Jiating Jianshi (2024)
Jiating Jianshi plot
"Make yourself at home."
In high school, Wei and the silent Shuo attend classes in the same class. Wei invites his friend to his home where his parents learn more about Shuo's troubled origins. He is welcome here more often and Shuo gradually becomes part of the family that carries unspoken secrets and unfulfilled desires.
Actors and actresses
Reviews & comments
De filosoof
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- 2490 messages
- 1702 votes
The film is, first and foremost, a stunning audiovisual spectacle unlike any I've experienced in a long time: every image is magnificent, featuring meticulously clean frames and a refined interplay of sharp and blurred, pastel and pure, murky and clear. The modernist soundtrack, interspersed with classical music, is also captivating, making the film a true work of art. For this design alone, I'd give it five stars. The story, however, is less remarkable: an abandoned but intelligent boy from the lower classes finds a new home with a wealthy family whose mother is happy to take him in because China's old single-parent policy didn't allow her to have a second child. He also charms the father with his ambition (like the father, he considers self-improvement the most important virtue), but where he also finds himself in increasingly fierce competition and conflict with the natural child, who underperforms and wastes his time playing video games. In this context, the film alludes to the coronavirus that attaches itself to blood vessels and manages to trick them into opening up for the virus: the boy is a virus that infects the family's natural (blood) bond and makes it sick.
It's especially the captivating images and the equally captivating sound that keep you captivated, and which also help to engross you in the story and its suspense: as the boy says, art isn't so much the recording of beauty as its creation (which also represents his creation of himself as an ideal son), and the film itself has certainly succeeded in that. I'm already looking forward to Lin's next film.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11659 messages
- 10059 votes
Tu Wei [Lin Muran] introduces his father [Feng Zu] and mother [Guo Keyu] to his new (platonic) friend Yan Shuo [Sun Xilun]. Tu Wei soon gets the feeling that his parents see Yan Shuo as the son they never had. Is this because the one-child policy forbade them from having a second child, or is it a rejection of the son they did have? An intriguing premise that Jianjie struggles to grasp. The scenario resembles a fairly innocent family drama, but Jianjie’s stylish direction and the nervous, electronic soundtrack give the impression that something intense is about to happen. If only that were true.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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