j* movie reviews 2020

China Love (2018

A turbulent emotional ride with a gazillion wedding dresses thrown in for good measure.

This was way more interesting and beautiful than I expected, and a really well put together doco. For me personally I feel this was a little bit like "The Devil Wears Prada" where something cracks open the fashion industry and shows you it's heart, soul and darkness all at once. It was super humanising.

China Love explores culture through one simple snapshot - the wedding photos. And just this one lense brings so much to the story. It spends a lot of time with the richest guy in wedding photos and his empire. In China wedding photos are taken many months before the wedding itself and are a super glitzy affair with staging, lighting, props and a horde of assistants making the ordinary couple look the best they will never be. It's sold as a fantasy capture and is big money.

We follow a few of the couples through their experiences, from photos to real live weddings. And this is an interesting tightrope to walk. We're told so much about how different this is to the traditional weddings and photos, where they existed for the older generations. And yet when we follow them to their actual weddings we see that so much tradition still haunts these couples. There's the Father of the bride sad he'll never see his daughter again to the daughter cracking under the expectations of society to raise a child.

And then, this doco, saddled with the possibility that the fantasy glamour wedding photos were just that and that marriage might not have a happy ending, pulls a spectacular twist. It goes and follows along with a charity that recreates "pre-wedding" photos for elderly couples. Many of these have just one sparse photo of their weddings as "evidence" if they had one at all. And this charity spends time glamming up couples who have had marriages of 50-70years, taking photos of them and celebrating these long-lasting relationships. And it was pretty special. I confess to getting a little emotional when they were shooting these photos and having the old couples say what had been great and give thanks to each other for what had been in their marriages. There was a lot of beauty in this, a celebration of what was rather than just the hopeful promises of what might be.

You will see more wedding dresses in this than anything else I can imagine is out there if that is your thing. And yes, I do believe there is even a Vera Wang. Just like a great photo, I feel this captures a really interesting snapshot.

J* gives it 5 stars.

This film is available to stream for FREE via BOFA - Breath of Fresh Air Film Festival Tasmania. Viewing is open to all Australians via registration.