Zinnia Flower

百日告别

Taiwan, 2015, colour, 1.85:1, 95 mins.

Director: Lin Shuyu 林书宇 [Tom Lin].

Rating: 8/10.

Subtle study of two widowed parties dealing with their parallel grief defies the usual cliches.

STORY

Taibei, August, the present day. In a pile-up on an elevated highway, travel agent Zhang Yuwei (Shi Jinhang) loses his heavily pregnant wife Chen Xiaowen (Ke Jiayan), a piano teacher, and Lin Xinmin (Lin Jiaxin) loses her fiance Li Renyou (Ma Zhixiang), a chef. Zhang Yuwei is consumed with anger at the van driver who caused the pile-up, but is told by police that he’s dead. Though Chen Xiaowen was a Christian, her family decides to give her a Buddhist funeral. Li Renyou’s parents, who live in Gaoxiong, and didn’t approve of his forthcoming marriage to Lin Xinmin, also give their son the full 100-day Buddhist ritual of mourning – beginning with seven periods of seven days, at the end of which the soul finally leaves the land of the living, and ending on the 100th day, when no more crying is allowed for the departed. Lin Xinmin is helped by her younger sister, Lin Xinting (Li Qianna), but proves quite independent in handling her grief; she journies down south to Gaoxiong, where she stays in a hotel, to pay her respects at the memorial set up by Li Renyou’s family. Zhang Yuwei slowly tries to bring his anger under control. At the suggestion of a friend, Lihua (Yang Wenwen), he attends a meeting of Chen Xiaowen’s Christian friends; but it doesn’t go well. He ends up having sex with Lihua. On the 35th day, Lin Xinmin visits her aged father (Lin Yichuan), whom she hasn’t seen for a long time, and tells him about Li Renyou’s death. Zhang Yuwei bluntly tells Lihua he doesn’t want a relationship with her. On the 49th day, Zhang Yuwei and Lin Xinmin, who recognise each other from visiting the same Buddhist temple outside Taibei, finally get acquainted. Zhang Yuwei returns to work at the travel agency and Lin Xinmin takes the culinary holiday to Okinawa that she and Li Renyou had planned for their honeymoon. Zhang Yuwei starts returning tuition fees to his wife’s piano pupils. Back from Okinawa, Lin Xinmin takes Li Renyou’s clothes to his younger brother Li Renyi (Zhang Shuhao) in Gaoxiong, and the two share their mutual grief. Then Lin Xinmin goes home, makes arrangements to sell the flat, and prepares a special meal for herself.

REVIEW

A man and a woman, separately widowed in a traffic accident, experience parallel paths of grief and closure in Zinnia Flower 百日告别, the fourth feature by Taiwan’s Lin Shuyu 林书宇 [Tom Lin] following his California-set Parachute Kids 跳伞小孩 (2002), high-school drama Winds of September 九降风 (2008) and coming-of-age fantasy Starry Starry Night 星空 (2011). After the promising but conventional Winds, and more ambitious but disappointing Starry, Zinnia Flower is a huge leap forward for the writer-director. Elevated by a performance of aching serenity by Taiwan Canadian actress Lin Jiaxin 林嘉欣 [Karena Lam], and with a surprisingly good complementary portrait by Mayday 五月天 lead guitarist Shi Jinhang 石锦航, it’s Lin Shuyu’s first mature movie, at the ripe old age of 40.

Inspired by the death of Lin’s wife Huang Ruoxuan 黄若璇 from illness in mid-2012, the film looks at two types of coping with the passing of a loved one – suppression and anger. Widowed just before her marriage, and treated as an outsider by her fiance’s parents, Lin Xinmin (Lin) retreats into herself, politely refusing even her younger sister’s help and – in a section that could have been ridiculous but is one of the most poignant in the whole film – goes alone on the honeymoon to Okinawa that she and her late fiance had planned. In contrast, Zhang Yuwei (Shi), robbed of both his wife and her unborn baby, initially rails against the world, rejects daily life, and only gradually reorganises his world by accepting his wife’s part in it.

The film cross-cuts between the two as they go through the three months of traditional Buddhist grieving – the film’s Chinese title means “Hundred-Day Farewell” – eventually meeting and chatting after seeing each other at the same Buddhist temple in the hills outside Taibei. In different ways they follow a similar cycle of experiences: as Lin Xinmin is shut out by her fiance’s parents, so Zhang Yuwei feels excluded by his wife’s Christian friends; both consider suicide with varying degrees of seriousness; and both release some of their grief with members of the opposite sex. (Unfortunately, the director has trimmed the parallel scene in which Lin Xinmin has sex with her fiance’s younger brother, following strong reactions at the film’s premiere screenings.) When the two do meet, however, they hardly compare notes and certainly don’t start a relationship of their own. Lin’s film is too subtle for that, and is more about the quotidien way of handling grief, of getting through the worst bit, than some cliched romance born of mutual sorrow.

