Wo bu shi Pan Jin Lian

... this is *way* too long for the slight storyline. From about half-way through I was just hoping for it to end.

To be fair, I'm not a fan of courtroom drama so - even though none of this plays out in an actual courtroom - I belatedly realised that the same "individual versus the system" tropes would be at play and I would (did) lose patience. It was a nice touch though to see some of the officials blaming themselves rather than the victim, for a change.

Individual scenes I'm sure would have had Christopher Doyle and Peter Greenaway swooning with the setup and colour balance but for me, these (and the presence of the wonderful Fan Bing Bing) were nowhere near enough to maintain interest.

I'm sure - as a foreigner - I missed or didn't appreciate many of the subtle cultural nuances, but neither do I feel that I learned anything. Never mind.

I Am Not Madame Bovary (Chinese: Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian) (2016) Director: Xiaogang Feng First Seen: 1/24/25 6/10 Stars

Wronged gal seeks revenge in circles and rectangles.

Tale that spans decades- side plots, excess characters, much too long and gimmicky!

An underdog tale told with charm, humor, panache, and a poignant end.

One versus corrupt regime, filmed amidst a lush China!

#Somonka #PoemReview

A traditional poem taking two stances in two stanzas. In fact, it's basically two tankas written as two love letters to each other (one tanka per love letter). This form usually demands two authors, but it is possible to have a poet take on two personas.

This film has so much potential. It's got good timing sequences, the cinematography is unique and the style is reminiscent of Wes Anderson.

However, the details is just not quite there. Considering the director's bold move to choose such a small focus frame many aspects lack care.

Raining scenes on the river shows clearly it's not raining in the distance. Many side characters clearly has no acting background with exaggerated body language and tone which was off putting. Some of the actors were not able to mimic the local accent consistently.

Overall a very beautifully filmed movie with some great composition and interesting comedic elements. But if you have the knowledge of the language and quality of media in China, you might have also felt the lack of care because these are very basic cinema mistakes in TV dramas and B-grade movies.

Bingbing Fan is on a quest for justice. She and her husband got a divorce so they could get a better apartment, but after the divorce, he married someone else. So she wants the divorce overturned, so they can be married again, whereupon she will sue for a divorce.

This confuses the local judiciary, the police department and the entire civil government up to the level of provincial governor -- goodness knows, it confused me -- and gets a review at the national level in Beijing, where the decisions are sustained. This happens for ten years in a row, while judges, majors and even governors lose their jobs, because this crazy woman cannot be stopped.

It's a fine satire of the effects of one determined person on a massive bureaucracy, as various people try to deal with her by varying means. While I found several stretches a bit slow, perhaps this is because in the details of general and particular points to make fun of, the particular points of Chinese government elude me. Even with that in mind, there are lots of good laughs, and some interesting playing around with mattes: the provincial scenes are shown through a circular matte, showing off the squarish architecture, and the Beijing scenes are shown through a small, rectangular matte, showing off the round archways. I think this is supposed to emphasize the difference way that local and national governments look at things. If so, it is a very nice conceit.

Cinematography is absolutely stunning in this, justly lengthy, portrayal of a woman's quest to gain justice for a wrong, multiplied several times, by uncaring bureaucracy. It is not until the end that we discover exactly why this woman is determined to revoke and repeat a divorce that everyone else insists is valid. She is cast as the indecent woman, a Madam Bovary, but she most definitely is not. She's not mad either, which is what you and all the other characters in the film are lead to believe. It takes patience to uncover the small piece of missing information that makes sense of all. Patience is richly rewarded in this thoughtful and closely observed film - almost to the extent of forensic examination through a microscope.