Eve and the Firehorse
DIR Julia Kwan | Canada | 2005 | 93mins
In English.
SHOWTIMES:
Fri. Oct. 7 | 7:00pm | Ridge Theatre
Sun. Oct. 9 | 11:30am | Granville 7 Theatres, Cinema 3
Reviewed by Yu Gu
Truly refreshing and imaginative, director Julia Kwan’s debut feature paints the lives of two Chinese-Canadian sisters experimenting with religion, magic and identity.
Eve is a nine-year-old firehorse, that is, she was born in the year of the firehorse according to the Chinese calendar. Renowned as fearfully disobedient, many children born in this year were drowned by desperate parents.
The film opens with this image: horses drowning in water, struggling to surface. With this melancholic note of oppression and rejection, the film moves into the everyday life of a Chinese family living in Vancouver in the 70s.
After their grandmother’s death, Eve and her sister, Phoebe, begin exploring the life philosophies of Buddhism and Christianity. They mix childhood wonder with religious tenets that result in often hilarious encounters with people around them.
While Phoebe becomes strictly Christian, Eve always keeps her magical perspective on the world. A world where Jesus is caught waltzing with Buddha, and a gold fish is the reincarnation of her grandmother. For her, imagination triumphs over the restrictions and oppressions of life.
What I loved about this film was that it created a beautiful story about imagination and growing up, while grounding it within a Chinese-Canadian experience. Eve and the Firehorse won the audience award for Most Popular Canadian Film at this year’s festival and is due out in theatres in late January, in time for Chinese New Year.