The sun rises on all of us“Will soon become the disappointing but influencing the story of a couple of broken people for whom salvation is simply insurmountable in a morally expensive world. Meiyun tells Baoshu that he can just as well stay in her place because” life is hard everywhere “, a fairly brief expression of the existential nihilism that they have both.
Rating: B-
“The sun rises on all of us” premiered by 2025 Venice Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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