Where lust was called just: This is where Hou Dasheng’s social-realist spectacle takes the audience of Tallinn’s Back Nights Film Festival
With at least an attempt at artistery in the stark back-and-white images and a rough veracity to the first time performances of the predominately teenage cast, it might feel harsh to compare Hou Dasheng’s disconnected debut feature with such scandalised sexploitation fare as Harry Revier’s Child Brides of the Ozarks. But the striking similarities between these two works which at first glance seem cinematically as far removed from one another as regionally, just speak louder than the uneven melee of poetry and premeditated provocation. The latter, of course, is also the main point of interest and sales potential for the bleak inspection of normalised child abuse.
A motorcycled can’t give birth to his babies, says the 14-year old title character (Gao Xiaokang) to 12-year-old Pushiha (Pu Juan). What’s going on between them isn’t puppy love or childhood romance, but a callous change of bartering and business. In the impoverished mountain village, there is no way for someone like Hani to make the 5000 Yen dowry demanded by his preteen fiancée’s grandmother. Pushiha on the other hand is well aware that her sole visible relative can only make this deal once while every additional year will decrease her marriage value. An ill-conceived robbery and regional petty crime boss Heche (Gao Hua) don’t make things easier.
This goes also for the audience whose understanding of the scrambled story is further complicated by side plots concerning the new teacher Miss Tian (Tian Tian) and local mayor (Deng Jinfu). Though the expressive chiaroscuro cinematography highlights the scenery’s social-realism, its artifice is obvious. The purportedly true basis, the topic’s salaciousness set off by tame visuals and events, the moralist framing covering an exploitative gaze, and ultimately the very issue of child marriages, bride buying and the backward ways of of poor provincial people: it’s all there, together with the obligatory – if likely accurate – claim the Chinese censors wouldn’t allow this movie. But this forbidden allure doesn’t outweigh the dramaturgical deficiencies.
- OT: Hani
- Director: Hou Dasheng
- Screenplay: Hou Dasheng
- Year: 2024
- Distribution | Production © Hani Film
