So Long, My Son

Some encounters are only for a moment, some farewells can take a lifetime. So Long, My Son is a superbly constructed family saga depicting the transformations of Chinese society amid the story of a tragedy-stricken married couple. As much an emotional melodrama as it is a penetrating study of cultural and political shifts, the film follows its protagonists over the course of three decades - from the upheavals of the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1980s to the troubled prosperity of contemporary Chinese turbo-capitalism. Unpretentious, extraordinarily moving, and masterfully filmed So Long, My Son is proof that big feelings don't need big gestures.