After years living in Beijing, a woman visits her parents in her quiet hometown and their lives are chronicled in this documentary, a film that straddles the line between non-fiction and pure storytelling. Writer-director Song Fang puts her family in front of the camera and allows herself to be recorded along with them in their warm conversations and privately compelling gazes. The film is informed by a certain kind of sadness that tragedy doesn’t necessarily fit. The hushed chattering over minor chores and moments like laundry, clipping their fingernails and taking naps as well as major choices like forming a family, raising children and getting sick and dying alone all come together like snapshots of life as we live it. When Song Fang has taken these Ozu-like themes with the style of Producer Jia Zhang ke, the film shifts to a whole new level. Song Fang’s ascetic camera doesn’t flinch, remaining static and refusing to intrude in the family’s lives. A family portrait free of bells and whistles and an achievement in all its minimalistic glory. (KANG Sowon)