Memories Look at me
(Ji Yi Wang Zhe Wo)

Instead of family portraits full of noise and fury, Song Fang prefers to explore a family’s intimacy and its limits for her first film (which received an award at Locarno). Playing herself, she travels to Beijing to visit her parents. In their Nanjing flat, which filters out the city’s noise, the household’s calm is as restful as it is disquieting. From day to day, the young woman lives with the couple’s old age, listens to their reminiscing about a difficult past (sensitively capturing her mother’s memories), their talk about an anxious present (a young family friend who is dying in hospital) and an uncertain future (her mother and brother want to find a solution to her overly long single status). The gentleness of the static shots recording the conversations does not necessarily imply a gentle way of life, relationships at peace and an acceptance of passing time. When Song Fang films occasional shots of her sleeping parents, it is their death that she is anticipating. CG