The blank-faced Shi, 40, who was a witty surprise as the bemused fiance in Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? 明天记得爱上我 (2013) and also had a cameo in Starry, pretty much rises to the challenge without really engaging the viewer in his character’s emotions. Despite all the cross-cutting, it’s Lin Jiaxin’s movie, and one of the actress’ best performances in a career that has yoyo-ed between serious dramas (July Rhapsody 男人四十, 2002; Claustrophobia 亲密, 2008) and plenty of iffy genre stuff. It’s also – apart from a cameo in the Cheng Long [Jackie Chan] vehicle Dragon Blade 天将雄师 (2015) – her first film in five years, after taking off time to have a family following the disappointing Don Quixote 魔侠传之唐吉可德 (2010) and Lover’s Discourse 恋人絮语 (2010). Whether or not her performance was informed by the experience of losing her own father just before shooting, Lin, now 37, is superb in a role that’s built upon defying the usual expectations – no tantrums, no outpourings, no histrionics – but still manages to engage.

Other roles are brief, though Zhang Shuhao 张书豪, as the younger brother of the dead fiance, manages his scene of shared grief in a convincing way, singer-actress Li Qianna 李千娜 is fine as the heroine’s caring younger sister, and Yang Wenwen 杨文文 even better as a female friend-cum-bed partner of the hero.

If Zinnia has a weakness, it’s that the film doesn’t actually pack much emotional punch. It’s beautifully put together, with economical use of dialogue; and it analyses its subject with surgical skill, enhanced by the use of classical tidbits (Chopin, Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Mozart) as ornamentation. It’s all very neat and tidy – informed, maybe, by the same professional objectivity that made Lin able to write a script inspired by a deep personal loss. (A smaller blemish, for foreign viewers, is the cavalier rendition of names into English in the subtitles.)

The largely hand-held photography by Yu Jingping 余静萍, who shot Lin’s Winds of September, is all in the service of the performances but still finds room for apposite compositions (notably in the Okinawa section). The film’s English title is never properly explained: being exceptionally sturdy flowers, zinnias have come to symbolise endurance, lasting affection and thoughts of an absent friend. An end credit notes the film is “in memory of Ruoxuan” 纪念若璇.

CREDITS

Presented by Atom Cinema (TW), Taipei Postproduction (TW), B’in Music International (TW), Ko-Hiong-Lang (TW). Produced by Atom Cinema (TW).

Script: Lin Shuyu [Tom Lin], Liu Weiran. Photography: Yu Jingping. Editing supervision: Niu Chengze [Doze Niu], Dai Liren [Leon Dai]. Editing: Chen Junhong. Music: Gong Yuqi. Art direction: Wu Ruoyun. Costume design: Chen Boren. Sound: Du Duzhi, Jiang Lianzhen.

Cast: Lin Jiaxin [Karena Lam] (Lin Xinmin), Shi Jinhang (Zhang Yuwei), Zhang Shuhao (Li Renyi, Li Renyou’s younger brother), Li Qianna (Lin Xinting, Lin Xinmin’s younger sister), Cai Genyan (Chen Jiayan), Ke Jiayan (Chen Xiaowen, Zhang Yuwei’s wife), Ma Zhixiang [Umin Boya] (Li Renyou, Lin Xinmin’s fiance), Cheng Xinxiang (Zhang Yuwei’s father), Zhou Liling (Zhang Yuwei’s mother), Wang Shenghong (Chen Xiaowen’s father), Sun Xinhui (Chen Xiaowen’s mother), Liu Guilian (Chen Xiaowen’s aunt), Zuo Yicheng (Chen Xiaowen’s uncle), Yang Wenwen (Lihua), Chen Yude (Chen Xiaowen’s cousin), Lin Jierui (Chen Xiaowen’s nephew), Lin Yiren (Chen Xiaowen’s niece), Lin Yichuan (Lin Xinmin’s father), Lu Mingming (Lu, Li Renyou’s old schoolteacher), Ling Xinyu (piano student), Yoshida Taeko (old woman in Okinawa).

Premiere: Taipei Film Festival (Closing Film), 12 Jul 2015.

Release: Taiwan, 8 Oct 2015.