Synopsis
An intimate portrait of a peasant-turned-oil painter who is transitioning from making copies of van Gogh's paintings to creating his own authentic works of art, emblematic of China’s Dream for the 21st Century: to go from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China’.
Director
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Kiki Tianqi YuPhotographing Shenzhen (2008) -
Yu HaiboTale of Two Cities (2015)
One Man’s Shenzhen (2012)
Review
Dafen Village in Shenzhen in the southern China is the biggest oil painting village in the world, established in 1989. As representing deepened shadow casted by the economic growth of China, more than ten thousand painters create fake paintings in poor condition at the corner of the city filled with high-rise buildings. These imitations of famous artists, manually manufactured with low-cost labor, are sold at souvenir shops near museums around the world.
Zhao Xiaoyong, who has been hardened in this field painting Gogh’s, has a dream, which is to go to see genuine Van Gogh that he has never had a chance for last 20 years. Finally, with respect and admiration, he is off to Europe for retracing Van Gogh after many complications. In Arles in France, he deludes himself as if he faces Van Gogh he saw in his dream. As the saying “Imitation teaches creation” goes, he returns to China and decides to paint his own work. His first work is his mother’s portrait which is meaningful to him, born as a son of a tenant farmer and never finished school.
Showing a strange job behind the fancy city, the director captures the situation in which western values are deeply permeated into the lives of China. We can vividly observe the main character’s complexion experiencing hope and devastation within himself. He endlessly comes and goes between humiliation and honor, pride and inferiority and dream and nightmare. Sometimes with burning tears within his throat, sometimes with his eyes of wonder, sometimes with his somber face triggered by humiliation, his emotions are candidly delivered to us. [Lim Sea-eun]
Credits
- Director Yu Haibo, Tianqi Yu KiKi
- Producer Yu Tianqi Kiki
- Cinematographer Yu Haibo
- Editor Søren Ebbe, Tom Hsinming Lin, Axel Skovdal Roelofs
- Music Lukas Julian Lentz
- Sound Paul Gies, Ranko Paukovic
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