Director: Joan Chen
"I really love films with few words. I think film is such a three dimensional enjoyment that you have the luxury of not needing words. For this film especially the two [main actors Lu Lu and Lopsang] shouldn’t have a lot to talk about. If they talked to each other too much it would be ridiculous." Joan Chen
Actress Joan Chen (Twin Peaks, The Last Emperor) directs her first feature Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl with the sure hand of a veteran director eliciting great performances from an unprofessional cast and working the material into an involving, powerful drama.
The film is at once a political drama, a love story and a tragic fairy tale all set in China during the 1970s at the height of the Cultural Revolution. The film is loosely based on both a Tibetan folk song about a young woman who is sacrificed and a similar short story written by novelist/scriptwriter Yan Geling.
Xiu Xiu is a naive idealistic teenager who eagerly joins the Communist youth brigades with the intention of making the revolution a success. She is "sent down" to the high nomadic plains way out by the border of Tibet to tend and herd horses with an older Tibetan man named Lao Jin. Convinced she will be sent back to work with her friends in six months she delves into the daily work. What she doesn't realize, though, is that she is sacrificing her youth for a frivolous cause.
Significant to this predicament is that Xiu Xiu is beginning to explore her own budding sexuality. Her working companion poses no threat since he "lost his manhood" years before in an accident. So they are stuck with only each other on the plains they form a trusting father/daughter type relationship. As time goes on Xiu Xiu becomes desperate to return home and she realizes that her only way to get back is to grant sexual favors to the male comrades who occasionally pass through. Naturally, this leads to a far worse dilemma than she ever envisioned.
The inexperienced cast lends a necessary authenticity to the roles. Especially the Tibetan actor Lopsang who plays Lao Jin with a sincere demeanor, a quiet focus and an unctuous nature toward Xiu Xiu that really carries the weight of the movie. Lu Lu brings a believable naivete to her role that only someone so young could achieve.
One of the best aspects of film is the cinematography by Lu Yue (who has shot many films including Shanghai Triad), which emphasizes the magnificent outdoor locations of the Mongolian steppe and shows us the importance of the seasonal changes that accompanies the story. Also top notch are the crisp analytical editing style which relies on the use of close-ups, observations of objects and cross cutting techniques. There is also little dialogue in the film, giving it the feel of a silent film, which reminded me of Besieged; a film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci whom Chen worked with previously on The Last Emperor.
Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl is almost perfect in the way it moves inexorably to its fateful end, but it is never melodramatic even though is does have a sappy score that, fortunately, isn't used enough to undermine the power of the story. Chen has said she believes the story is hopeful rather than tragic. And perhaps that’s the difference between someone with an Eastern sensibility versus someone with a Western idea of what constitutes the nature of a tragic story.
- Matt Langdon
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