SHE, A CHINESE

Mei has never been further than five miles away from her native village in China. Looking for excitement and new adventures, she arrives in Chongqing. Life in the big city however doesn't quite turn out as expected: Fired from her factory job, she ends up working in a hair salon, where she meets Spikey and falls in love with the young gangster. When one day he comes back covered in blood and dies in her arms, Mei must leave town, her dreams shattered. London is the city that unpleasantly greets this illegal immigrant. A new language, bland food and an unfamiliar set of rules now broaden her horizons, but the future is an enticing unknown.
She, a Chinese stands in stark contrast with its title, which would seem to define the cultural and ethnic origins of its protagonist. But this is a truly nationless movie, addressing contemporary issues that trespass borders and blur socio-political lines into a globalized world of shared values and collective problems. Challenging the visual style of traditional Chinese cinema, novelist and filmmaker Guo Xiaolu focuses her subtle narrative on an enigmatic woman who creates her own path. Framed in chapters and often using short, lyrical captions or silent, beautifully composed snapshots of landscapes, the film is an unpretentiously sophisticated hybrid of documentary, creative writing, visual poetry and cinema. (Giovanna Fulvi)