Taking Father Home

Independent films are often made on a very small budget, but the budget of début film maker Ying Liang was so small that it can hardly be described as a budget. The crew consisted of friends and acquaintances and they were all volunteers in front of the camera too. Even the camera itself had to be borrowed. The result is a strikingly charming, tender yet poetic film that provides evidence of vision and a steady style. Made only with love and willpower. Wary of contemporary cinematographic conventions and expectations, Ying Liang portrays in a consistent yet incomparably minimal way the quest of a simple country boy who loses his innocence in the jungle of the big city. Is not the first film in which a country boy is sucked into the city, but growing up has seldom been so finely sketched. A 17-year-old boy from a village in the province Sechuan leaves for the big city looking for his father, who left six years before and has not been heard of since. The fact that his mother still receives money from his father does nothing to tame his anger. He is certainly not looking for a warm reunion; it is unconcealed revenge that drives him. Totally lost and deserted, he roams the big city with his basket of ducks on his back. When he eventually finds his father after many peregrinations – and many encounters, happy and less happy – it’s time for a dramatic ending. (SdH)

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