Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl

Xiu Xiu is a beautifully made movie in which Joan Chen combines sumptuous visual imagery, a beautiful, delicate musical score, fine performances by her actors and a spare and intelligent script to produce a simple, moving story of two lost lives.

The movement of the story from the dark confines of the tent Xiu Xiu and Lao Jin share to the almost limitless prairies and big skys of the Tibetan highlands follows the emotional pulse of the film. Expert camera work creates perspectives that sweep from the touchingly intimate to the overwhelmingly vast, exploring the characters from inside and out.

Wonderful, economical performances from newcomer Lu Lu and Tibetan stage veteran Lopsang give profound and touching insight into the extraordinariness of two ordinary people. Chen saves the story from descent into melodrama by a precise and thoughtful restraint that respects, observes, and never intrudes to seek to "explain" or apologize.

A film worth going out of one's way to see.

This was a truly beautiful film. Joan Chen has directed a movie of uncommon grace, beauty, and sensitivity. She has a subtle hand and an eye for imagery that are almost unrivaled in the movie industry. The two lead actors delivered flawless and engaging performances (and that saying quite a bit considering how little dialogue is exchanged). I really enjoyed watching these three masters displaying their craft.

My only reservation about this movie (here comes a vague plot give away, but it's about the end of the of the movie, so watch out) is that Xui Xui's reaction at the very, very end of the movie seemed psychologically inconsistent with how her character had been developed.

Joan Chen, who has had a modest career as an actress in American films and TV, makes her directorial debut here in this brutal, poignant and beautiful Mandarin language film. Starring Lu Lu as Xiu Xiu, a teenaged girl from the city sent to the country during Mao's cultural revolution, and Lopsang as Lao Jin, a castrated Tibetan nomad who is to teach her horse husbandry, Tian yu is not so much an indictment of communist China as it is an indictment of human nature. Xiu Xiu is brutalized by small-minded bureaucratic males as has happened throughout human history, be they communist or feudal, her innocence and youth traded for an apple, her buoyant hope for life dashed by blind political and economic forces, and her self-respect stolen from her by the twisted logic of rape and lust.

What elevates this story above what we have seen many times before is the striking beauty of the Tibetan countryside and the fine characterizations of both Xiu Xiu and Lao Jin. Lao Jin is a "gelding," made fun of by others, a man of quiet disposition who falls in love with his beautiful young charge, but stands aside because of his impotence. Xiu Xiu has an imperial nature natural to favored girls everywhere, be they Japanese "princesses" or American "valley girls," a nature very well depicted by the script and very well acted out by Lu Lu, whose delicate beauty and spicy temperament clash well with Lao Jin's Taoist stoicism. At one point he remarks wisely that "every place is the same," meaning of course that it is what we bring to the place that really matters. But his wisdom is completely lost on the teenaged girl who wants and needs society and all that it has to offer. And so, the underlying "love affair" between the two can never be...except...as it is in the end.

Lopsang's performance is entirely convincing and Lu Lu is fascinating to watch. Joan Chen did a fine job with both of them while managing to keep politics and political agendas in the background. She concentrated on the human tragedy and made it universal. Both of her central characters had flaws that in some way led to the great sadness that they experienced, and yet they were not to blame. In this naturalistic expression we are reminded of the tragedies of novelists Thomas Hardy and Theodore Dreiser; and of course Chen was influenced by the work of Chinese director Zhang Yimou, in particular his sad, but captivating Raise the Red Lantern (1991) in which a beautiful girl is consumed and brutalized by societal forces of a different nature.

This film misses being a masterpiece because of a hurried resolution leading to an ending that needed a bit more shaping. Nonetheless this is an arresting and compelling drama, beautifully filmed and sensitively directed.

But be forewarned. "Celestial Bath" is a disturbing film not easily shaken from the mind.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

I love this movie... It's such a sad film. It's sad enough to speak of love for such sad things. It starts off so pretty and happy. Such bright colors, pretty sky... then everything just changes. The colors never change, it is always pretty outside.. but the nights are what makes it sad. It made me feel angry of all the things that went wrong in this film... i wanted to be there, to help somehow... everything in this film is done so artisicly. The end of the movie is a perfect way to end sorrow. There is no better way to end something, than to simply end it. I recommend it to all who want to be touched. This is something that will never be done again. Nothing else like it. 10/10 for this one.

Director Joan Chen has fashioned a lovely, slow-moving film, "Xiu Xiu - the Sent Down Girl" about the abuses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution seen through the eyes of one girl, Xiu Xiu. Yet the film is more than a tale about the misguided totalitarian state and its pervasive influence on everyone's lives. "Xiu Xiu" is also about a special relationship between the girl and her mentor and protector, Jao Lin. It would be an oversimplification to call it a love story because the film only hints at any romance between the two (Xiu Xiu spends much of the film in contempt of Jao). Indeed their contrasting lives could not be more pronounced. Jao Lin is a horse herder, a man of the soil, one who cleans himself when it rains, and a victim of a castration leaving him without his manhood. The much younger girl, Xiu Xiu, is from the modern city, doing her duty until she can return to her loving family and to a boy who yearns for her; she with the soft, innocent smile, and the daintiness to appreciate a kaleidoscope or a freshly dug waterhole. They must live together in one tent for six months because ‘headquarters' has mandated that Xiu Xiu learn horse herding. While adapting to each other's needs, Xiu Xiu seems to have the upper hand on Lao (she bosses him around like a hired hand) but there is a strange, intuitive feeling between them that is really not appreciated until the very last scene. As the story develops, six months have passed and Xiu Xiu still cannot return home because her family is too poor to bribe officials to take her back. At the heart of this film is the evil that those in power do to those who are too weak to fight them. Men from ‘headquarters' regularly have sex with Xiu Xiu, sometimes with the frustrated Lao in the same tent, since Xiu Xiu mistakenly assumes these men will help her get back home. All Lao can do is watch because even as he tries to protect Xiu Xiu in other ways, he is powerless to stop what is going on. What develops, slowly but surely, is another side of Lao, besides the father figure - he becomes a man who can touch but cannot possess what he wants. The latter is made clear when Lao steals Xiu Xiu's shoe and then lies to her that a man has come to steal her shoe so that he can return later to tell her of his love. "Xiu Xiu - the Sent Down Girl" succeeds in giving us a poignancy about innocence lost and about the deep meaning of sacrifice and love.