.gif)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (film)
Encyclopedia
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a 2002 Franco-Chinese romance drama film with dialogue in the Sichuan dialect
directed by Dai Sijie
and starring Zhou Xun
, Chen Kun and Liu Ye
. It premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival
on 16 May.
Based on the 2000 semi-autobiographical novel of the same title
by Dai, the film revolves around two young Chinese boys of bourgeois
background who were sent to a remote village in Sichuan province for three years of re-education during the Cultural Revolution. They both fell in love with a beautiful local girl, granddaughter of an old tailor and known to everyone as the Little Seamstress. During those years of intellectual oppression, the three found solace and liberation in a collection of banned translated novels by Western authors, among whom their favourite was Balzac
. The film explores the themes of youth, love, and freedom in those dark times in China.
), are on their way to a remote village in the mountainous Sichuan province for re-education. Upon arrival, the boys are questioned on their "reactionary backgrounds" by the Chief (Chen Tianlu), the village leader, in the presence of the other villagers. Luo's father turns out to be a dentist who had once fitted a false tooth for Chiang Kai-shek
, while Ma's father is a doctor. The Chief also examines the boys' luggage and burns a cookbook, which he claims to be bourgeois. He is about to throw Ma's violin into the fire as well before he is stopped by Luo, who lies that the Mozart
's Divertimento KV 334 Ma plays is a "mountain song" titled Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao.
The two boys are allocated a house and immediately join in the labours of the locals, which include transporting buckets of human waste used for fertilizer as well as working in the coal mine. One day, a young girl, granddaughter of a tailor from the neighbouring village and known to everyone as the Little Seamstress (Zhou Xun
), comes by with her grandfather to listen to Ma play violin. Luo and Ma befriend the Little Seamstress and soon both fall in love with her. The girl, illiterate but hungry for knowledge, and the boys, vowing to transform her, devise a plan to steal a suitcase filled with banned translated Western novels from Four-Eyes (Wang Hongwei
), another boy undergoing re-education in the village but bound to return to the city. Luo begins to read to the Little Seamstress every day, books including those by Stendhal
, Kipling
and Dostoevsky
. But her favourite turns out to be Balzac
.
The Little Seamstress soon falls in love with Luo. One day, as Luo is departing for the city on a two-month leave to visit his sick father, she tells him that she has a problem but does not elaborate. She later confides to Ma that she is pregnant, but population-curbing laws forbid marriage before 25 and abortion is illegal without a marriage certificate. Ma travels to the city to find a gynecologist who knows his father and begs the latter for help. The gynecologist is moved and agrees to travel to the village to perform a secret abortion. Upon Luo's return, life resumes as before.
One day, however, the Little Seamstress, now completely changed by the new ideas Luo and Ma have introduced her to, abruptly decides to leave the village to seek out "a new life," despite pleas from her grandfather and Luo. Later, in 1974, Luo and Ma both return to the city as well. Luo later becomes a professor in a dental institute in Shanghai
, while Ma moves to France
and becomes a professional violinist. In the late 1990s, when he sees on the news that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam
will soon flood the village he spent three years in, Ma travels back in the hope of finding the Little Seamstress again. However, his efforts are futile and he brings back only a video recording of the village and the people, including the now aged Chief. As Ma meets up with his old friend Luo in Shanghai, the latter confesses an earlier failed attempt to search for the Little Seamstress in Shenzhen
and Hong Kong
. The film ends with a news clip of the flooded towns and villages and a scene of the three, back to their youth years, also submerged in water.
on 29 November 2005 in the United States
and distributed by Empire Pictures.
Sichuan dialect
Sichuanese Mandarin , commonly known as Sichuanese, Szechuanese or Szechwanese , is a branch of Southwestern Mandarin, spoken mainly in Sichuan and Chongqing, which was part of Sichuan until 1997, and the adjacent regions of their neighboring provinces, such as Hubei, Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan and...
directed by Dai Sijie
Dai Sijie
Dai Sijie is a French author and filmmaker of Chinese ancestry.-Biography:Dai Sijie was born in China in 1954. Because he came from an educated middle-class family, the Maoist government sent him to a reeducation camp in rural Sichuan from 1971 to 1974, during the Cultural Revolution. After his...
and starring Zhou Xun
Zhou Xun
Zhou Xun is a Chinese actress and singer. She is regarded as one of the "Four Young Dan actresses" in China in the early 2000s, along with Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Zhao Wei.-Early life:...
