A First Farewell
第一次的离别
China, 2018, colour, 2.35:1, 85 mins.
Director: Wang Li’na 王丽娜.
Rating: 6/10.
Slim but affecting semi-feature looking at a Uyghur village, mostly through the eyes of its children.
STORY
Xayar village, Aqsu prefecture, midwest Xinjiang province, northwest China, the present day. Young Isa (Isa Yasan) lives on a small farm, tending the animals, looking after his sick mother (Ugulem Sugur), attending school and playing with his friends Kalbinur (Kalbinur Rahmati) and her younger brother Alinaz (Alinaz Rahmati). One day his mother, who is deaf and mute from meningitis, wanders off; Isa’s elder brother (Musa Yasan) is angry with him, and the two go looking for her. Later, Isa hears that his mother has been taken to hospital, and his father (Yasan Kamisu) sets off to see her. Meanwhile, Kalbinur’s parents, both cotton growers, are worried about her poor school marks in Mandarin, which is now much more important than Uyghur; her mother (Tajigul Heilmeier) wants to move to Kuqa city so Kalbinur can attend an all-Mandarin-speaking school, but her husband (Rahmati Kuramu) says he cannot leave his own father (Kuramu Kasimu) behind in the village. Finally, Isa’s elder brother decides to leave the village to study to become a cadre, and Isa’s father decides to put his wife in a home for her own good, despite the objections of her sister Yasan. That wonter, Isan and his father are left alone in the village, and Kalbinur’s parents also come to a decision over her future.
REVIEW
Pitched halfway between a documentary and feature film, A First Farewell 第一次的离别 is a strikingly shot, oblique look at several issues affecting a remote village in Xinjiang province, northwest China, through the eyes of two primary-school children. The debut film of Wang Li’na 王丽娜, 31, a graduate of Beijing’s Communication University of China, it started out as a documentary on village kids, with Wang shooting for a year around her home village of Xayar, and was subsequently, after extra shooting, turned into a feature but with no formal script or dialogue.
Wang herself calls Farewell a feature film and, although the narrative has gaps and sudden transitions, it just about qualifies as such, thanks to seductive, saturated widescreen photography by Li Yong 李勇, a director in his own right (gay drama Embracing Not Sleep 相拥不眠, 2011; ethnic romance Love Story in Xiangxi 爱在湘西, 2018, under the pen name Mu Ke 沐轲) and smart editing by France’s Matthieu Laclau, who’s built up a notable portfolio of work on non-mainstream Chinese movies (Mr. Tree Hello! 树先生, 2011; A Touch of Sin 天注定, 2013; Love Education 相爱相亲, 2017; Ash Is Purest White 江湖儿女, 2018; The Crossing 过春天, 2018).
Without any judging or grandstanding, the film touches on various topics – the declining usefulness of the Uyghur language (as opposed to Mandarin) in the majority-Uyghur province, the drift from villages to towns by young people, the disregard by peasant families for their children’s education, the hierarchical structure of the Muslim community – while still keeping the focus on its young protagonists, all essentially playing versions of themselves. With his father living away, the boy Isa is left with multiple jobs (including looking after his sick mother) inbetween attending school; his only moments of joy are playing with his friend Kalbinur, the young daughter of a couple who’ve actually married twice and are considering whether to move away. That couple’s dialogue scenes, often while picking cotton in the fields, have a dry humour that’s very welcome.
The “narrative”, such as it is, swings back and forth between Isa and Kalbinur and their two families: she, in particular, is quite a handful and, to her mother’s concern, has poor marks in Mandarin; he has a distant relationship with his father (who’s basically moved out after endless quarrels with his sick wife) but is finally forced to get along after his elder brother moves away. Like Wang’s own relationship with her native village, it’s a film about saying the farewells that are a necessary part of life if one is to develop, which makes doubly moving the position Isa finds himself in at the end.
Overall it’s a slim but still affecting movie, despite the familiarity of much of its material. A big plus is the gentle, discreet scoring by composer Wen Zi 文子 (aka Wen Zhibo 文智波, Folk Songs Singing 郎在对门唱山歌, 2011; Black Coal, Thin Ice 白日焰火, 2014) for the brother’s farewell and the change of season, with other music having a Central Asian flavour.
For the record, the copy of the film reviewed at the Berlin film festival had no Chinese main title, only Uyghur and English ones.
CREDITS
Presented by Shanghai Eternity Media & Culture (CN), Shanghai Tencent Pictures Culture Media (CN), Horgos Mgtv.com Interactive Media (CN), Beijing Medoc Film (CN), Shanghai Bridgestream (CN), Emei Film Group (CN). Produced by Shanghai Eternity Media Culture (CN).
Script: Wang Li’na. Photography: Li Yong. Editing: Matthieu Laclau. Music: Wen Zi. Art direction: uncredited. Costumes: Wang Li’na. Sound: Li Danfeng.
Cast: Isa Yasan (Isa), Kalbinur Rahmati (Kalbinur Rahmati), Alinaz Rahmati (Alinaz Rahmati, Kalbinur’s younger brother), Musa Yasan (Isa’s elder brother), Yasan Kamisu (Isa’s father), Ugulem Sugur (Isa’s mother), Tajigul Heilmeier (Kalbinur’s mother), Rahmati Kuramu (Kalbinur’s father), Kuramu Kasimu (Ahmati, Kalbinur’s grandfather).
Premiere: Tokyo Film Festival (Asian Future), 29 Oct 2018.
Release: China, 20 Jul 2020.