Melancholic Chinese masterpiece

Spazju Kreattiv is showing an epic melodrama by Chinese film-maker Wang Xiaoshuai, that explores the consequences across three decades of China’s one-time one-child policy (1979-2013).

Xiaoshuai’s So Long, My Son (Di jiu tian chang) is an impressively structured time-hopping saga just over three hours, charting a complex if cumbersome emotional history of the country’s population-planning programme.

The film traces the lives of two families over three decades of social, political and human upheaval in China. Following the loss of a child in a tragic accident, their paths separate. Destinies ebb and flow, and fortunes are transformed under the impact of a country’s changing face.

Yet even as their lives diverge, a common search for truth and reconciliation around the tragedy remains. But sometimes it can take a lifetime to say farewell.

So Long, My Son is being screened at Spazju Kreattiv in Valletta today at 7.30pm. The film will be screened again on other dates and times in the new year. Tickets may be obtained online at www.kreattivita.org.