The Blue Kite

“A history untold, a memory unfolds.”

A grown man looks back on his childhood in a poor Beijing alley during the 1950s and 1960s, and the film follows him through it as Tietou, first an infant (Tian Yi), then a boy (Wenyao Zhang). His mother, Chen Shujuan (Lü Liping), marries Lin Shaolong (Pu Cunxin), and the family's fortunes shift with each political movement that reaches their street. Tian Zhuangzhuang keeps the camera low and the rooms small, so the history comes in only as far as the doorway.