Cinema
Woman Sesame Oil Maker
香魂女
Xie Fei · 1993
Synopsis
In a village on the shore of a lake, Xiang, a middle-aged woman, successfully runs the family sesame oil factory. Married young by her indebted parents to an older man, an alcoholic and a cripple who beats her, she has a simple-minded son, Dunzi. When the business prospers, with a Japanese investor according to the Austin Chronicle, she decides to marry her son off and buys for him Huanhuan, a young peasant girl from a poor family in the neighbouring village.
Context
The film adapts a story by Zhou Daxin; Xie Fei wrote and directed it, with Siqin Gaowa in the role of Xiang. Jonathan Rosenbaum sees in it a woman sold into marriage in childhood, who never escapes the cycle of violence and reproduces it, and praises a sensitive direction. The Austin Chronicle admires the image of rural China of the time, but finds the story almost relentlessly bleak. The film was released in France in 2011 by the Médiathèque des trois mondes.
Who it is for
A film of one hour forty-five minutes, in Mandarin, very dark; available on French video.
Prizes and reception
It received the Golden Bear at the Berlin festival in 1993, ex aequo with another film, and was then shown in the United States.
Sources for this page 4
The pages consulted to check this page.