Products Name --------------------"Empty House"
Production Country----------------China
Length --------------------------------27'
Year/Lang----------------------------2007/SUBTITLE:Chinese,English/ LANGUAGE: Chinese
The documentary Empty House accounted a story about an old woman, who lives in the mountain area of AnHui Province in China, and her house.
Zhaji, a villiage in the Mountain area of WanNan, is a typical ancient-look village which keeps the architecture styles of Ming & Qing Dynasty. In its high days, at the most prosperous times, there used to be 100,000 residents in the village. Generation after generation, they somehow kept a way of living following the styles of AnHui merchants. However, in the passage of time, Zhaji villagers burdened some side effects of human activities as well, consciously or subconsciously. At the beginning of this century, tourist upsurge invaded this remote village. As such, words, like simple, quite, natural, harmonious could no longer be used to describe this village. Ancient architectures, folkways, the natural environment have been experiencing irreversible damages. So have been the people who dwell in those ancient architectures.
Our camera crew filmed two families who shared an ancient house in Zhaji. They are Grandma Sun's family and Zha Congjun's family. There are two story lines in the film. First, Grandma Sun, who desperately wants to keep her inheritance, an ancient house. She is so guarded to her neighbors, officers of the village, and ever unknown visitor. Second, Zha Congjun, who attended the iconoclast and temple-demolishing movement when he was young. He lives next door to Grandma Sun. His father just passed away due to a flood in summer and his mother fell ill from then on. He is quite proud of his behaviors in that demolishing movement in the past. From the subtle relationships between the two families we can see the complicated nature of human beings and their physiological feelings in this period of change.
In the house, which was empted by stealing or selling, what we also found was the disappearing of a culture and the emptiness of men's spirit.
