Cinema
Family Portrait
四十不惑
Li Shaohong · 1992
Synopsis
In Beijing in the eighties, Cao Depei, a middle-aged press photographer, married to a younger woman and father of a small boy, is preparing an exhibition. One day he is called to a children's home: a silent teenager there is carrying a letter that Cao had written to his former wife, in the Northeast. He learns that she has died, and that she was pregnant at the time of their divorce: the boy, Zhao Xiaomu, is his son. Cao tries to leave him there, but the child follows him onto the train.
Context
The film was shown at the Locarno festival on 1 August 1992, then at Toronto. According to a review taken up by The Movie Database, Li Shaohong turns here, after a rural fresco, to the urban middle class, with a realist rather than melodramatic narrative, a sign of her generation's move to contemporary subjects. Li Xuejian plays the photographer, Song Dandan his young wife, and Ye Jing the boy.
Who it is for
A film of an hour and a half, in Mandarin, about a Beijing family; no French release is established.
Prizes and reception
Shown at Locarno and Toronto in 1992, it is among its director's award-winning films according to Renditions, which does not specify the prize.