On the Border

In China, a teenage boy dreams of fulfilling his life in South Korea. The director's depiction of the boy's life and the sleepy border town he lives in gives a beautiful insight into the life and desires of people living a life on hold, hoping for "a better life in a better place."

A Korean teen and his missing father. The boy meets a woman. It's the border between a China town and the Korean. His father leaves the motorcycle store he runs, for unknown reason. Interweaving handycam-like realism and stylish, atmospheric cinematography, the film portraits the a trip of desire and unlikely companion. When you find something lost at a time, there could be a world you never knew you would pursuit otherwise.

WEI Shujun's "Yan Bian Shao Nian (On the Border)" vividly shines with its splendid cinematography and great performances by its actors/actresses, reflecting the tale of a hopeful boy who wishes to leave China to go to Korea in search of his lost father. For him, to seek for a lost father means a lot: feeling a sense of belonging, easing his longing for a real home, and quest for a new life... Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2018, International Eskisehir Film Festival is honoured to have the short film "Yan Bian Shao Nian (On the Border)" awarded with "Special Jury Distinction" by Festival de Cannes 2018.

Taken soberly and deliberately, in this urban road movie, the idea of a border is duplicated from the literal and the metaphorical. On the Border is a minimal story and photographically beautiful that finds in spaces and silences the best way to communicate its powerful meaning.

This movie is amazing and its a map to our soul, our silences and our dreams. Poetry, sensibility and an existencial inquiry.

What does freedom mean? Can we as humans go wherever we want to? Money, power and control... are threating things to our freedom as humans?

10/10