"Bitter Flowers", ***half - a warm, docu style movie.
Director Olivier Meys,
Actrice: Qi Xi, Wang Xi, Chloe Maayan
Very sensitive and soft, kind to the characters in the film. With very good actrices. Go see?
The film has won best first film award in Belgium. Its an unusual sympathetic film. Because people look down on prostitutes, or they eroticise the profession. The content about prostitutes are usually v sensational. Here, its more about the lives of people going for a better future and when reality does not match to the expectation, what to do? The story revolves around mainly 2 women, with side characters. We see contemporary urban scapes of Dongbei, how people live. Very delicate it shows the men and the women the older folks and the younger children - everything in a succinct form thats recognisable without much distorsion. Docu style. We could easily compare this film to "Belleville Shanghai" a film on similar subject. Both are more than your usual voyeuristic view into China town and the girls on the street.
If we see the film as a personal reaching for better lives goal movie, and if the husband of the Lina character could accept that she also has a right to try for a better life and its also a valid experience. We see in the end, the man, so hurt by his woman being "sold" to Europe, his lost of face, he never never saw once how she had to do all the work - from imagining a better future, daring to take steps, resolve all the accompanying problems, and eventually accepting to reveal and face the reality and to go home - all this takes much more strength than a mere "keeping face" issue. But he is not a bad guy, he loves his wife and he lets her cook noodles with him in the end. :) Everything will be fine. Even though its not easy or pleasant to suffer through all this, in the end, adjustments could be made and from the view of someone outside of the situation (movie goers like us), it is not that bad. Life will be better for this couple.
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