My Mother's Rhapsody

The mother in focus is Lin Zhiguang, who is, in fact, Qiu Jiongjiong’s paternal grandmother. This thoroughly entertaining film is Qiu’s expansive family chronicle, a documentary in the form of an art/folk tale. Lin, born to a wealthy family in 1926, lived through the Chinese civil war, the Communist Revolution, the Anti-Rightist Campaign and more. A formidable seamstress, cook and manager, she had seven children with her husband, who was the ticket seller for the famous itinerant Sichuan opera troupe, Xinyouxin. Lin tells her story and that of her children with confidence and charisma. Qiu frames and fragments her tales with amusing disruptions, including a be-winged adult Cupid and a rooster, whose every intense expression spookily mirrors her words.