Scenery

Zhao Jisong

 

Far from running out of steam, China's oft-beleaguered independent film-makers have gone from strength to strength. Starting out with tough, urban movies like Wang Xiaoshuai's The Days or Zhang Yuan's Mama and Beijing Bastards, the indie scene has proved more diverse than many critics could possibly have expected.

Recently we've seen the philosophical Frozen, the reflective - yet subliminally provocative - The Square, and the accomplished gay drama East Palace, West Palace. Before that Jia Zhangke's entertainingly ironic Xiao Wu was released in 1997.

Scenery was made with European funding - it was shot with the aid of the Hubert Bals Fund and the Goteborg Film Festival Fund - and tells a downbeat story of contemporary China, dealing with the controversial topic of rape. An ambitious young lawyer is approached by a woman who claims that she has been raped. The lawyer gladly takes on the case in the hope of making his name, but the victim seems to simply be supplying him with an intriguing trail of clues that never quite lead anywhere - the alleged rapist always seems to be slipping further out of reach.

As he immerses himself deeper in the mystery, the lawyer becomes fascinated by the case and the woman herself. The intrigue thickens, and one night he is invited to visit the woman's home - and discovers the unexpected truth about her.

Scenery explores some of the many contradictions and ambiguities of modern China, where a nominally Communist government is attempting a controlled, but massive, experiment with capitalism. China's notoriously equivocal legal system is also likely to come under close scrutiny. Terry E Lawrence