Shadow Days

Zhao Dayong : 2014
Gui ri zi

Liang Renwei and his pregnant girlfriend, Pomegranate, leave a shady past in the city behind and return to the remote mountain town of Renwei's childhood. The couple's plan is to remain until the child is born and then see what new opportunity arises. The mayor of the mostly deserted town is Renwei's uncle, whose most pressing priority is meeting the One-Child Policy quotas set by his Communist Party superiors. When the chairwoman of the local women's federation mentions over a card game that the family planning team is short-handed, Uncle asks Renwei to help him. Renwei takes to the job with alacrity, finding cruel and creative ways to round up women for forced abortions and before long the team reaches its quota. As the days drift by, Pomegranate tires of the empty rooms and she begins to glimpse faceless ghosts of the past lurking in the corners. Late one night Uncle is touched by a tiny spirit in the darkness. His health deteriorates and the locals spurn him, fearing the taint of his presence. Uncle turns to a local shaman, who performs an ancient exorcism ritual and determines that the tiny spirit abides on the west side – in the direction of Pomegranate's room. And so Uncle's haunting plot unfolds. Zhao Dayong's third feature, set against the backdrop of a magnificent mountain landscape, tells a story of what people are capable of doing to one another. Eventually, everyone involved is brought to realise in different ways that violence always begets further violence. His film premiered at Berlin International Film Festival 2014.