After seeing the splendid Honey Cigar (2020-also reviewed),I decided to check what other titles were in the "Official Selection" part of The International Leeds Film Festival. Taken by the description on the site of this intimate Tibetan film, which led to me blowing up a balloon.
View on the film:
Sweeping towards the farmland of the family in vast wide-shots, writer/directing auteur Pema Tseden reunites with cinematographer
Songye Lu and continues to build on a exploration of the traditions, and a Neo- Realist presentation of the people, in Tibet.
Fluidly running the hand-held camera along farmers dipping their rams in for a wash, Tseden sows a jagged documentary atmosphere of harsh natural light wrapped round long stilted shots, sipping the warmth in observing Darje and Drolkar (played by a excellent, understated Jinpa and Sonam Wangmo) playing with their children.
Playing a TV glazed with a blue tint in the background announcing news of the first test tube baby, the screenplay by Tseden elegantly grooves gentle, earthy comedy of the children finding condoms under the pillows of their parents,and mistaking them for balloons.
Tseden flies into sombre criticism of Mainland China's "child policy", with the dry humour getting steamed away by Drolkar and Dargye's disagreements over a unplanned pregnancy, weighed by the risks of facing a huge fine from the birth of the child.
Balancing the weight from the fear the poor rural family face from the fine, Tseden explores the Tibetan belief in reincarnation, which Dargye has such faith in,that it overrides him listening to the opinion of his wife.
With the political on one side,and the spiritual on the other,Tseden centres the title on a excellent character study of Drolkar, who in attempts by the state and her testosterone- fuelled husband to suppress her free choice, kicks against them, as the land is covered in the shadow of a balloon.
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