Sons

China 1996, 95 min, English subtitles

The Li family live out their lives in front of the camera: a story of alcoholism, mutually inflicted injuries and constant quarrelling. The boys in the family took the initiative and asked director Zhang Yuan to film their lives. He succeeded in getting their father, who has been put away because of his alcoholism, out of the institution for this documentary. For all the desperation conveyed by this documentary drama, there is still something that seems to keep the family together. ‘Not all men are fathers,’ says the father, ‘but all men are sons.’

Welcome to reality

In the 1990s, urban reality soon became a topic for young independent directors. They consciously chose a small form to present in a natural way, as it were, post-Maoist reality close up: alcoholism, prostitution and suicide included. Two unsparing portraits of life beyond the boundaries of state-regulated existence.