Feature – China / World Première

Showing @ Cameo 1, Tue 26 Jun @ 19.00 & @ Filmhouse 2, Thu 28 Jun @ 18:15

Mao Mao / China / 2012 / 86 min

Dr. Helen Wright, head of a private girls’ school, made headlines this week by publically stating that too many young girls idolise the celebrity lifestyle. But delusions about how life can change aren’t limited to meretricious young Brits. Mao Mao’s deliberative and haunting character study examines how the fantasies of life improvements are frequently difficult to uphold. Split between rural China and Beijing, Mao presents a loosely connected tableau of disaffected youths who’ve become disenfranchised with the monotonous tedium of their everyday lives.

There are long periods with little to no dialogue, the narrative instead pushed forward by powerful, revealing images: two girls anxiously waiting by a bus. Much of the action happens just off camera or in blurry backgrounds, emphasising the desire of Mao’s protagonists to escape their unstable lives and step into focus (but their inability to achieve this). There are many lingering shots of actors’ faces (looking into the camera, smoking agitatedly or just gazing into space), which convey distress and discomfort; the dated beach-scene wallpaper mocks the immobilised (both literally and figuratively) figure beneath it. Just like the prostitute who’s raped after earning enough to restart her life, Mao’s starkly tormenting portrayal warns that for the most part, life doesn’t mirror magazines; instead it’s cold, problematic and overwhelmingly remorseless.