NING YING IS probably the best known of the mainland's women filmmakers, a rare female among the so-called fifth-generation directors. But while once ground-breaking contemporaries such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige retreat into historical costume dramas, Ning is tackling sensitive issues that relate to China now.
'The films other people are doing aren't about our lives today,' she says. 'They're avoiding the present. But it's what I want to do because I want to give people something to see about what's happening here and now.'
Ning's latest film, an exploration of women's sexuality and gender politics, has ruffled feathers on the mainland. Due to screen at the Hong Kong International Film Festival next week, Wu Qiong Dong (Perpetual Motion) revolves around four career women who flaunt their power and sexuality. The impact is spiced up considerably by her casting women friends who are even more successful in real life: magazine publisher Hong Huang; property developer Ping Yanni; musician and author Liu Sola; and the only professional actress among the quartet, Li Qinqin.
Hong plays Niuniu, who suspects her husband is having an affair with one of her three best friends. She invites them to dinner on Lunar New Year's Eve, determined to find out who it is. In a claustrophobic framing that evokes the work of Spanish iconoclast Luis Bunuel, the revelations unfold largely within the confines of Niuniu's elegant courtyard house.
The location has echoes in real life: it's the home of Hong's mother, Zhang Hanzhi, who served as a translator for Mao Zedong and who plays a maid in the film. Qinqin (Li) is first to arrive, followed by Madame Ye (Ping) and finally Lala (Liu). The women exchange secrets and memories of love and sex. The language is shockingly direct and explicit.
Using earthy language and images, 46-year-old Ning subverts the stereotype of Chinese women as coy and compliant. 'When I get together with my friends, we often talk about why it is that Chinese women on screen are always so repressed and are such fake beauties,' she says.
