Beginning of Life
(Ren zhi chu)
by Zheng Dongtian
China
Script: Gu Ying
Cinematographer: Sun Yongtian, Xie Ping
Editing: Zhu Hong
Sound: Feng Deyao
Music: Guo Wenjing
Cast: Ge lin, Zhang Liwei, Jia Yongyong, Zou Jichuan, Meng Nan, Hong Chang
Production: Liu Ming, Liu Yangxin
Distribution:
Cinema Public Films
84 rue du président Wilson
92300 Levallois Perret
Tel: 0033 1.41.27.01.44
Fax: 0033 1.42.70.06.65
Mail: [email protected]
www.cinemapublicfilms.com
Year: 1992
35 mm, Colour, 98 min
OV Mandarin with French Subtitles
When his father expires in 1917, Nie Er, a famous Chinese musician, is only five years old. He lives in a humble house, with his mother and three brothers and sisters. Her mother makes a living by selling pharmaceutical products, a meticulous and absorbing work. Music is the centre of Nie Er’s life : the melody of the clock on the wall, the flute he starts learning with his neighbour. It softens his life in this exorbitant school with such severe and restrictive climate. His music teacher leaves the city, his best friend disappears tragically, and his mother falls seriously sick. Fortunately, dream and fantasy have been part of him since he was a small child, when his mother used to tell him legends and stories. Nie Er is but an ordinary child.
For the Chinese audience, he is the glory of his country, the composer of the national anthem.
"I wanted to make a film both for children and for adults where the audience could feel mother and child ; a nostalgic and moving probing in the relationship of a mother and her child." Zheng Dongtian
