Postmodern Life of My Aunt - A very bittersweet tale
By Xu Wei 2007-3-9
From Shanghai Daily
A Peking Opera fan in her 60s - a Shanghai woman of taste but hardly a woman of means - carries on a secret love affair
with an amateur Peking Opera singer in the bittersweet "Postmodern Life of My Aunt." You know the rest, writes Xu Wei.
This 60-something Shanghai woman is far from a typical retired lady. A divorcee, she lives alone, takes pride in her painting,
her English accent, and she adores Peking Opera. She also yearns for love and falls for an amateur Peking Opera singer.
"The Postmodern Life of My Aunt" tells a postmodern tale of an ordinary yet remarkable older woman on her own. She still
has a passion for life, art and love, despite age and straitened circumstances. She believes in self-cultivation and romance.
The enjoyable, funny, bittersweet film is the latest by Hong Kong director Ann Hui, and began screening this week with
English and Chinese subtitles.
It stars acclaimed mainland actress Siqin Gaowa as the aunt and famed Hong Kong actor Chow Yun-fat as her lover - both
in dramatically different roles from those that made them famous. No dragon-lady, overpowering queen mother. No imperial
figure or martial arts hero.
The film and the acting have received generally favorable reviews. Siqin speaks in imperfect but acceptable Shanghainese.
Chow speaks Mandarin, not Shanghainese. Wearing costumes, they sing Peking Opera together. Chow's songs are
dubbed.
Siqin, known for roles as powerful, dominant older women, now plays an ordinary woman (no name given) who lives alone
in rather shabby circumstances and cares for her difficult, net-surfing nephew over the summer.
Chow, famed for playing major figures in historical dramas and action films, plays Pan Zhichang, a retired unemployed
man, another Peking Opera fan - charming but scheming.
"The character I play is not simply a swindler," he says. "He has different facets to his character, a soft and romantic side as
well."
"In many ways this is the polar opposite of my former roles - women in power," says the 58-year-old Siqin. "The aunt is such
an ordinary person, whose qualities and wit are familiar to many. But it is really hard to portray characters who are around
us in an impressive way."
After retirement, the aunt still struggles to maintain a dignified life in Shanghai. She is proud of her painting skills and
standard English accent, keen to play in Peking Opera episodes, pained that the supper of her wealthy neighbor's cat is
better than her own.
The two main characters meet as the aunt is exercising in the morning in a park and is drawn to Pan's Peking Opera song.
The two get acquainted, genuinely like each other, and become lovers, but hide their affair from the aunt's nephew, her nosy
neighbor and others. Keeping their affair secret in a Shanghai apartment building makes for some very funny situations.
But the aunt really falls in love - her lover doesn't.
Acclaimed actress Lisa Lu plays the aunt's annoying neighbor, who loves showing off her luxuries and is always curious
about the aunt's privacy.
"One memorable scene takes place when the aunt and her secret lover must climb 12 stories to evade their nosy neighbor,"
says a middle-aged moviegoer Xie Rong, a high school teacher.
"Actually, how to deal with your neighbors has been a basic part of Shanghai's mundane culture for decades. The picture,
though, centers on funny episodes in daily life and it captures the city's character behind rapid economic progress and
'modernity'," he says.
The film moves along in a rather light-hearted way until the aunt loses all of her savings in a complicated swindle plotted by
her lover. Then it turns dark and somewhat melancholic. The aunt must return to her crude ex-husband in Anshan, Liaoning
Province.
She must abandon her threadbare but still interesting postmodern life in Shanghai. With a vacant expression, "Aunt" must
earn a living as a shoe vendor alongside her ex-husband in the last third of the film - she goes back to the real modern
world.
Director Hui says she is concerned whether audiences can accept the abrupt change in the last third of the story, "from
spicy grotesquery to true-to-life details. The shock will be obvious, but it also brings the movie a philosophical flavor."
The script was written by Li Qiang, who made his reputation with the acclaimed art-house movie "Peacock," a Silver Bear
winner at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival.
Li said he was deeply attracted by Shanghai's vigorous and diversified culture. The movie uses locations such as the
overpass at Shaanxi and Yan'an roads, and the old houses on Julu Road.
Li says the aunt can be "the 'Aunt' of all common people." Cultural differences didn't prevent this film from winning
enormous popularity when it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival last year.
The story of the "Aunt" has resonated in the hearts of many.
Director Hui, 60, known for her humanist cinema, including "Song of the Exile" and "July Rhapsody," is adept at showing
delicate human emotions and relationships in modern society.
But her police film "Jade Goddess of Mercy" in 2004, just prior to the making of "The Postmodern Life of My Aunt," was
considered a failure both commercially and critically.
"Li's amazing script helps my directing career, which started in the 1970s, embrace another prime, perhaps a new
adventure," Hui says.
The sentimental original score is composed by Joe Hisaishi, well-known for his collaborations with renowned filmmakers
Hayao Miyazaki and Kitano Takeshi in a few classics.
The movie is also a new collaboration between Chow and Hui, 21 years after "Love in a Fallen City" adapted from Eileen
Chang's representative novel.
Chow said in an earlier interview that his passion for films based on real life was no less than his passion for martial arts
epics.
Chow is now preparing for a leading role as general Zhou Yu in John Woo's US$S50 million historical drama "Battle of Red
Cliff," adapted from the classic "Romance of Three Kingdoms."
Siqin will also play a strong-willed mother in a war film set in the 1930s and 40s.
"I love portraying a variety of characters," she says. "I will never stop 'modeling' persons. That is what a good actor should
pursue throughout life, right?"
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