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Chinese director adapts true tale of trust, love

Society Materials 30 January 2008 09:23 (UTC +04:00)

( dpa )- Love is something rather delicate for Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai . He hates arguments and conflict.

Wang holds a similar attitude towards film, and he was dismayed by the recent controversy over the banning of Pingguo (Lost in Beijing).

"Film is my best friend," says the 42-year-old director, whose latest work, Zuo You (In Love We Trust), receives its world premiere at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

"I like to express myself through film and it is fortunate for me that I can do so," Wang told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa .

He found the inspiration for Zuo You after reading Chinese news reports about the divorced parents of a girl suffering from potentially fatal leukaemia .

A decade after separating and later marry other spouses, the parents meet again and conclude that the only way to save their daughter is for them to produce another child to act as a stem-cell donor.

"Sex scenes are something unavoidable in In Love We Trust," Wang says.

"Because the couple want to have another baby but scientific methods have failed them, they decide to try the natural way. It is just the most painful kind of love-making."

Wang speaks fairly fluent English and says the film's English title comes from the need for the couple's new partners to trust them enough to accept the love-making.

"I hope my film can persuade people that when they meet trouble or unhappiness, they can still face it with tolerance.

" China is really in chaos now, it needs reason and it needs the Golden Mean," he adds, referring to the Confucian doctrine of taking a humble, calm, "middle way" in life.

"In Zuo You, the four main characters are all middle class. They never quarrel with each other, so by the end of the film all we see is love."

Wang won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2006 for his film Qing Hong (Shanghai Dreams) and a Silver Bear in Berlin for his 2000 film Shiqi Sui De Danche (Beijing Bicycle).

He used his own life experience in other films, such as Qing Hong, but he now rejects the enduring categorization of Chinese directors into "generations."

"At the start, we were all young and to attract more attention we called ourselves the sixth generation. We called for more personality and creativity.

"In future, I hope we are not simply divided into generations, it is ridiculous for a nation's culture," Wang said.

Unlike Qing Hong, which is set in Wang's childhood home of Guizhou province in south-western China, the story in Zuo You has no obvious link to him.

"There is no real story about me in Zuo You but there is lots of feeling about life from me," he said.

One example is his experience of a middle-aged Chinese responsibility to both his own parents and his eight-year-old son.

"Middle-aged people are the most valuable group in society," he says. "Young people are still learning and lack experience; old people are retired.

"Only middle-aged people are at the best stage of their lives. On the other hand, they have parents to care for, they have children to raise, so they are really tired."

Zuo You was earmarked for international festivals last year. It was delayed by the red tape of China's state approval process under the ruling Communist Party, but Wang feels censorship has lightened in recent years.

"My personal feeling is that in the past few years, the environment has become better," he says. "The management measures have also changed and are not as strict as before.

"Some smaller companies can also make films, which means independent film is now legal.

"As for me, I now know some of the leaders (of the state film bureau) and I can express my opinions to them directly."

Yet the fate of Li Yu's Pingguo , which was pulled from cinemas even after it had passed a lengthy approval process, shows that the problems are not yet over for mainland Chinese directors.

"It's a pity about Pingguo ," Wang says. "There should be clear standards on film censorship.

" Pingguo had already been shown in cinemas for several days, then suddenly it was stopped. This is irresponsible towards audiences, there needs to be a system of film standards," he added.

Wang is more pessimistic about the growing commercialism he sees among mainland Chinese film makers.

He liked Tian Zhuangzhuang's film Wu Qingyuan (The go master) but it was a disappointment at the box office.

"It will become more and more difficult for us independent film directors," Wang says. "The future of Chinese film will be more and more commercial, and real independent films will become fewer and fewer.

"We are also thinking about how to respond to this trend. I might start my own company in the future."

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