©Courtesy of NYAFF 

Brief History of a Family, the feature directorial debut for Chinese filmmaker Lin Jianjie, is described as a “mystery thriller” film but comes with none of the sensational cliches often associated with such a genre. This poignant, slow-paced movie is a little gem of style and sensibility: a tender and poignant probing of the wounds visited upon families as they deal with their secrets and aspirations.

Being screened today at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, Brief History of a Family had its world premiere at Sundance in January, followed a month later by its European premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.

This admirable production is a superbly wrought film that reveals the stresses and strains of contemporary families in China as they deal with rapid modernization and the consequences of the regime’s earlier one-child policy. Its narrative arc revolves around the enigmatic friendship between two high-school chums: Wei (Lin Muran), the only son of a middle-class family, who befriends Shuo (Sun Xilun), a troubled, nerdy boy from a poor family who after his mother’s untimely death finds refuge in classical music, notably Bach sonatas. When Shuo’s abusive father also dies under mysterious circumstances, Shuo’s friendship with Wei grows deeper and more complex. Wei’s parents take pity on Shuo and start including him in family gatherings, ultimately adopting the orphan.

It soon becomes clear that Shuo’s new family has ulterior motivations for adopting the boy, who helps them fulfill their frustrated dreams of having another child. The tensions unleashed by this reality propel the plot of this touching film into ever more dangerous territory, culminating in a scene in which Shuo nearly chokes to death on a fish bone and another scene in which a fish is strangled.

 

Brief History of a Family is all the more powerful because of way it depicts ordinary life in a—well, ordinary way. Both Wei’s father (Zu Feng), a cell biologist, and his mother (Guo Keyu), a former flight attendant, seem to want nothing more than getting Wei into an Ivy League college in America, which possibly explains their affection for the more studious Shuo. But these ordinary events are powder kegs of pent-up emotion, ready to explode without warning.

There are no whizbang special effects here other than a few scenes depicting the characters’ imagined activity as seen under a microscope. As scenes of blood circulating in the human body morph into high-speed traffic on highway arteries, it is tempting to see this as a metaphor for China’s recent rapidly developing economy, with all its implications for traditional family life.

Rating: A

If you like the review, share your thoughts below!

Check out more of Edward’s articles.

Here’s the trailer of the film.