# Xiangnu xiaoxiao (1986)

### reviewed by
Murali Krishnan

    A Girl from Hunan

    [4.0/4.0]

Time passes slowly in the rural countryside, so customs and traditions are often slow to change in the absence of outside influences. Xiao Xiao is a young girl just entering adolesense. Following custom, she has her marriage arranged to Chun Guan, who is a child of about five years of age. The story begins as Xiao arrives at the rustic family farm of Guan's family. Although they are actually man and wife, their relationship at this stage more resembles younger brother and older sister, in fact he addresses her as "Sister". Guan's time is mostly spent in play and Xiao Xiao's time is mostly spent in numerous farm chores. It actually quite a pleasant, contented life. However, Xiao Xiao's friendship with one of the farmhands eventually develops into a romantic relationship. This not something that she is know would happen, because in her youth and naivete she cannot know the consequences of her actions. She see first hand that the penalty for adultery is severe by traditional law, but only when it is too late does she realize the trap she has entered.

When people from one culture observe the customs and practices of another, there invariably will be some that are shocking. There may be the perception that the story is an illustration of the injustices of a particular culture, but this is not the case. It merely provides the context in which customs and practices exist in an equilibrium state. Certainly some of the events are barbaric through Western eyes, but that is because of the context in which they are viewed. It is not a depiction of a system that is perfect, in fact there are undeniable injustices, but it is a system that serves to order and balance the lives of its people.

This is a film that very ambitious and highly successful. It was apparently not intended for the Western audience judging by the long period with no distribution. To tell a story of one culture to another is very difficult considering the lack of background that the audience will have. The story is brilliantly written and flawlessly acted. The writing and cinematography are so well done that viewing the film feels like living in a Chinese village.

Highly Recommended. Those familiar with Eastern cultures will reallly appreciate the honest depiction of rural country life. The dialog is Chinese with subtitles.

    (c) 1999 Murali Krishnan
    The Art House Squatter
    http://pages.hotbot.com/movies/murali24/

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews