An impressionist portrait of the new individual in China through the lives of migrant peasants, stressed-out students, and the diverse therapists who treat them.
A half-naked old man dives into a lake, swimming with firm strokes to the other side. A journalist, who advocates on behalf of village women, speaks candidly of her grandmother’s suicide. A father comes to understand the depth of the gulf between him and his runaway son. A student, whose entire family disappeared in an arthquake, finds meaning in the study of clinical psychology.
In China Me, disparate stories play out, tinged with melancholy, aching with hope. In response, diverse approaches — the entrepreneur making millions from Dream Inc., the professor who wants China to import schools of psychology the same way it buys cars. An impressionist portrait of contemporary China slowly unfolds.
At its heart, the excavation of language: the vibrating strings of a guqin, the relentless tapping of a pickaxe as it chips away at the last remnant of traditional values, the ring of truths shared by those left on the sidelines of progress. And while Huo Datong analyzes the characters in his country’s 6,000-year-old language for keys to the unconscious of the Chinese, the poems of Zhai Yong Ming take the night watch.
Director : Michka Saäl - 2013 - France - 90 minutes
Producer : 24images - Broadcaster : Le Mans Télévision
