Only You Alone – When you can change it
She is a little pale, skinny with short hair. Lives alone in her aunt’s apartment and works in the movie-theatre. She is often mute and almost never laughs. She cries often, quite often, because she’s lonely, because she’s a walking dead.
Zhou Zhou’s second film “Only You Alone” (“花这样红“) was screened at the 49th International Film Festival Rotterdam. The movie was screened in the competitive section Voices and won the FIPRESCI jury’s prize.
Chi Li (Chi Yun) is almost always alone. We see her in the cinema, or at home, or sometimes in the car of her only friend (and coworker), who generously asks her every day whether she needs a drive home. Her solitude isn’t her choice, it’s her own way of self-defense. Chi Li is ill with epilepsy. Epileptic seizures come often and suddenly, when she is at work or on the street. Sometimes at night, while sleeping. The deeper you go into the movie, the more vivid it becomes how a person can get enslaved by their own illness. She lives in her condition; she’s locked within it.
Her parents were divorced and she hasn’t seen them for ages. Chi was raised by her loving grandfather, who passed away recently. In the beginning of the movie there is an important episode, when Chi speaks with her aunt through tears, worried that grandpa’s ashes still haven’t been buried. “Don’t think about it—auntie answers over the phone— it’s not your business, the elders will take care of it, forget it.” Here, you perfectly feel the true meaning of “the elders will take care of it.” Her aunt is sure that Chi isn’t able to take care of it, because she considers her to be lacking certain abilities – she is stigmatized by everybody. The aunt is a singular face of society, punishing people like Chi Li with ignorance or hatred. It was the aunt, who after discovering her illness decided to put her at home, locked her within four walls as if she was a beautiful plant. That’s when she stopped dancing. Chi Li was a prominent modern dancer who performed on a stage and for whom, dance became an unachievable dream.
The viewers can feel Chi Li’s self-perception in this public, when she goes to her coworker’s house. Entering the flat they see a huge mess and a small, lovely dog, standing next. While Chi’s angry friend starts shouting and shakes the poor dog, Chi tries to protect him. She sees herself in the body of this poor, scared creature, who is abandoned by everybody – found in a street a while ago, spending his useless life caged in these four walls. “I think it also has the epilepsy,” – sure, Chi remembered once her friend told her so.
When a young man invites her on a date, a totally frustrated and hopeless Chi quickly shows him footage of her seizures recorded on her phone asking – “And now, do you still want to be with me?” Suddenly, hope arises out of nowhere, when you see a lovely couple walking holding hands, sharing food, you see him supporting her during epileptic seizures. For a while it changes her life, she starts to feel herself visible, alive again. For her, no matter how long it’s going to last, it is now and that’s what matters. But the situation changes when her boyfriend decides to take her home, to meet his mom. As it was predictable, she’s been asked a bunch of unpleasant questions – What if…? Then how will she…? And what about the babies?
Breaking up with him takes away all the colors out of her monotonous life. It turns out that her aunt decided to sell the house – her secret castle for hiding. It’s enough, from now she has to choose. Chi finds a peaceful cemetery in the middle of the forest, where leaves from long green trees constantly rustle and the sun shines through them. After burying the ashes of her beloved grandpa, she decides to seek surgery. She knows perfectly well that this is a huge risk, but does she have a choice? We don’t know if she can be cured or whether the illness can get worse. It’s the only thing Chi Li can decide for herself.
In the last scene we see her sitting alone on a swing. The swing moves faster and faster and Chin is swinging with intensified speed – up and down – nonstop, in a crazy way. Chin’s eyes are wide open, grabbing the ropes on both sides with her hands. Her body swings along and her face trembles with intense emotions. You can feel her fear, but you also feel that she is ready – ready to feel that she is alive again.
Zhou Zhou’s movie Only You Alone is a touching story about loneliness and about daring to be different in the modern, unsympathetic, and intolerant society. This is a portrait of a young, courageous woman, brilliantly played by Chi Yun, whose heroine tries to find her own way in the chaos surrounding her. How we treat this people, what we know about this people, why we are afraid of this people – these are the questions raised by Chinese director and his co-writer Chi Yun (main actress) and yes, there is an answer and it’s in the beginning, in the title – only you alone can dare it, only you can change it, you are the one who makes it better.
By Salome Kikaleishvili
Edited by Savina Petkova
Copyright FIPRESCI