, Chen Kun and Liu Ye
Liu Ye
Liu Ye is a Chinese film and television actor.-Career:From the beginning of his acting career when he was a 20 year old student majoring in performing arts at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, Liu Ye's talent in acting was apparent very early on...
. It premiered at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival
2002 Cannes Film Festival
The 2002 Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film The Pianist directed by Roman Polanski.-Jury:* David Lynch * Sharon Stone* Michelle Yeoh...
on 16 May.
Based on the 2000 semi-autobiographical novel of the same title
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Dai Sijie, and published in 2000 in French and in English in 2001. It is the author's first published novel. Its original French title is Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise...
by Dai, the film revolves around two young Chinese boys of bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
background who were sent to a remote village in Sichuan province for three years of re-education during the Cultural Revolution. They both fell in love with a beautiful local girl, granddaughter of an old tailor and known to everyone as the Little Seamstress. During those years of intellectual oppression, the three found solace and liberation in a collection of banned translated novels by Western authors, among whom their favourite was Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
. The film explores the themes of youth, love, and freedom in those dark times in China.
Plot
The film is set in a period between 1971 and 1974, during the later stage of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Two city boys in their late teenage years, Luo Min (played by Chen Kun) and Ma Jianling (Liu YeLiu Ye
Liu Ye is a Chinese film and television actor.-Career:From the beginning of his acting career when he was a 20 year old student majoring in performing arts at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, Liu Ye's talent in acting was apparent very early on...
), are on their way to a remote village in the mountainous Sichuan province for re-education. Upon arrival, the boys are questioned on their "reactionary backgrounds" by the Chief (Chen Tianlu), the village leader, in the presence of the other villagers. Luo's father turns out to be a dentist who had once fitted a false tooth for Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, while Ma's father is a doctor. The Chief also examines the boys' luggage and burns a cookbook, which he claims to be bourgeois. He is about to throw Ma's violin into the fire as well before he is stopped by Luo, who lies that the Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Divertimento KV 334 Ma plays is a "mountain song" titled Mozart is Thinking of Chairman Mao.
The two boys are allocated a house and immediately join in the labours of the locals, which include transporting buckets of human waste used for fertilizer as well as working in the coal mine. One day, a young girl, granddaughter of a tailor from the neighbouring village and known to everyone as the Little Seamstress (Zhou Xun
Zhou Xun
Zhou Xun is a Chinese actress and singer. She is regarded as one of the "Four Young Dan actresses" in China in the early 2000s, along with Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Zhao Wei.-Early life:...
), comes by with her grandfather to listen to Ma play violin. Luo and Ma befriend the Little Seamstress and soon both fall in love with her. The girl, illiterate but hungry for knowledge, and the boys, vowing to transform her, devise a plan to steal a suitcase filled with banned translated Western novels from Four-Eyes (Wang Hongwei
Wang Hongwei
Wang Hongwei is a Chinese actor. Wang is perhaps best known for his work with director Jia Zhangke. The two men were classmates at the Beijing Film Academy when they began their professional relationship, with Wang starring in Jia's breakthrough short film Xiao Shan Going Home in 1995...
), another boy undergoing re-education in the village but bound to return to the city. Luo begins to read to the Little Seamstress every day, books including those by Stendhal
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle , better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir and La Chartreuse de Parme...
, Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
and Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky was a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays. He is best known for his novels Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov....
. But her favourite turns out to be Balzac
Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon....
.
The Little Seamstress soon falls in love with Luo. One day, as Luo is departing for the city on a two-month leave to visit his sick father, she tells him that she has a problem but does not elaborate. She later confides to Ma that she is pregnant, but population-curbing laws forbid marriage before 25 and abortion is illegal without a marriage certificate. Ma travels to the city to find a gynecologist who knows his father and begs the latter for help. The gynecologist is moved and agrees to travel to the village to perform a secret abortion. Upon Luo's return, life resumes as before.
