Before starting to view the first in a bundle of films from Korea which I had got the online ticket for,I decided to look round at what films were about to leave the 2021 Glasgow Film Festival. Finding the screenshots and plot details enticing , I got set to see this tide come in.
Note:Some plot details in review.
View on the film:
Beginning as a documentary film maker before going to fiction feature films in 2013, writer/director Tian-yi Yang closely works with cinematographer Jake Pollock in bringing a Iran New Wave-inspired gaze to capture the tense in the moment family drama, via excellent long takes, shot from cramped, hand-held distorted angles and stilted camera moves, emphasizing a documentary level of closeness with the family.
Pulling the slivers of score to the bone, Yang hits the high notes with striking surreal-dipped symbolism, from Jianbo's final conversation reflecting right back at her, (reflecting the film not offering a singular image as the truth) and Minglan joining with her bright red-clothes wearing choir to sing Mao songs from a fading generation, to a poetic final shot, of nine year old Wanting merrily walks along as a new tide comes trickling in for women in China.
Displaying vivid emotions in her introduction when interviewing mothers of children suspected of having been abused, (and she later interviews the main suspect) Lei Hao gives a subtle,complex performance as Jianbo, whose emotions Hao has become suppress under the pressure from the mouthful of venom unleashed by her mum,who she has been forced to share a house with due to money issues.
Openly stating the distaste she has for how far her daughter Jianbo has moved from the older generation that she now looks nostalgically on, Elaine Jin gives a excellent performance as Minglan, who along with perfectly striking the funny-sad tone in Minglan's using Jianbo's 9 year old daughter as a weapon,also unveils a splintered vision of her former husband,as the tide comes in.
