Opening in theaters today (November 18th) is I Am Not Madame Bovary, the Chinese anti-establishment comedy by Feng Xiaogang. It premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in September this year, where it was received well; at the San Sebastian Film Festival it won the Golden Shell for best film, the highest prize for competing films at the festival.
The unusually shot (as you’ll see in above clip) social satire is an adaptation of the 2012 novel of the same name by Liu Zhenyun, who adapted his novel for Feng’s film himself. This is not the first time Liu has collaborated with Feng – in fact, this is a reunion of director, writer and star, after they collaborated on Cell Phone in 2003. That film, too, poked fun at contemporary Chinese society at the time.
I Am Not Madame Bovary stars Fan Bingbing as an everyday Chinese woman suffering from government inefficiency – after her ex-husband swindled her, she is committed to taking him to court, but finds many road blocks in the legal system. She is most famous in the West for he role as Blink in X-Men: Days in a Future Past and her glamourous red carpet appearances – in China, though, she extremely well-known and is one of the most successful actresses in the world.
The film will undoubtedly be a funny and artful watch, and worth it for the experimental use of aspect ratios and round framing.
Enjoy this exclusive clip, courtesy of Well Go USA.
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