Zou Jing’s directorial debut is a masterful outing which should be a must watch this London Film Festival
Despite all the heavy hitters on display at this year’s London Film Festival, I believe it will be Zou Jing’s directorial debut, A Girl Unknown, that I will be most impressed by come the end of it.
It comes by way of a soul-crushing coming-of-age story which follows a young Chinese girl who is passed between three families between the ages of 6 and 18. Each family, a new name. Every new house, a new identity. Her own sense of belonging, further adrift each time.
It’s a heartbreaking journey – one which takes on themes of grief, depression, generational trauma, societal pressures and searching for belonging when all you have experienced is displacement. Equally, it is a story of resilience and mental fortitude in the face of constant adversity. All of which are handled with a great level of care and delicacy.
Make no mistake, though, this film will hurt. A lot. This isn’t a film which you forget about on your commute home, but one which lingers days after the credits have rolled. However, despite the heartache you will experience, there will still be an underlying feeling of hopefulness.
Mainly due to the incredible performances on display. Namely both Cao Ruofan, who plays our protagonist when she is younger, and Li Gengxi in her adolescence. This film lives and dies on whether they can convey these themes, and they do so in shattering fashion. As each traumatic instance goes by, you just want to give them a hug.
What makes A Girl Unknown particularly devastating is that there isn’t someone you can pin the blame on. Each family, although responsible for uprooting her life, is not doing so maliciously, but instead to fill a deep void in their own lives. The sum of every traumatic incident which happens to her is a consequence of another person’s trauma and the systemic issues in society.
Many directors in their first directorial outing would feel the need to over-explain such – especially when such heavy themes are on display. Jing refrains. She has a supreme confidence in herself that usually takes years to build up. In just 122-minutes, she has mastered the skill of show-not-tell. Large stretches of this film are without speaking at all and instead it trusts the actors and cinematography to display the feelings. It works to a great effect.
A Girl Unknown is a tale of survival. A story of perseverance. An outing which establishes everyone involved as ones to watch. It is a stunning effort from Jing, and I will now be on the edge of my seat for whatever may come next from her.
- A Girl Unknown will be playing at London Film Festival and currently does not have an UK theatrical release date
