August 3rd 2012
牛皮 / Oxide (2005) by 刘伽茵 / Liu Jiayin
Being a film director doesn't mean you need the iconic seat, the huge team, and extras clothed in black waiting on alert to storm onto the scene. Sometimes all you really need is the camera. For the young Liu Jiayin, a Beijing-based film director who was twenty-three at the time she filmed her first full-length independent film Oxhide back in 2005, the visual recording device was all she needed. Her film only has three cast members: her two parents and herself. There is no soundtrack, no extra lighting, and no complex camera technique and evidence of extensive editing. Just what you see on screen and dialogue, plain and simple.
One might feel intimidated by knowing such minimalist extremes going into the movie, and indeed Oxhide gives people plenty of time in the beginning to figure out whether they can truly sit well with the film's pace. I can't help but think of the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker and its notoriously long opening shot that is a long-take of a man sitting at a bar for what must have been ten minutes in length (Tarkovsky's famous response to criticism directed at this scene was that it gave people "enough time to leave the cinema", essentially separating the wheat from the chaff with his viewers). Oxhide isn't attempting the same sort of epic existential exploration - against the backdrop of the Chernobyl nuclear accident - but consider the same principle being applied here by Liu. Her entire film, just shy of two hours in length, is made up of no more than fifteen long-takes, where the camera remains fixed in one specific position in a Beijing home. Often there are scenes with only arms and hands, or feet bathed in hot water, and again its this static cinematic style that is a truly prominent feature of Liu.
Is she being gimmicky by pursuing such minimalist ends? Not if one considers the purpose of positioning a staionary camera to capture an entire dinner conversation that runs on for almost half an hour, or two scenes where the protagonist BingBing's (Liu) parents are examining what oxhide skin they have, which they make into various items such as handbags to then sell and earn their living. Their house is tiny, and we don't even need elaborate panning, zooming, and close-ups to show us. Instead a camera that remains left to its own devices - simply recording what is set before its lens - most effectively illustrates this lack of space and breathing room. This concept of enclosure is the main driver of the plot in Oxhide. Bingbing's father sells oxhide products, and at the beginning of the film he is printing out banners displaying generous discounts, urging his daughter to use fonts with mellifluous names of China's historical dynasties. Early on this gamble seems to be paying off; he brings back good news to the family, along with a new bag and dress for Bingbing to demonstrate the good business. Quickly though does the flow of paying customers dry up, with some no longer looking at final price but rather at the size of the discount.
Bingbing's father bears a lot of the family burden, given that he is the only one managing the family store (his wife manages, sews, and repairs oxhide skin products back at home). Expressing constant exasperation at the changing ways people think and view the world and business, he finds little comfort at home from his straight-talking, no-nonsense wife, who instructs him to stop his stubborn defiance and do what other shopowners are doing to make money: offer larger discounts to stay in the competition. Economic logic and practical improvement, versus a man's dignity in running his life and exerting some sense of control over the fruits of his labor. There are no conspiracy theories, elaborate family trees, or villians and heroes here to keep Oxhide going; the film is a direct and honest portrayal of an ordinary family struggling to make ends meet in China's capital city.
There are lovely moments on the side, even acting as sideplots themselves. Bingbing is constantly fixated on her own height, and braves her strong dislike of drinking milk so that she may, according to her father, grow taller just that much faster. Their numerous attempts to measure her progress take place in truly revealing dialogue exchanges, which highlight underlying familial strains and tensions. The long dinner scene mentioned earlier largely involves Bingbing's father demonstrating how one properly makes seseme paste to eat with noodles, and one can truly see Hemingway in how the dialogue subtly points to a generation gap, disrespect for one's elders, and differing worldviews. It may not conventionally seem like much of a climax, but the breaking of a pair of chopsticks or the sudden kicking of a pail of hot water are all carefully managed to work with the film's overall deliberate, measured pace.
Oxhide requires patience but rewards its viewers well. You may not think of Bingbing's father when prompted to think of lonely paternal figures in cinema, but his blank face staring up from the pillow as the credits roll belongs to a man who cannot figure out to act and think in order to get his life back on track. It's not an epic quest to win the heart of the woman or save the world or score the game-winning point, but Oxhide is nonetheless all about playing your cards right. Liu is a promising new name in contemporary Chinese cinema, and it appears that she has solidfied her place in exploring what the basics of the visual form can do in independent cinema.