The first feature from director-writer Constance Tsang, the Cannes Critics’ Week title Blue Sun Palace, is set in Flushing, Queens, where two migrants, Amy from Taiwan and Didi from China,work in a massage parlor and struggle to get by. But viewers could be forgiven for not recognizing the location.
There are no drone shots of the Queens skyline, no wide establishing shots of Flushing’s bustling Chinese community. Instead, Tsang frames her subjects tightly, placing them in liminal spaces like stairwells and hallways — “thresholds,” Tsang explains, where they’re “so close to freedom, but it’s never afforded to them.”
Amy and Didi dream of a better life, but their world is in part constrained by the sometimes inward-looking construct of the Chinese immigrant community.
“When we talk about spaces in general, I feel like my decision not to do these establishing shots [and instead] to create this feeling of confinement...
There are no drone shots of the Queens skyline, no wide establishing shots of Flushing’s bustling Chinese community. Instead, Tsang frames her subjects tightly, placing them in liminal spaces like stairwells and hallways — “thresholds,” Tsang explains, where they’re “so close to freedom, but it’s never afforded to them.”
Amy and Didi dream of a better life, but their world is in part constrained by the sometimes inward-looking construct of the Chinese immigrant community.
“When we talk about spaces in general, I feel like my decision not to do these establishing shots [and instead] to create this feeling of confinement...
- 5/17/2024
- by Shannon L. Bowen
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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