If
you have a solid grounding in recent history and global politics, you should be
able to guess the devastating twist that comes at the end of this stop-motion
animated short film. A grown man looks back on his childhood, growing up with the
little sister who was born four years after him in China, during the early 1990s.
If you don’t get it by now, you certainly will be the end of Siqi Song’s
beautifully rendered Sister, which
screened during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
It
is only eight minutes long, but it packs quite an emotional wallop. There is no
question Sister is a highly personal
statement from the Chinese-born, Los Angeles-based Song, who is credited as director, producer, screenwriter,
animator, cinematographer, editor, and art director. Still, she did not do it
alone. Her collaborators include Bingyang Liu, who performed the sensitive
voice-over narration and Karen Tanaka, who composed the classy score.
As
the film opens, the narrator fondly remembers his bratty little sister, who
often brought their parents wrath down on him with her own mischief. Yet,
something seems a little off with this picture. Eventually, all will be
revealed—and it will be a painful revelation—even for viewers who were expected
it. (As a final hint, Nanfu Wang’s documentary at this year’s Sundance also
addresses the same topic.)
Ultimately,
Sister does indeed indict the Chinese
government’s recent policies, but it is still essentially a deeply humanistic
family drama. Song’s animation is quite skillful and her visuals are sometimes
surprisingly fanciful, but that does not dilute the power of her message. Very highly
recommended, Sister screened during
this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
