THE STORY – Ming, a Shanghai resident, travels to southwestern China to reconnect with the area that her late father worked in for so many years. Along the way, Ming meets with many locals who tell stories of the “Down to the Countryside Movement,” agriculture in the area, and her father. Ming wanders around, drifting from one place to another, as she searches to connect with a place that was once so special to her father.
THE CAST – Liang Cuishan
THE TEAM – Agnis Shen Zhongmin (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 94 Minutes
“Shanghai Daughter” is the feature film debut of director Agnis Shen Zhongmin. It’s an extremely slow and meandering film that is beautifully shot and controlled in every facet of the production. It is seriously testing for the audience, despite being only ninety-four minutes long. Quite simply, nothing much happens in terms of action, and it’s quite hard to grasp the director’s intentions until the last act begins. It’s a film of two halves whose cinematic beauty carries it through some periods of boredom.
The story follows Ming (Liang Cuishan), a woman from Shanghai, as she visits Xishuangbanna, a region in China’s Dai Autonomous Prefecture. This area in southwestern China is known for its rubber tree plantations and agricultural success. Fifty years prior, Ming’s father was sent from Shanghai during the “Down to the Countryside Movement” to the area for work. Now, Ming is determined to explore her father’s home-away-from-home and get to know the locals who knew him.
The land isn’t what it once was, with rubber tree plantations being phased out, as China prioritises other agricultural projects in the area. While Ming is fascinated with the wonders of this quiet, yet important region, she is more focused on finding the right people to talk to. Along her journey, Ming talks to a farm officer, a doctor, a rubber tree tapper, and a Dai elder, among others. Her conversations are deep and thoughtful, yielding valuable insights into her father’s connection to the local community.
Agnis Shen Zhongmin’s slow-burning debut premiered at the Berlinale to widespread walkouts. Honestly, it’s unsurprising given people’s dwindling retention time in the modern age. Also, film festivals like Berlin have so many films to offer, so perhaps that’s why there are so many walkouts at festival screenings. Zhongmin really tests the audience’s patience in all sorts of ways. The opening shots feel composed like a fiction film, but then it cuts to documentary-style interviews with locals. It continues to cut back and forth between two very different styles. One is artful and well framed, whereas the interviews are more basic and archetypal. That blend of fiction and non-fiction is the audience’s first hurdle; then the sheer lack of dialogue or anything to grasp narratively, as the protagonist almost aimlessly walks around, makes it a tough watch. Nothing really happens in the first two-thirds of the film, barring the interviews and some beautiful shots, so it’s a game of patience to see how the film intends to tie everything together.
Perhaps the film would’ve worked better as a documentary, as it’s been said that the non-actors didn’t receive a script, and their answers were spontaneous on the day. It feels a little awkward, yet natural in the way they respond, just like a normal interviewee would be if asked random questions. There is a slight disconnect between the talking-head interviews and the wandering Liang’s character does; it comes together only when Liang shares the screen with others. This is what could lead one to conclude that the film is misguided in its approach.
Liang’s performance is rather enchanting; she has a great on-screen presence. She doesn’t say much as her character slowly explores the town; most of her acting is hitting marks and emoting through her eyes. She feels like a real person, rather than an actor, so she blends well with the real-life locals as they converse. The non-actors are just themselves; they don’t act, but naturally respond to the questions being asked and the situations the filmmaker presents to them. The Xishuangbanna presented to viewers is tangible and lived-in; the Shanghai workers really did move there, and their impact is still fondly remembered in the local community.
The film is obsessed with composing beautiful, painterly frames and refuses to cut until absolutely necessary. Shooting in natural light and with an eye for visuals, “Shanghai Daughter” captures every location in an alluring light that captivates viewers even when boredom hits. The camera is almost always static or panning to follow the action, keeping an impressive level of composure as it never breaks its form. It comes as no surprise that the director comes from a non-filmmaking background in contemporary art. She’s stated she sees cinema as a vast artistic medium that deals in ambiguity more so than other art forms. Here, she chooses to embrace ambiguity and let the audience think for themselves. She doesn’t even mind if her film puts viewers to sleep; at least she has the self-awareness to acknowledge how excruciatingly slow and meandering it can be.
“Shanghai Daughter” is a simple artistic venture that explores life in the region today, whilst celebrating those who once worked in Xishuangbanna. It’ll be curious to see what writer-director Agnis Shen Zhongmin makes next, as she clearly has very little interest in conforming to modern cinema standards. This will be a film that makes an impression on a few, but will ultimately be forgotten by the festival-going audience, as it gets lost in the background for being so unassuming and meandering.
