Mama (1990 film)

The film focuses on a librarian struggling to raise her mentally handicapped son in modern-day Beijing while at the same time dealing with an absent and unresponsive husband. The story garnered much criticism from state-censors, who found the film too dark.[2]

While the film was originally written to end on the dour note of the mother euthanizing her son, director Zhang Yuan eventually opted for a more open-ended and ambiguous conclusion.[2]

The film that was to become Mama began as a screenplay in the Children's Film Studio for a film entitled The Sun Tree as based on a story by writer Dai Qing.[3] Zhang Yuan at the time was still a student in the Beijing Film Academy's cinematography department and was slated to serve as the film's director of photography, with Fifth Generation graduate Sun Chen slated to direct.[3] For three months, Zhang worked with screenwriter (and planned lead actor) Qin Yan and Sun storyboarding The Sun Tree.[3] The studio, however, ultimately decided that the film was not profitable and canceled production.[3]

The project was then picked up by the August First Film Studio, now with Gong Yiqun set as the director.[4] During this second production period, Zhang Yuan again was set to serve as cinematographer and conducted several location scouting trips to Dunhuang.[4] However, August First canceled the production shortly after the Tiananmen Square incident, in part because Dai Qing had supported the demonstrations and was now a problematic figure politically.[4]

With the project seemingly dead, Zhang Yuan and Qin Yan decided to produce the film independently, asking friends and family for funds.[4] Zhang, Qin, and Zhang's wife, screenwriter Ning Dai also went back to rework the film's original story.[4] The result was a film, in Zhang's words, that "was completely different" and "something much closer to the everyday reality of average Chinese people."[2]

While Zhang Yuan's friend, director Wang Xiaoshuai, was originally set to direct, Zhang himself eventually took over directing duties.[2]

The film was ultimately shot in 1989 in Zhang's apartment on a budget of only ¥100,000, shortly after Zhang had graduated from the BFA.[2]

Filmed mostly in black and white, the film's small budget often shows in its minimalist style. Mama's small cast of characters and minimal plot would become trademarks to Zhang's films.[5] The film is also notable as an example of Zhang's documentary leanings, as Mama also intercuts actual interviews with parents of autistic children throughout the narrative.[5]

Mama was registered with the state-run Xi'an Film Studio, but was given only a minimal distribution in its native China.[5] Instead the film received numerous accolades abroad, screening at several international film festivals and winning the Special Jury Prize at the Nantes Three Continents Film Festival in 1991.[5]

Today the film is considered a pioneering work and the "first independent Chinese film since 1949."[6] It was selected to screen in the 2005 62nd Venice International Film Festival, as part of that festival's retrospective on Chinese cinema.[7]

• Berry, Michael (2005). "Working up a Sweat in a Celluloid Sauna" in Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-13331-6. Google Book Search. Retrieved 2008-08-25.
• Tasker, Yvonne (2002). "Zhang Yuan" in Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers. Routledge Publishing. ISBN 0-415-18974-8. Google Book Search. Retrieved 2008-08-24.
• Zhang, Zhen (2007), The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century. Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-4074-7. Google Book Search. Retrieved 2008-08-25.

• Mama at IMDb
• Mama at AllMovie
• Mama at the Chinese Movie Database