emotions in the extreme
This was in the secondary screening room for the San Francisco International Film Festival, at the Q&A session that occurred after the end of the Shorts 2 program with the director of Shanghai Strangers, a film about a Chinese woman who has a chance encounter with a visiting Englishman and confesses a secret to him.
"Yes?"
"I was noticing in your film that your protagonist chose to use a foreigner as her confidant, to tell a love story set in the shadow of a house in Shanghai that was owned by other foreigners (Austrian Jews). I was wondering if that parallel role of foreigners was intentional; and I would like to ask if you could give your own take on the role of Westerners in your movie."
"Well, Shanghai was a city with a significant Western colonial component to its architecture, similar to but very different from Hong Kong, and I wanted to incorporate that into the story. I think it definitely adds a different perspective to the city, and also it's worth noting that Shanghai was one of the few ports in the world that was open to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, so I wanted to bring that experience in as well. I wanted to think about what love was like in that time and relate it to something similar today. I think that when we are at a point where life is fragile and connections seem rare and precious, we value it more. We live our days more fully and vividly. That may be war, that may be a random meeting in a restaurant with someone you may never see again. You take that chance. You live in that moment, because it may be your only one.
"When we are comfortable and can take things for granted and can look for love for like ordering a book on Amazon, we lose something, I think."
"Yes?"
"I was noticing in your film that your protagonist chose to use a foreigner as her confidant, to tell a love story set in the shadow of a house in Shanghai that was owned by other foreigners (Austrian Jews). I was wondering if that parallel role of foreigners was intentional; and I would like to ask if you could give your own take on the role of Westerners in your movie."
"Well, Shanghai was a city with a significant Western colonial component to its architecture, similar to but very different from Hong Kong, and I wanted to incorporate that into the story. I think it definitely adds a different perspective to the city, and also it's worth noting that Shanghai was one of the few ports in the world that was open to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis, so I wanted to bring that experience in as well. I wanted to think about what love was like in that time and relate it to something similar today. I think that when we are at a point where life is fragile and connections seem rare and precious, we value it more. We live our days more fully and vividly. That may be war, that may be a random meeting in a restaurant with someone you may never see again. You take that chance. You live in that moment, because it may be your only one.
"When we are comfortable and can take things for granted and can look for love for like ordering a book on Amazon, we lose something, I think."