Customer Reviews

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Xiao cai feng) (Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise) [NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Great Britain]

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Set against the startling backdrop of China's mountainous regions, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress takes place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, where the government was intent on reeducating those intellectuals, artists and political dissenters. Filmmaker Dai Sijie has created a dreamy memory of hardship and adversity - part familiar Chinese parable, part familiar French romance - in which love of the radiantly beautiful, remote Chinese landscape outlasts bitterness at the Mao era's blinkered commitment to intellectual ignorance.

Two teenage friends, Ma and Luo (the attractive Ye Liu and Kun Chen), toil away in a mountain village, children of disgraced intellectuals. As part of their reeducation, they lug human waste up a mountaintop, push rocks in a mine, and occasionally visit a nearby town to watch North Korean films, which they then act out for their less mobile comrades.

Life for them is pretty boring, and they soon tire of the work, but they're smart enough to know that the whole thing is somewhat farcical, but also smart enough to go along with the program. A new world opens up for them when they discover that another young man sent for re-education has a stash of forbidden books - mostly 19th-century European and Russian novels - hidden in his hut.

They also two fall in love with a young girl (Xun Zhou) from a neighboring village and woo her by reading to her from the forbidden books. The young seamstress shows an instant affinity to Balzac in particular, and as Ma reads her the stories from the 19th century, the girl. the most appealing aspect of the movie is the romantic notion that books can change lives. Luo and Ma's interest seems as much the result of intellectual curiosity as it is an appreciation of Balzac's storytelling abilities. They're also impressed that the books deal with more or less ordinary people, unlike the royal personages that dominate classical Chinese literature. For them, this is a revelation.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a big, sweeping and grandly photographed film, but the narrative tends to wander, and oftentimes the movie lacks the dramatic heft to make it really compelling entertainment. Based in the book of the same name, the movie also lacks the subtleness of its source material, with Sijie transforming the book's brief time frame, tweaking countless plot points, and topping it all off with a titanic metaphor not found in his own pages.

The strength of the film is in the quieter scenes when the trio wonder what life is like outside. There's the thrill at the breathy inspiration found in their contraband Balzac and a moment of wonder when the Seamstress talks about seeing airplanes pass overhead and wonders "what the world is like elsewhere." Mike Leonard February 06.

The author of the novel is an intellectual who was forced to live in a labor camp from 1971- 1974...the end of the Cultural Revolution. He is also a filmmaker and therefore he filmed his own novel. This combination is rare... so we witness an outstanding visualization of his book. It is a very interesting film with some breathtaking photography and engaging music. It depicts the influence of listening to great literature upon the mind of an impressionable, intelligent girl peasant/seamstress who ultimately needs to explore her options beyond the narrow confines of country life. (Personally, I thought that
the theme of literature's enlivening influence is even better treated in the wonderful book - "Reading Lolita in Tehran"). I could not quite give the movie five stars because there are
more moving Chinese films of the cultural revolution, e.g.
Gong Li in the masterpiece "To Live." Nevertheless, foreign film addicts will not be disappointed when they buy this DVD.

After traveling in China for 5 weeks and then reading this excellent book, I really could relate to it. Especially after talking to people in China about the effects of the "Cultural Revolution" this book had an excellent inside.
I also recommend the Movie on DVD.
J. Hesse

Director Dai Sijie whose newest film is similarly titled "The Chinese Botanist's Daughters" directed this beautiful tale. Set against the context of the Cultural Revolution, it nevertheless presents it in a way that does not seem ominous or threatening, perhaps the opposite approach of Gao Xingjian's novel "One Man's Bible." Ziou Xun played the Chinese Seamstress in her 5th film, which included "Beijing Bicycle." Her performance as the naive rural girl whose mind is less concerned with political orthodoxy than having a good time. The two boys sent to the country for re-education are Luo & Ma. Both are played by actors in their first films. Chen Kun as the good looking dentist's son Luo has now also made "The Music Box" (2006). Liu Ye who played Ma, the violinist, has gone on to work with Lou Ye in "Purple Butterfly," "The Foliage," "Jasmine Woman," "The Promise," & "Dark Matter." Both actors convey a range of emotions from loneliness at separation from their families to bonding with each other and falling in love with Ziou Xun. Wang Shurangbao does a nice job as the chief whose tooth gets filled by Luo. Chung Zhijun also does a nice job as the tailor, the Seamstress' grandfather. Fan Qing Yun fills his cameo as the doctor who performs an abortion and then buys Ma's violin. The film was nominated as best Foreign Language film by the Golden Globes in 2002 & the National Board of Review in 2005. The cinematography is gorgeous as the mountain settings, the cave and streams are beautifully photographed. The end underwater sequence seems to let the experience float timelessly. This is an excellent film, not to be missed. Bravo!

I have seen this movie quite a few times now. It is like a temporary sanctuary shielding me from say the loud-mouthed so-called comedian on TV. No high drama, no yelling and screaming, it is not an epic about the Cultural Revolution (nor is "To Live", though "To Live" tried. You should hit the books or documentaries if you really want to learn about the Cultural Revolution.) With unpretentious acting, breathtaking cinematography, beautiful music and poetic dialogs, this movie is about how civilization's best creations can transcend life.

It is also one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. How often do you get to hear country bumpkins from backwater China quote Balzac, chant "Ursule Mirouet!", and discuss sagebrush branch as a better cure for malaria than willow branch (not to be administered the usual way medicines are, mind you)? The story unfolds like a fable, sometimes surreal, but there is such simplicity to the storytelling and sincerity in the acting, that it feels believable. (It IS semi-biographical after all.) It will make even an old cynic want to read Balzac, Dumas and Kipling, and yearn for something more from life. Truly wonderful.

