Like
an MTV awards show, you can count on China’s official foreign language Oscar
submission to generate unnecessary controversy. Usually, it comes from
regime-friendly films submitted at the expense of internationally acclaimed
festival favorites that do not slavishly toe the Party’s line. In 2008, nobody
saw the Olympic doc Dream Weavers:
Beijing 2008 outside of the Mainland, but it got the nod over Jia Zhangke’s
24 City. Again in 2013, the Chiang
Kai-shek demonizing Back to 1942 was
selected over Jia’s A Touch of Sin.
See a pattern here? Ironically, the Chinese authorities went in the other
direction this year, snubbing Diao Yinan’s Golden Lion winning Black Coal, Thin Ice in favor of an
intergenerational road movie directed by a Frenchman. Playing it safe, China
might actually win a bit of favor with older Academy members with this year’s
official submission, Philippe Muyl’s The
Nightingale (trailer
here).
For
the second official French-Chinese co-production, Muyl “revisited” the themes
from his 2002 film, The Butterfly.
Instead of a butterfly collecting grand-père, Zhu Zhigen is spry old-timer, who
longs to return his beloved late wife’s nightingale to their former village.
Estranged from his son for dubious reasons, Zhu has never really known his privileged
but lonely granddaughter Renxing. However, when her mother Qianying must leave on
another business trip before her architect father Chongyi returns from his own,
she is reluctantly left in Zhu’s care. Rather than just sit around the flat, he
resolves to take her and the nightingale on a trip to his ancestral home, while
he and the bird still have the time.
Of
course, Renxing is initially quite a pill to travel with, but just as
certainly, a bond will soon form between them. She will also start forging real
friendships with children her own age when a series of detours forces them to make
a long stop-over in an insanely picturesque village quite a bit out of their
way. Eventually, Renxing’s parents will follow after them, having first
resolved to divorce. Can the newly sensitive Renxing find some magic in Guangxi
to keep them together?
Probably,
but it all looks lovely on-screen regardless. While mostly rather apolitical, Nightingale’s journey can be interpreted
as a celebration of traditional village life and a critique go-go urban values
(like capitalism and democracy) by implication, making it quite compatible with
current regime messaging.
In
all honesty, there are worse strategic choices than Nightingale when it comes to Oscar love. As Renxing, young Yang
Xinyi is just relentlessly cute. Likewise, the veteran Li Baotian nicely
balances stately dignity with a bit of scrappy attitude. Eric Qin and Li
Xiaoran are also rather photogenic and reasonably engaging as the parents
learning their predictable lessons. Yet, Renxing and Zhu’s most important
co-star is the lush natural vistas cinematographer Sun Ming artfully frames.
