Shun Li and the Poet is set in a modern-day Italy much preoccupied with the relatively new phenomenon of large-scale immigration into the country and the resistance, often bordering on xenophobia, that it has engendered. Here, a Chinese illegal immigrant called Li - the Italian title of the film means both 'I am Li' and 'I am there' - faces ridicule and suspicion in Venice from local fishermen who frequent the bar where she works while being under the exploitative yoke of her Chinese isolationist bosses, who forbid all fraternisation with the locals. Then a growing friendship with one of the fishermen, an elderly Serbian immigrant, brings an unexpected ray of sunshine to her toiling existence.
This is a simple film with no massive agenda beyond wanting to make its audience see the situation from the other side, but makes its point unhistrionically and with genuine feeling for its downtrodden characters, making full use of the evocative mist-shrouded setting. There is a bittersweetness that lingers past a moving ending.
7/10
No comments:
Post a Comment