It's interesting to see Dai Sijie direct a movie version of his own novel. The book was fine, the movie was fine, but in the last few minutes of the movie, Dai leaves the book behind and finds true cinematic poetry.

Now if only I could find the soundtrack album that the end credits mention but which seems to have not seen the light of day.

I agree with another reviewer here - not as great as "To Live" but highly recommended.

This is a thoroughly delightful (and in parts sad) movie, which is set in 1971, in a Chinese "re-education" camp.

It is based partially on factual events - the lead actor was interred during 1971-1974, in such a camp.

The opening scenes are of a small village, located high in the mountain ranges of northern (?) China.

People sent here are deemed to need being brought back into line, to support the ideaolgies of the communist party.

Western books (we see examples of Henri Balzac; Alexander Dumas and even a cook-book) are banned by the hard-line followers of the communist regime.

Two young men who have been transferred from the city meet here.
They meet a young woman and are enchanted by her beauty and grace.

She confesses that she is illiterate but has heard that there are stories written in books, that tell of worlds she will never encounter. The seamstress tells the boys that she knows where there are some hidden books which were left by a French missionary 30 years earlier.

The boys "liberate" the books and hide them in the mountains. They take turns in reading her stories of Balzac, to help her become literate and appreciate life outside of her village.

To say anything more would spoil the story as it unfolds.

Suffice to say, the script; filming; direction and acting are all first rate and it is well worth watching, not just once, but many times.

Interestingly, it is listed in the biographies of the stars of this movie, that the book and movie have never been made available for sale in China.

This is a beautiful and well-crafted film, mostly warm and enjoyable but with an overlying tinge of sadness. It focuses on two tragedies of post-war China -- the Cultural Revolution (in particular the policy of sending educated children from the city for "re-education" in the country) and the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river, equally rapacious in its destruction of China's past, rich historical and archaeological sites, as well as environmental and social upheaval. Inevitably present as background, the focus is not politics, but rather the story of two young men in difficult times and how they cope, even thrive; and of the beautiful young woman they meet.

It is 1971, and Ma and Luo are eighteen, modern children of the city elite, sent to a remote and mountainous village for re-education as sons of disgraced parents (Luo's father had filled one of Chiang Kai-shek's teeth!). The peasants, at least a hard-core radical chief, don't much like these soft parasites they have been stuck with, and they are given with the hardest and dirtiest jobs such as hauling "nightsoil" to the fields for fertilizer and dragging carts in a cramped mine.

But Ma and Luo don't seem much affected by this unaccustomed labor and are also both raconteurs, story tellers quick on their feet. At their introductory meeting with the villagers, Luo reads from a cookbook he brought -- a classic Chinese banquet dish using the rare and costly walnuts (at least that's how it was explained to me when I learned to cook the same dish); the chief denounces this as a bourguosie holdover, tears the book in half and throws it in the fire. When the chief's suspicion turns to Ma's violin, he plays a tune "Mozart wrote for Chairman Mao", and the violin becomes a regular evening entertainment, doctrinally blessed. Later, they are asked to see propaganda films in a local town and retell the story for the villagers.

One day the elderly tailor from another village, comes to town with his lovely granddaughter, known only as Little Seamstress. She starts hanging out with Ma and Luo, the exciting newcomers, and in turn they both fall in love with her, though it's never clear how deeply she returns the personal feeling, as opposed to the excitement and power of romance. When they acquire a cache of Western books, largely French with Balzac a favorite, they read to the illiterate Seamstress in a hidden cave, and also incorporate the plots into the stories they tell by the village fire. The exotic literature of Europe becomes a central fact of, an escape from, their lives and those around them.

The film is rich with detail and incident, charismatic acting and magnificent scenery (the region filmed has been celebrated in China for centuries). Watching the plot and relationships unfold is an enjoyable trip, even though the interlude of flirtation, both with the Seamstress and the literature, is far more idyllic and relaxed (and the characters far cleaner) than it could have been in real life.

After an enigmatic climax, we flash forward to the present century, when a news report on the completion of the Three Gorges Dam brings Luo and Ma together for bittersweet reminiscence and a return to the flooding village. This long, anticlimactic segment seems tacked on, though it is perhaps convenient cinematically to tie up the loose ends from the first segment without dragging out the re-education process.

This is an enjoyable and beautiful film, emotionally satisfying on first viewing. Go see it and enjoy. But I do have a number of caveats which prevent my giving it a 5* rating, some of which are:

-- why the focus on Western literature, instead of China's own rich heritage which was under attack as much or more than outside lit?

-- several characters, after reading or listening to "Bal'zaki", declaim "I feel like the world [or my life] has changed," but it's never clear in what respect or how, what thoughts or ideas brought about this change, and what real effect it has. [OK, there's one case where I think we're supposed to think a person's actions were based on this change, but it could as well have been Mao as Balzaki, or just restless ambition.]

-- how do Luo and Ma rate what seems a pretty nice house, isolated from the others? I'd like to fit that one out as a B&B!

-- why is the tailor so seemingly impervious to the cultural revolution, maintaining status and freedom?

-- though the village characters in the final segment seem appropriately aged, Ma and Luo seem more like ten than thirty years older.

-- our lead boys seem admirably well kempt, clean and coiffed, for kids presumably exhausted and begrimed by hauling (and being sloshed by) raw sewage and grubbing in the mines. Little Seamstress, likewise, is a bit too perfect.

[This review is based on the theatrical release.]

This is one of my all time favorite movies. If you love Chinese movies and love to watch the intersection of cultures, this is the movie for you. Lives are transformed through love, through literature, through hope and dreams. The photography is amazing and so is the acting. Superb!

It was a beautiful movie, but after having read the book, I expected something else. Certain elements seemed rushed compared to the book, and some things just seemed to have been changed for no reason.