Actress turned acclaimed independent documentary maker Yang Lina came to the British Film Institute on May 13, 2016, to present her first feature length film "Longing for the Rain." This was part of the U.K.'s largest Chinese-language film festival Chinese Visual Festival.

Actress Zhao Siyuan as Fang Lei in "Longing for the Rain." [Photo /China.org.cn]

Yang is known for her starring role in Jia Zhangke's award-winning film "Platform" (2000), and more recently for her internationally acclaimed documentaries such as "Old Men" and "Home Video," which also screened at the Chinese Visual Festival. But the focus at the British Film Institute is "Longing for the Rain," Yang's first step away from documentary and into fiction-film making.

"Longing for the Rain" (2013) focuses on middle-class housewife and mother, Fang Lei. Her marriage is steady going but lacks a sexual connection. Fang goes through similar routines day by day until her life is changed by a man who visits her in her dreams. She cannot see who he is, nor does she know if he is real, but she falls in love with him anyway. Afraid that she is starting to go crazy, Fang visits a Taoist monk, and then a Buddhist facility, hoping to find some cure.

Yang's first foray into fiction is an exploration of female sexuality in modern, middle-class China. It is one of the first independent Chinese films of its type to explore female desires and the psyche of a certain class of women. The subject is so rarely featured in Chinese movies -- mainstream or independent -- that Yang is considering making a trilogy of movies that will focus on female identity, though, Yang told us, men might not like it.

"Men don't want to see women being extroverted and sexual," Yang told us during an interview before the film. "We've never/rarely seen films that focus on female sexuality so this sort of film isn't normal in China."

Not all men share this view. Yang said that one of her male-director friends called "Longing for the Rain" a "very brave film." The film is quite sexual and is unlikely to reach wider audiences in China, even if the subject and portrayal of sex have been done tastefully and by the hand of an artist with a masterful hand.

As part of the Chinese Visual Festival, Yang also gave U.K. cinema-goers an opportunity to see some of her earlier documentary works, including "Home Video," which played at the opening night of the Festival.

"Home Video" is literally that -- it is a film made on a simple camera starring her mother, father, and brother. Yang interviews her family and asks why her mother and father got divorced, and how this has affected them over time. "Home Video" deals with the complexities of separation and the modern family in a way that is touching and honest. Despite the blame that comes with divorce, and the sad effect it has on the parents and the children, Yang's "Home Video" is bittersweet in its depiction of a situation close to her own history.

Whether Yang chooses to make another fiction-feature film or turns back to pure documentary is uncertain, but whatever comes next is sure to be a delicate display of human nature like her previous films.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)