The Chinese tale, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is next week’s Classic Tuesdays film at the National Gallery, Castellani House.
Based on the best-selling, semi-autobiographical novel by Chinese author Dai Sijie, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2002) is a modern Chinese tale of the power of romance and literature to change lives, a press release from Castellani House said.
It is set in the later years of the Cultural Revolution, circa 1971 and tells the story of two city boys, Ma, the narrator, and Luo, who, as sons of privileged professionals considered bourgeois enemies of the people, are sent to be ‘re-educated’ in a remote farming village, Phoenix Mountain, in Sichuan province, inhabited by gentle peasants and their surly village chief. Working in mines over steep mountain paths and in the fields, their lives are suddenly transformed when they meet and both fall in love with the prettiest of the village girls, called ‘the Little Seamstress’, the granddaughter of the village tailor.
As skilled speakers they become storytellers for the village, and also offer to teach the Little Seamstress how to read and write, reading to her from a hidden cache of banned western novels, the property of a young man, the son of poets, who is soon to return to the city after his own re-education. As their relationship with her develops, the boys feel that they can shape the life of the Seamstress, while she, herself, with a growing spirit of boldness, is also capable of surprises. The young men learn the valuable lesson that not everything in life can be planned or anticipated.
With much gentle and ironic humour and stunning scenery, this French-Chinese co-production debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 and was nominated for Best Film awards at a number of film festivals including Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globe Awards 2003 and Best Asian film at the Hong Kong Film Festival 2004.
The release said the film’s running time is 1 hour 50 minutes and admission is free.
