[Pen-l] Taking Father Home

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Unlike my colleagues in NYFCO (New York Film Critics Online) who 
review movies for a living and have to put up with the latest dreck 
out of Hollywood, I can pick and choose what I watch and write about. 
Even not having movies like Neil Labute's racist garbage to use as a 
benchmark, I am confident that there is nothing more worth seeing 
than "Taking Father Home," a Chinese movie made without governmental 
approval for less $5000.

The plot revolves around 17 year old Xu Yun's search for his father, 
who abandoned his impoverished rural Sichuan family six years earlier 
for a better life on his own as a construction worker in the city of 
Zigong. In other words, the movie describes the current reality for 
hundreds of millions of Chinese families.

Xu Yun is played by a nonprofessional actor named Xu Yun. His 
character is not "dramatized" for the conventional expectations of 
most movie-goers but instead is presented as a sullen, inexpressive 
youth on a single-minded mission. It is clear that filial devotion 
means much less to him than simply tracking down somebody in the 
style of a bounty hunter, with pretty much the same goal: to get his 
family's hands on some income.

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/taking-father-home/

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