Crossroads

The début film by the female Chinese director Wang Jing who trained at the Beijing Film Academy is about several 16-year-old school pupils whom she follows in their ambitions and cares, their misfortune and happiness, loyalty and betrayal. The difficult children play characters close to themselves and, just as in the film, one has more talent than another. In its details and its narrative peace, Crossroads remains convincing. This is a film that succeeds in remaining aloof and revealing along the way how minor anecdotes can be important events in the lives of teenagers. For instance a boy deflates the bicycle tyres of a girl he likes, so he can offer her a lift.
Wang links the sensitivity of this phase of childhood, in which the greatest drama is that of unrequited love, with grander events in Chinese society: the dramas of the apparently insensitive world of adults, the forced demolition of houses and corrupt building frenzy, the attraction of gangs and crime, the move to the big city, the lack of honest chances.
Crossroads is set in Wang's birthplace Jishan, in northern China. After being away for years, she looked at her city and her years at school through new eyes, she saw what had changed and what remained the same. (GT)