借我一生2

Here is 83-year-old Zheng as he goes about his daily routine at his one-person residence. The film starts with the camera scanning the shabby space filled with humble furniture, household goods and outdated pop music. He drags his gaunt and frail body to eat, wash and get from one place to the other. In fact, the entire film evolves around watching him move his thin and feeble body about which actually makes one realize ‘the process of aging’ in the true sense. But the film refuses to remain on this subject as the elderly man’s life unfolds like the outdated pop music that runs through his home. Born into a wealthy family, Zhang lived through China’s Cultural Revolution, was unfairly imprisoned until he was found innocent and was acquitted, but then branded as a government dissident and drifted around almost all his life before he landed in this slum-like silver town. He now seems removed from the rollercoaster ride of a life that has been engraved onto his body. The first feature film by the young upcoming filmmaker Shan Zuolong, the film projects a delicate yet somewhat detached perspective, hard to expect from a person in their twenties. The quiet gaze that scans each corner of Zheng’s room seems to be from someone who has lived for more than eighty years as it attaches meaning to each detail but without too much emotional involvement. Instead of following a story, the film invests its gaze on each object to stir a sense of the ‘process of aging’ and inspire self-reflection. This perhaps explains why this film makes the heart ache. (LEE Seung-min)