I consider movie as the next best thing to travel in getting to know a place, its culture and people. There is so much of China to be seen in the news and the only medium which could take you one step closer is cinema. I should say I was amply rewarded by director Yang Lina’s “Spring Tide”. It got to a point where I started falling in love with the people of a foreign land. I was mesmerised and couldn’t pry my eyes away from the screen for a minute.

“Spring Tide” is screening at Osaka Asian Film Festival

Ji Minglan (Elaine jin), her daughter Guo Jinbao (Hao Lei) and granddaughter Guo Wanting (Junxi Qu) all live in a small apartment. Minglan has not been able to forgive her divorced husband from thirty years ago. Jinbao has good memories of her father and attributes the affairs she has with men on the lack of love from her mother. Wanting was born out of wedlock and longs for the affections of a father. Though on the surface she does not get along with her grandmother, they love each other dearly. The relationship between the three is obviously complicated and the beauty of it all is that, just like in real life, each of them have sound justification for the way things are. All three are respected and admired outside their own homes. The lack of a cliched structure accentuates the complexity and makes for a great viewing.

Elaine Jin has the best character to portray as an actor. She shows one facet to her daughter, another to her granddaughter, yet another to her fiancé and a totally separate persona is set aside for her friends. Elaine’s years of experience came handy.

The dialogues by Yang Lina are intimate. Conversations between mother and daughter and those between grandmother and granddaughter are especially intriguing. The daughter Jinbao mostly gets one-liners throughout the movie and compensates by putting her piece out there as a monologue towards the end. The scene where Wanting dances while having dinner and spills juice all over the others may have even been a screen capture from real-life. And that is not all. There were beautiful silences and some scenes with just the keyboard accompanying the visuals.

The small and cramped rooms amplify the constraints through which the family navigates and the pockets of light coming from different angles are delightful. That’s the camera aiding the script.

The movie satisfies at many levels and shows how the story of women across generations is explored all over the world, while I feel a biographical element lurking deep within. You get to peel the layers away and explore the lives of the characters and their country as you sit watching the movie. When the “Spring Tide” comes (with everyone in tow) the next generation will eagerly jump in and merrily make their own strides.