QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Credited on the Festival’s website as a Canadian production in the Burmese and Chinese languages, this is a Chinese-made film not sanctioned by the Chinese authorities dealing with subject matter which the filmmakers fear would not be passed by the Chinese censor. A number of the film’s cast and crew have used pseudonyms to avoid prosecution. The narrative takes place in the mountainous, Southern region of China close to the border with Myanmar. You get the feeling that this area of China has been largely forgotten by the distant Beijing authorities.

The central characters are young teenagers or pre-teenagers, Hani (14; played by Gao Xiaokang) and his friend Apao (Qian Long), who seems to be frequently seeking advice from others on his mobile phone, and Hani’s longtime sweetheart Pushiha (12; Pu Juan). We glimpse the interiors of both Hani and Pushiha’s homes, and the similarities are startling: no sign of parents, as each lives with a single grandparent – a grandma in Pushiha’s case, a grandpa (Ma Youxing) in Hani’s – who are shown as sitting in a chair sleeping in front of the constantly switched on TV all day, completely out of it. In front of Hani’s grandpa is a small, blazing log fire to keep him warm. These are poor people.

Hani’s problem is that he wants to marry Pushiha, and in order to do that, he has to pay for her dowry at the price set by her grandmother, which is ¥5,000, more money than he ever expects to see. We never see any sign of the grandmother in any conscious, waking state where she would be capable of any such decision, but there is never any contrary suggestion that she might not be making this decision herself.

In the absence of immediate parental role models, the kids do the best they can. Visiting teacher Prof Xi is assigned to help the kids, but he doesn’t show up, and teacher Miss Tian (Tian Tian) arrives by truck in his place. The ubiquitous and approachable local mayor (Deng Jinfu) assigns her to live with Pushiha for the duration of her stay, as he knows the young girl’s case is in need of attention. Miss Tian helps the mayor sort out some money owed by the state to Pushiha: it’s difficult to follow exactly what’s going on here, as if Ken Loach had made I, Daniel Blake (2016) but neglected to explain how the UK’s benefits system works. Pushiha, meanwhile, thinks nothing of getting her sleeping grandma’s inked thumbprint onto a legal document to authorise it (the inked thumbprint is a standard method of verifying such documents round these parts).

Hani scarcely fares better in terms of finding a reliable moral compass. He and Apao hang out at the local pool hall run by the adult Don Juan (Zhu Mingsha), who sends them packing when they have no money to pay him to play. Instead, Hani falls in with local petty thief Heche (Gao Hua) and steals three silver pieces from Pushiha’s grandma (without Pushiha’s knowledge) to make himself some cash, only to later regret it. He naively approaches the two local cops at the police station (the head one played by Kong lingchun) which results in a loudspeaker being carried around the town announcing that he has been stealing.

The issues of child marriage, child brides, and dowry / payment for them might well be an important issue in need of addressing. Alas, the narrative information required by the audience to generally make sense of what’s happening proves all too often too difficult to follow, making the act of watching the film extremely hard going. Moreover, one has to wade through further plot involving Miss Ting’s being sexually abused and the workings of the local underworld. The above review took a couple of viewings as this reviewer attempted to sort out exactly what was going on. Additional details were worked out from researching geography on the web. Much of the exposition overall is far from clear on a single viewing, and it’s not a film you’d wish to go back and watch again. There’s simply not enough substance there. Altogether, an infuriating movie experience: not recommended.

Hani premieres in the Critics’ Picks Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.