A Simple Life

The Palm Springs Film Festival ended with a day that included the best films of the fest. A Simple Life was on the list and was the icing on the cake of this great festival. This is a film about our connections to those we love, those we hardly know, and to ourselves. It is a sublimely graceful work and truly seamless. Deannie Yip, plays a maid who has worked for a family for many, many years. When she falls ill she moves to a long term care facility. Her struggle to move into her new role as an "ill person" is completely in keeping with what we know about her character. Great acting! The relationships she shares with the family members she's worked for are studies in the nuances of intimacy. Directed by Ann Hui....it's no wonder she's said to be "Asia's most important female director".

Ah Tao has been working for Roger's family for 4 generations and more than sixty years. Everyone but Roger lives now in America, and Ah Tao takes care of Roger as he was still a little child. But then she has a stroke and can't work anymore. Ah Tao, seeing that she's already 70 years old, asks Roger to find her a nursing home. But he decides not to forget about her, and visits her as much as possible.

"A Simple Life" is a very good film, with great acting and a very touching story. It is all a little bit too beautiful (rich guy decides to give his time to old sick maid) as we almost don't see any tension between the characters (except the guy that asks for money constantly and Anthony Wong's shady character). The worst we see is Ah Tao telling Roger to use a tablecloth or checking if there's dust in the flat now that she's not cleaning it. And it goes for the tear once or twice. But everyone, from the writers to director Ann Hui, to the actors, do a great job to make us invest in the story and care about all involved. Andy Lau (from "Infernal Affairs" fame) does a great job as the film producer, going from joyful to subdued to caring, but this is Deannie Yip's show and she is amazing.

The movie also has lots of famous faces from Hong Kong film industry, so a fan can have some fun recognizing Chapman To or Sammo Hung.

The story is simple (it is there in the title) but simple doesn't mean worthless or boring. Simple can be great. Like here.

This film is about a maid who is forced to retire after a stroke. Her life and the relationships around her change drastically.

"A Simple Life" is a touching story about a maid who has served a family for 60 years. She was seen as a servant in the beginning of the film, with her employers having no emotional attachment whatsoever. It saddens me to see how Ah Tao was treated with little respect. As the story progresses, the emotional connections and the direction of servitude turn 180 degrees, making a heartwarming and satisfactory change.

The environment in the old age home is strikingly authentic as well, from the residents, staff, the relationships between residents and relationships between residents and their children. How they care for each other is touching to say the least.

There are many effective and powerful scenes. The very brief 5 second scene of the old man walking in an alley with a young woman has so much emotion in it, I felt this spectrum of feelings towards this old man, from shame to anger. The numerous scenes with Ah Tao's humble personality are also very moving. A picture is really worth more than a thousand words.

It is also striking to see how the old age home manager speaks accented Cantonese, something that is very usual among old age home staff. This adds to the authenticity of the film. Another striking thing is that she is just 5 months younger than the actress playing Ah Tao. Who would have guessed!

In short, "A Simple Life" tells a heartwarming story of a humble, dedicated and selfless maid. The plot is so strong, that it moves people without the need of special effects or fancy sets. "A Simple Life" is a refreshing change for theHong Kong cinema, as it finally churns out a quality drama.

This is a simple film - two main characters with no blood relation and yet deeply connected to each other - and presumably made with a modest budget. It is slow, and arguably a tad long (but I am OK with it), but as the story evolves I begin to care about them.

As a film it is a great antidote to the sex, violence, intriguing plots, and CGI (I must admit I like some of those too) that we are so used to on the big screen these days. Director Ann Hui indicated the story was inspired by true events and I believe her. What makes this story unique is we are looking at love, respect and a feeling of duty and obligation between two human beings as if they were mother and son - but they are not. Instead, what started out as a servant-master relationship transcended itself to become something more sublime when the care-giver became incapacitated and the table was turned. When this happened the roles were reversed and yet it happened in such an unforced, natural and leisurely fashion.

There are tear-jerking moments, of course, but they came in such an unpretentious manner. The ending is as you would expect when age and illness took their toll on Tao Jie, played by Deannie Yip. And yet, I finished watching the film feeling uplifted, and with a strong sense of hope on humanity.

I saw this film as part of the Rotterdam Film Festival 2012. Relatively long with nearly 2 hours running time, but not long winded at all. How does this film maker achieve that?? Carefully filmed, very nearby the two main characters. At the same time it showed an inside view in a retirement home, and a small view over the fence into the film industry.

The retirement home at hand may look different from similar institutions in our own country, but that is only the surface. Like here in The Netherlands, it is a small population with very different people who did not choose each other, many of them leading vegetative lives. Our first main character (the "amah", a lifelong help) is still relatively active, in spite of her stroke. Being moved to the retirement home was her explicit wish, unwilling to become a burden for the family she served for 60 years. This particular situation is something we cannot imagine in our own world, but apparently it exists there.

The other main characters is the last living son of the family. Though not being blood relatives, we see the two main characters behave like mother and son. To the outside world they explain their relationship as mother and godson, or alternatively as aunt and nephew, whatever fits the situation best. Her position as an "amah" is not known to others than the immediate family members, who all seem to care for her.

The inside view in the film industry is less extensive and mostly concentrated in the beginning, with a hefty meeting about an ever growing budget that some film maker needed, and a subsequent meeting with a bank manager about the fine print in a contract that was ignored by the bank. It merely serves to portray the "son" part in the story, and to explain why he is abroad for longer periods and cannot always find time to visit the retirement home. This has the definite purpose to prevent putting him on display as someone not caring. We see the fact that he really cares confirmed in the way he brings her along to a industry screening of this newly produced film, presenting her as his aunt.