One day, however, the Little Seamstress, now completely changed by the new ideas Luo and Ma have introduced her to, abruptly decides to leave the village to seek out "a new life," despite pleas from her grandfather and Luo. Later, in 1974, Luo and Ma both return to the city as well. Luo later becomes a professor in a dental institute in Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, while Ma moves to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and becomes a professional violinist. In the late 1990s, when he sees on the news that the construction of the Three Gorges Dam
Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is a hydroelectric dam that spans the Yangtze River by the town of Sandouping, located in the Yiling District of Yichang, in Hubei province, China...
will soon flood the village he spent three years in, Ma travels back in the hope of finding the Little Seamstress again. However, his efforts are futile and he brings back only a video recording of the village and the people, including the now aged Chief. As Ma meets up with his old friend Luo in Shanghai, the latter confesses an earlier failed attempt to search for the Little Seamstress in Shenzhen
Shenzhen
Shenzhen is a major city in the south of Southern China's Guangdong Province, situated immediately north of Hong Kong. The area became China's first—and one of the most successful—Special Economic Zones...
and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
. The film ends with a news clip of the flooded towns and villages and a scene of the three, back to their youth years, also submerged in water.
Cast
- Zhou XunZhou XunZhou Xun is a Chinese actress and singer. She is regarded as one of the "Four Young Dan actresses" in China in the early 2000s, along with Zhang Ziyi, Xu Jinglei and Zhao Wei.-Early life:...
as Little Seamstress, a beautiful and illiterate village girl, granddaughter of a tailor - Liu YeLiu YeLiu Ye is a Chinese film and television actor.-Career:From the beginning of his acting career when he was a 20 year old student majoring in performing arts at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, Liu Ye's talent in acting was apparent very early on...
as Ma Jianling, a city boy of bourgeois background sent to a remote village for re-education during the Cultural Revolution - Chen Kun as Luo Min, boy in the same situation as Ma, close friend of Ma and lover of the Little Seamstress
- Chen Tianlu as Chief, leader of the village
- Wang HongweiWang HongweiWang Hongwei is a Chinese actor. Wang is perhaps best known for his work with director Jia Zhangke. The two men were classmates at the Beijing Film Academy when they began their professional relationship, with Wang starring in Jia's breakthrough short film Xiao Shan Going Home in 1995...
as Four-Eyes, a boy in similar situation as Ma and Luo who appears to embrace Mao's teachings wholeheartedly
Awards and nominations
- Golden Globes, 2003
- Best Foreign Language Film (nominated)
- Istanbul International Film FestivalIstanbul International Film FestivalThe Istanbul International Film Festival is the first and oldest international film festival in Turkey, organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts , a non-profit organisation. It is held every year in April in movie theaters in Istanbul, Turkey...
, 2003- Golden Tulip (nominated)
- Golden Horse Film Festival, 2003
- Best Screenplay Adaptation (nominated)
- Hong Kong Film AwardsHong Kong Film AwardsThe Hong Kong Film Awards , founded in 1982, are the most prestigious film awards in Hong Kong and among the most respected in mainland China and Taiwan. Award ceremonies are held annually, typically in April. The Awards recognize achievement in all aspects of filmmaking, such as directing,...
, 2004- Best Asian Film (nominated)
DVD release
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
on 29 November 2005 in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and distributed by Empire Pictures.
See also
- Balzac and the Little Chinese SeamstressBalzac and the Little Chinese SeamstressBalzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Dai Sijie, and published in 2000 in French and in English in 2001. It is the author's first published novel. Its original French title is Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise...
, the original semi-autobiographical novel by Dai SijieDai SijieDai Sijie is a French author and filmmaker of Chinese ancestry.-Biography:Dai Sijie was born in China in 1954. Because he came from an educated middle-class family, the Maoist government sent him to a reeducation camp in rural Sichuan from 1971 to 1974, during the Cultural Revolution. After his... - Chinese Cultural Revolution, the background against which the film is set
- Riding, Alan. "Artistic Odyssey: Film to Fiction to Film." New York Times, 7/27/2005, p 1.