11 Flowers (2011)

Directed by: Wang Xiaoshuai

Southwest China, 1975, in what will turn out to be the final year of the Cultural Revolution, eleven year-old Wang Han (Liu Wenqing) lives with his sister and parents in a tiny apartment in a remote town.  Giving chase after his brand new white shirt is stolen, Han finds himself face to face with a man wanted for murder….

Told almost entirely from Han’s point of view, 11 Flowers is a completely delightful movie about growing up.  In some ways it’s quite old-fashioned, but that is no criticism in this case – it reflects the fact that 1975 is a long time ago now, the setting is a relatively unsophisticated small town, and Han and his three buddies are just kids.

Their faces tell us how they are trying to make sense of the world around them, and of the increasingly violent events that start to impinge on their lives.  It’s very unsentimental and doesn’t pull punches in showing parents behaving weakly or just plain badly.  Well worth watching.