Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Translating 老徐 (13 Paulownia trees)

Translating her 《十三棵泡桐》 post:

Although it's a late congratulations, it still needs to be congratulate, director Lu Re's (吕乐) film '13 Paulownia trees'《十三棵泡桐》 was given the Manchurian film festival's critic society award.

Mr Lu Re is modest, when it was being covered by the news, other people told him I was saying good things about him, he said it was because I'm his friend. In fact, that's not the reason. People who are really good are just really good, I'm not yet that empty-headed. And he said it might be because I watched the complete edition, this implies that when the film was inspected there were some parts that were cut. Maybe, but I really didn't see any right or wrong parts that needed to be cut out. Early love? Teacher-student love? Alright …… we all don't fall in love early. If only not so much of it was cut.

Also on the other hand I've been thinking of which films made in China I like the most, the only one I can think of straight away are 'In the Heat of the Sun' 《阳光灿烂的日子》, now, I can think of another one. Apart from these kind of films: they're all about growing up. But they're also two completely different styles 'In the Heat of the Sun' is filled with the passion and dreams of that decade, '13 Paulownia trees', calm, cruel, full of sorrow, and he also captured all this perfectly within the limits. In the flood of all kinds of flying-around fighting and joking scripts, in the near future it'll be really hard to find a worthy Chinese film.

When the film was showing I strongly recommended everyone to go and watch it. If this film gets high box-office sales, I will think there's a point to continue to make films.

I'm definitely not exaggerating.

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