VIFF 2009 | Sun Spots at Schema : more than ethnic

VIFF 2009 | Sun Spots

Sun Spots
China, 2009, 112min
DIR: Yang Heng

This year's Vancouver International Film Festival includes 35 features
from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, the
Philippines and Thailand, otherwise known as the Dragons and Tigers
series. Among the pioneering film makers being highlighted is Chinese
director Yang Heng, who brings his second feature film Sun Spots to
damp and rainy Vancouver.

A member of the TuJiazu ethnic minority of the region of Xiang Xi in
south central China, Yang was born and raised in the tranquil agrarian
town of Jishou in Hunan province, and later graduated from Hunan
Audiovisual University and the Beijing Film Academy.

As a player in China's emerging digital cinema movement, Yang utilizes
the sharp aesthetic and cool objectivity of digital filmmaking to
emphasize the acute "reality" of China today. Sun Spots depicts the
life of a young gangster named Ah Li who lives aimlessly and lawlessly
in a sleepy town in southern China. The story develops into a love
triangle between Ah Li and a girl in the same town who uses him as a
temporary rebound from a recent breakup but has a hard time making a
final decision about her ex. Yang's razor-sharp, uncomfortably lengthy
scenes are less about telling a story than they are about forcing the
audience to scrutinize the projected film screen like never before.

In terms of theme, stylization and cinematic approach, Sun Spots is an
extension of Betelnut, Yang's stunning 2005 debut. Told through a
sequence of seemingly modernist landscape photographs, audiences must
embrace his filming technique with patience. Yang is a minimalist. His
camera is consistently set on a tripod in establishing shots with no
motion, no panning and no cuts. Much of the viewing experience comes
down to how one takes the time to interpret the details - in the depth
of space, the body language of characters, the little-to-no dialogue
between characters that often leaves unbearably long stretches of
silence, the ambiance of river streams, and the lulling buzz of
distant traffic. From beer bottle labels and plastic sandals in the
foreground, to oral fixations of smokers in the mid ground, to the
industrial forms and fumes in the backdrop, Yang archives with
exquisite composition the minutiae of a vigorously morphing rural and
urban China.

Thur. Oct. 1, 1:30pm, Pacific Cinematheque
Sun. Oct. 4, 6:45pm, Pacific Cinematheque