History, Silence and Homelessness in Contemporary Chinese Cinema: Wang Xiaoshuai's, Shanghai Dreams
Asian Studies Review March 2010, Vol. 34, pp. 3–18
History, Silence and Homelessness in Contemporary Chinese Cinema: Wang Xiaoshuai’s Shanghai Dreams
RICHARD LETTERI*
Furman University
Abstract: Set a few years after China’s opening to the various forces of globalisation, the film Shanghai Dreams (2005) tells the story of the conflict between Qinghong, a 17 year-old schoolgirl who wishes to remain in her hometown of Guiyang, and her father, Lao Wu, whose dream of returning to his hometown of Shanghai is stirred by reports of the better life others have obtained as a result of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of economic modernisation. Analysing their familial conflict in terms of a ‘‘political melodrama’’, the paper contextualises both the dramatic ideological shift from patriarchal state Communism to free market capitalism and the massive internal migration from China’s interior to its eastern coast to argue that Qinghong’s eventual psychological breakdown represents not merely a personal, sentimental feeling of homelessness but the more philosophical form of estrangement characteristic of modernity examined by Martin Heidegger. The paper then explores how one of the film’s most important scenes, Qinghong’s rape, links Heidegger’s notion of homelessness to Sigmund Freud’s understanding of the uncanny. The paper concludes with a brief examination of how Qinghong’s catatonic silence represents the less-discussed consequence of the schizophrenic freedoms engendered by late capitalism as defined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Keywords: Chinese cinema, homelessness, economic modernisation, melodrama, silence, the uncanny, Heidegger, Freud
Introduction Although most Chinese film scholars express unease over categorising directors along generational lines, there is much about the early films of Wang Xiaoshuai that places him squarely within the Sixth Generation.1 Indeed, the gritty realism of films
*Correspondence Address: Communication Studies, Furman University,
History, Silence and Homelessness in Contemporary Chinese Cinema: Wang Xiaoshuai’s Shanghai Dreams
RICHARD LETTERI*
Furman University
Abstract: Set a few years after China’s opening to the various forces of globalisation, the film Shanghai Dreams (2005) tells the story of the conflict between Qinghong, a 17 year-old schoolgirl who wishes to remain in her hometown of Guiyang, and her father, Lao Wu, whose dream of returning to his hometown of Shanghai is stirred by reports of the better life others have obtained as a result of Deng Xiaoping’s policy of economic modernisation. Analysing their familial conflict in terms of a ‘‘political melodrama’’, the paper contextualises both the dramatic ideological shift from patriarchal state Communism to free market capitalism and the massive internal migration from China’s interior to its eastern coast to argue that Qinghong’s eventual psychological breakdown represents not merely a personal, sentimental feeling of homelessness but the more philosophical form of estrangement characteristic of modernity examined by Martin Heidegger. The paper then explores how one of the film’s most important scenes, Qinghong’s rape, links Heidegger’s notion of homelessness to Sigmund Freud’s understanding of the uncanny. The paper concludes with a brief examination of how Qinghong’s catatonic silence represents the less-discussed consequence of the schizophrenic freedoms engendered by late capitalism as defined by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Keywords: Chinese cinema, homelessness, economic modernisation, melodrama, silence, the uncanny, Heidegger, Freud
Introduction Although most Chinese film scholars express unease over categorising directors along generational lines, there is much about the early films of Wang Xiaoshuai that places him squarely within the Sixth Generation.1 Indeed, the gritty realism of films
*Correspondence Address: Communication Studies, Furman University,
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