A SIMPLE GOODBYE

告别

Directed by Degena Yun

Discoveries / China / 2015 / Drama / 100 mins / Mandarin, Mongolian with English subtitles / DCP

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A SIMPLE GOODBYE

UltraStar Mission Valley
Tuesday, November 8, 2016 5:45 pm

Description

Spirit of Asia Award, 2015 Tokyo International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2015 Torino Film Festival
Official Selection, 2016 Hong Kong International Film Festival

Alienated by her filmmaker parents and sent to London for school at a young age, Shanshan reluctantly returns home when her father falls ill. While her mother and aunt incessantly nag Shanshan’s bedridden father, the young dropout lingers in a limbo, trying to wean off an abusive boyfriend while dating online, and orbiting around a cold family that feels as distant as everything else in her life. But sunlight glimmers through windows and ordinary scenes take on a quiet incandescence. While never shedding her tortured ennui, Shanshan is present for her father, and in each other’s presences they come to a kind of mutual respect.

Narrated in hindsight by an older, possibly wiser Shanshan, A SIMPLE GOODBYE is the most mature, and certainly the most emotionally mannered narrative film about young people in China today. Deeply personal (director Degena Yun plays Shanshan herself), the film dramatizes character with an articulate eye. The furs and hats of a mother who spends money instead of love; the large, slow-moving body of a father constantly looking for a distant corner to stare off into; a daughter who slouches, leans, and bends her head away from the world. Looming throughout is a goodbye to the fading memories of a Mongolian culture and community her father was a pillar of, memories that haunt every scene in the film but also drive so much of its unspoken feelings. –Brian Hu