Sunlight at Fingertips
指尖太阳
China, 2012, colour, 2.35:1, 88 mins.
Director: Huang He 黄河.
Rating: 6/10.
Offbeat look at rural kids “left behind” by migrant-worker parents packs big charm.
STORY
Xiushan county, Chongqing municipality, central southern China, Mar 2012. For the past year Shi Xiaohe (Wang Tao) and his younger sister Shi Xiaoyu (Zeng Meiling) have lived alone with their grandfather (Jiang Handong) while their parents have been working as cooks in Shenzhen, over 800 kilometres to the southeast. The children’s school is some way up river and, to save the daily trip by boat, they apply to live in the school grounds; Shi Xiaohe, however, ends up staying with his grandfather, whose sight is failing and cannot be left to live alone. Shi Xiaoyu writes regularly to her pen friend, Zhuzhu (Li Peiyao), whose mother (Huang Yixuan) once entranced her with her sand-paintings. But both children feel the absence of their parents, especially during holidays like the Spring Festival. They hatch various plots to get them to come back.
REVIEW
An elusive but involving study of children “left behind” by migrant-worker parents, Sunlight at Fingertips 指尖太阳 is more of an extended mood-piece than a regular movie; but its loose structure, photogenic mounting and likeable performances maintain interest even when hardly anything is actually developing on screen. With its remote rural setting, and combination of directorial precision and narrative looseness, it’s similar to Their Noah’s Ark 他们的船 (2007, aka The Boat), which director Huang He 黄河 (Deng Pingshou 我是花下肥泥巴, 2009) produced a few years ago. Sunlight is more accessible, and has a fresher feel thanks to its child players and young people’s theme, but the quirky approach to story-telling is not much different.
The film is freely based on (and considerably expanded from) a 2008 short story, Stay Warm 继续温暖, by young Hunan-born, Shenzhen-based writer Bi Liang 毕亮. Like the film, the story takes a sideways look at the emotional cost to children of parents working away from home for long periods – here, in a factory canteen in Shenzhen, 800 kilometres to the southeast. Bi Liang’s short story focused on a child and his grandfather, both of whom miss their intervening generation in different ways; Huang’s film brings in many more characters, including the boy’s younger sister (who becomes the film’s de facto emotional centre), the kids’ wacky headmaster, the Shenzhen pen-friend of the younger sister, and the daughter of a mute whose husband is also working in Shenzhen.
The free way in which the script by Long Zhenyu 龙振宇 and Wang Hongjian 王虹剑 mixes these and other character elements together, while also drawing a portrait of a remote ethnic-minority community and its local traditions, is remarkably offhand. Though the film is basically produced by (and shot in) Xiushan Tujia & Miao Autonomous County – a physically stunning region some 300 kilometres southeast of Chongqing – it never feels like an ethnic-minority promotion film; and though its theme is doctrinaire, it never feels like a slice of social propaganda either.
That’s due partly to the natural peformances that Huang draws from his largely non-professional cast, with Zeng Meiling 曾美玲 a real charmer as the younger sister and Wang Tao 王涛 a forceful presence as her older brother. Among the few professionals, Wang Jia 王嘉 (the lead in Their Noah’s Ark) plays the dumb mother of another “left behind” girl, while Huang Yixuan 黄译萱 brings some sleek, big-city beauty to the role of the mother of the sister’s pen-friend.
It’s also due to the film’s technical mounting. Widescreen photography by Sun Tian 孙田 of the hilly, riverside communities manages to be beautifully composed without grandstanding for its own sake, and the incorporation of sand-painting to express the kids’ feelings is a further plus. The film’s oblique, elliptical approach to its subject-matter sometimes keeps the audience on its toes to work out exactly what is going on, and some side stories (such as the girl and her dumb mother) suffer a little in the telling. More of the flashes of loopy humour – largely centred on the school’s headmaster, goofily played by Li Dongchang 李东昌 – would have been welcome, but the movie still goes the distance at a tightly edited 88 minutes and carries quite an emotional charge in its later scenes.
CREDITS
Presented by Shenzhen Tiese Gaoyuan Culture Communication (CN), Eastern Song & Dance Troupe of Xiushan Tujia & Miao Nationality (CN). Produced by Chongqing Party Committee Publicity Department (CN), China Women’s Development Foundation (CN), Chongqing Party Committee of Xiushan Tujia & Miao Autonomous County (CN), Chongqing People’s Government of Xiushan Tujia & Miao Autonomous County (CN), Chongqing Party Committee Publicity Department of Xiushan Tujia & Miao Autonomous County (CN), Chongqing Cultural & Physical Education & Broadcasting Department of Xiushan Tujia & Miao Autonomous County (CN), Eastern Song & Dance Troupe of Xiushan Tujia & Miao Nationality (CN), Hainan Yipin Tiancheng Film (CN), Hunan Tiese Gaoyuan Culture Communication (CN), Shenzhen Tiese Gaoyuan Culture Communication (CN).
Script: Long Zhenyu, Wang Hongjian. Short story: Bi Liang. Photography: Sun Tian. Editing: Kong Jinlei, Qian Fang. Music: Yang Tianjie. Art direction: Yi Bingfeng. Costumes: Xu Minling. Sound: Zhou Honglu. Sand painting: Zeng Zhi. Executive direction: Qin Jie.
Cast: Zeng Meiling (Shi Xiaoyu), Wang Tao (Shi Xiaohe), Zhang Baolin (Li Qiu), Hong Hui (Li Shanshan), Li Peiyao (Zhuzhu), Jiang Handong (grandfather Shi), Li Dongchang (Ran, headmaster), Huang Yixuan (Zhuzhu’s mother), Wang Jia (Li Shanshan’s mother), Jiang Hong (Li Shanshan’s father), Fan Hongyu (Shi Xiaoyu’s mother), Liu Ruixuan (Li, aunt), Tan Renzhong (grandfather Wang), Cheng Qiongyao (Ran’s wife).
Release: China, 25 Sep 2012.
(Review originally published on Film Business Asia, 22 Nov 2013.)