Wang
Han should not be growing up in the countryside. Whether they like it or not, his parents were
forced to relocate to Guizhou province as part of the Cultural Revolution’s
Third Front campaign. For an active
eleven year old boy, it is not such a bad environment. However, he has an unusual vantage point to
observe the struggles of another “intellectual” family in Wang Xiaoshuai’s 11 Flowers (trailer here), which opens today
in New York.
Frankly,
Wang Han’s father is fortunate to have a job with an out-of-town opera company,
but it requires spending extensive time away from home. Each time he commutes to work, he accompanies
Wang Han part of the way to school. It is
an important ritual that cements their bond.
Wang Han does not share a similar bond with his stern factory worker
mother. When chosen to be the leader of
his school’s morning calisthenics (part of their daily Maoist regimen), Wang
Han’s principal rather insensitively tells the boy to ask for a new shirt for
the occasion. Of course, this would be a
considerable investment in money and cloth ration vouchers for the family. Nonetheless, his mother eventually relents.
For
a brief period, life is good for Wang Han, but the discovery of a dead body is
an ill omen, as is the conspicuous distress experienced by Jue Hong, his
frequently absent crush. While his
family has largely avoided trouble, her “intellectual” father, Xie Fulai, has
not. Nor has she. Evidently, the dead man raped the young girl,
as her brother the killer explains to Wang Han, when circumstances bring them
together in the forest. It is a
frightening meeting for the eleven year old, made considerably worse when the
fugitive forcibly takes his new shirt.
It
might be overstating matters to describe the semi-autobiographical 11 Flowers as the late Cultural Revolution
era version of To Kill a Mockingbird,
but it gives a general sense of what to expect from the coming of age
story. Wang focuses on the personal, but
the political periodically intrudes in rudely menacing ways. Through Wang Han’s eyes, the Cultural
Revolution is not so much an exercise in ideological excess, but the periodic
explosion of street thuggery, as when his father is caught in a Red Guard
rampage.
Liu
Wenqing is a remarkably expressive young actor, who perfectly anchors the
film. He makes Wang Han’s slow evolution
from innocence to awakened conscience quite riveting and moving. Likewise, the young supporting cast-members
are spot-on as his classmates. Yet, the
subtle power of Wang Jingchun’s work as his father really sneaks up on
audiences. When he encourages Wang Han’s
painting as a means of artistic freedom, it feels light and natural at the
time, but it is hugely significant in retrospect.