A Fool

一个勺子

China, 2014, colour, 1.85:1, 103 mins. (premiere version), 93 mins. (release version).

Director: Chen Jianbin 陈建斌.

Rating: 7/10.

Actor Chen Jianbin makes a very solid, if hardly original, directing debut with this village allegory.

STORY

Yongtai village, Caowonan township, Gansu province, northwest China, the present day, 2 Nov. A crazy beggar (Jin Shijia) follows shepherd Ma Ji, aka Latiaozi (Chen Jianbin), to his home. The young man is silent but harmless, so Ma Ji and his wife Jin Zhizi (Jiang Qinqin) take pity on him, letting him stay one night in an outhouse so he doesn’t freeze to death. Next day the fool follows Ma Ji into town. Ma Ji manages to get rid of him but that evening the fool turns up outside his house, so he lets him stay one more night. By the following evening, Ma Ji and his wife are sharing their dinner with him. Meanwhile, Ma Ji finally tracks down Li Datou (Wang Xuebing), a shady fixer-cum-businessman who is supposedly helping Ma Ji to get his son’s six-year prison sentence reduced. The son has so far served two years, and Ma Ji has given Li Datou RMB20,000 – two-thirds of his savings – but with no visible results. Li Datou says he can’t have a refund as the money has already been passed on. Ma Ji consults the village head (Su Erdong) about his problem with the fool, but to no avail; and the local policewoman (Li Li) says the fool has done nothing he can be arrested for. Ma Ji cleans the fool up and places a lost-and-found announcement on local TV. Soon afterwards, Li Datou says he’s found a relative of the fool, and one evening a man called Da Wang (Su Xiaogang) arrives to collect the young man, giving Ma Ji some cash as a thankyou. But then others claiming to be the fool’s relatives also start turning up.

REVIEW

Mainland character actor Chen Jianbin 陈建斌, 45, makes a very solid, if not startlingly original, debut as a director with A Fool 一个勺子, a drily witty allegory on how the best of human intentions can go wrong in a society that’s fixated on money and self-preservation. The same theme also formed the basis of another recent indie, Old Stone 老石 (2015), though A Fool – made earlier – has a very different flavour with its droll northern humour, rural setting and simple plot. A village-set indie with a slight difference, the film is straightforwardly directed, with no stylistic flourishes or arty pretensions, and is held together by Chen’s own understated performance as an honest shepherd who finds he can’t get rid of a crazy beggar who’s latched on to him.

Chen is better known for his TV drama work (such as playing Cao Cao in the 95-part Three Kingdoms 三国, 2010) than for his film roles, though the latter have included some memorable turns: the indebted chauffeur in Driverless 无人驾驶 (2010), the dogged lead in People Mountain People Sea 人山人海 (2011), and the homesick sergeant-major in Paradise in Service 军中乐园 (2014). In A Fool, he brings the same gruff, northern flavour to both his own performance and the film itself, as a simple act of charity (providing a night’s roof for a crazy beggar in winter) turns into a responsibility that (a) first won’t go away and (b) then turns into a money-spinner. Mystified why a village idiot can be so valuable to some people – and unable to find an answer from anyone – Chen’s simple shepherd wonders if it’s better to be a fool than a charitable citizen in today’s society.

Fairly closely based on a 2013 novella (Running Moonlight 奔跑的月光) by much-filmed Hebei writer Hu Xuewen 胡学文, the movie is totally from the viewpoint of the shepherd rather than the fool. There’s none of the idiot-savant about the latter character (as, say, in the village black comedy Mr. Tree Hello！树先生, 2011); in A Fool he has no personality at all, and his face isn’t even seen clearly until halfway through the film, when the shepherd cleans him up. The main dramatic thrust is centred on whether the shepherd will keep his dignity and life intact, as well as his immediate relationships – with his wife who’s always nagging him for being too trustful of people (a beautifully understated performance by TV actress Jiang Qinqin 蒋勤勤, 40, Chen’s real-life wife), with the slippery village head (Su Erdong 苏尔东, just the right side of parody), and with a big-talking local fixer (Wang Xuebing 王学兵, on barn-storming form) who’s meant to be getting the shepherd’s son out of prison for a tidy fee.

The layered dialogue between them and others nicely reflects the importance of not rocking the boat in a small town, as well as the various social protocols. The film loses some momentum in its final half-hour, with a long scene of the wife complaining that could be cut. Otherwise, it’s well paced across its tight running time and, with the visuals by d.p. Xie Tianxiang 谢天翔 faithfully reflecting the drabness of an average northwestern town, entirely sustained by the acting.

Following its premiere at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Festival in Nov 2014, where it won Best Actor and Best New Director awards, the film was scheduled to open in China on 1 May 2015. That, however, was torpedoed by Wang’s arrest in March for drug possession. The film was finally released in a re-edited version – in which Wang is never seen full face and his name appears nowhere on the film – in Nov 2015, a year after its world premiere. Chen himself has stated that his re-cut was for artistic reasons and had nothing to do with the Wang affair. The nine-and-a-half minutes taken out included shortening some unnecessarily long takes, and only one scene was cut in its entirety (a three to four-minute one of Ma Ji and the fool sitting by the roadside eating and drinking).

In an apparent nod to Chen’s own northwestern roots, his character is nicknamed Latiaozi 拉条子, a well-known Xinjiang noodle dish. It is also implied that the shepherd and his wife are of the Hui minority, as is Chen himself. The film’s Chinese title literally means “A Spoon”, which in the northwest is slang for “a fool”. Shooting took place in Jingtai country, central Gansu province; director Cai Shangjun 蔡尚君, for whom Chen made People Mountain People Sea, is credited as “artistic supervisor”.

CREDITS

Presented by Hebei Maxiya Culture Communication (CN), Shandong Jiabo Culture Development (CN), Yeyu Shijian Film Investment (CN), Beijing Ruyi Xinxin Film Investment (CN), Beijing Blue Diamond Culture Media (CN), Xiamen Meitu Technology (CN), Zhonghui Huashang Culture Media (CN), Beijing Haihua Sun Culture Media (CN). Produced by Hebei Maxiya Culture Communication (CN), Shandong Jiabo Culture Development (CN), Yeyu Shijian Film Investment (CN), Beijing Ruyi Xinxin Film Investment (CN), Beijing Blue Diamond Culture Media (CN), Xiamen Meitu Technology (CN), Zhonghui Huashang Culture Media (CN), Beijing Haihua Sun Culture Media (CN).

Script: Chen Jianbin. Novella: Hu Xuewen. Photography: Xie Tianxiang. Editing: Fang Yuan. Music: Jia Tienan. Art direction: Zhai Tao. Costumes: Chen Yuye. Sound: Hao Gang, Li Chen. Visual effects: Zhuang Yan. Artistic supervision: Cai Shangjun. Executive direction: Shao Zehui.

Cast: Chen Jianbin (Ma Ji/Latiaozi), Jiang Qinqin (Jin Zhizi, Ma Ji’s wife), Wang Xuebing (Li Datou), Jin Shijia (fool), Wang Xufeng (Li Laosan), Su Erdong (village head), Wang Lan (female shopkeeper), Zeng Zixuan (Li Datou’s wife), Li Li (Yang, policewoman), Su Xiaogang (Da Wang), Li Bin (man with facemask), Jiang Hong (woman with facemask), Yu Feng (Red Helmet), Zhang Liang (Blue Helmet), Wu Shouchen (printing-shop owner).

Premiere: Golden Horse Film Festival, Taibei, 16 Nov 2014.

Release: China, 20 Nov 2015.