ripples of life (w&d shujun wei, w. chunlei kang)

Wherefore Chinese cinema? One opens with this question because this is how Ripples of Life begins and ends. A film crew arrive at a hotel-restaurant in an out-of-the-way town, to make a film (called Ripples of Life) about how China is changing. The film is set in a downtrodden hotel restaurant. Gu, the frustrated young mother who lives with her in-laws who run the establishment, becomes friendly with some of the crew, and for a while it looks as though this is going to be a Pygmalion narrative. Gu would be perfect for the part of the owner of the restaurant in the film, and she’s keen for a way out of her humdrum life. She gets her nails done and is roped in to try out the costume for the role. And then the real movie star arrives and her narrative is cut short, in every way. The film is structured in three parts. The second part deals with the movie’s star, who has agreed to do the film in spite of the absence of a definitive script, because it is set in her hometown. We see another side of the town, the side that has been developed. She stays in a fancy hotel and finds herself both realising she misses the town and also wants to get away. The final chapter is an extended dialogue between the director and the screenwriter, who is incapable of producing a finished draft. Their exchanges are intricate and wordy. The screenwriter has worn an Argentine Football jacket all along, and at one point the blue and white shirt. At the moment when the conflict between him and the director seems on the point of becoming irreversible, the director looks at his phone and sees that Maradona has died. Which prompts a montage sequence of all the characters, over the singing of Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina. If this sounds like a bit of a stretch, it also feels like one. Ripples of Life, with its meta premise, veers between fascinating insights into the role of women in this new China, and self-indulgent theorising. The final section of the narrative does indeed feel as though the film is emulating its narrative, with both director and writer unsure how to conclude and resorting to didacticism, although I am sure there are elements of their conversations I might not have grasped. Nevertheless, I emerged from the cinema little the wiser as to the answer of the question, wherefore Chinese cinema?