There's a little bit of lots of things here. Besides the infrequent bits of pathos, there's lots of clever dialog exchanges, plenty of humor both subtle and broad, and music in quite a few different styles. Sometimes the verbal exchanges are just clever, sometimes they're essentially verbal jousting, and fairly often they have surprise endings which are nothing like what you'd expect. Most noticeable to me was the characters frequently saying not-at-all-nice things to each other, yet without creating a "scene" or having any future repercussions. The humor covers the gamut from subtle all the way to slapstick. Music is classical western, classical Chinese (I think:-), Chinese pop/folk (I think:-), and even Russian; sometimes instrumental and sometimes a solo voice and sometimes a group of voices; sometimes standalone and sometimes accompanying or even featuring dancing.
Yet this is not a mish-mash of ill-fitting parts all stirred together. All the varied pieces somehow fit together quite nicely to convey a slice of life and the psychology behind it.
The palette is largely constrained by the pervasive factories, railroads, and buildings, which are at best decayed and sometimes little more than piles of rubble. Even so, there are bits of bright colors here and there, sometimes an incidental object (especially in a living space), and sometimes the costumes of phantasmagoric dancers. There's little sunlight, but not a lot of shadow either. There are so many broken windows they become just part of the background scenery. The sound track is clear and interesting. Sometimes the music we hear isn't well-synchronized with the player's finger movements, but that's a minor detail that's easily overlooked. Often music will begin diegetically within the story, but after a few bars lift off and become a separate non-diegetic voice. The cuts and fades are seamless, very much receding into the background rather than calling attention to themselves; I certainly didn't notice any "obviously meaningful" montages or jump cuts.
While the story of making a piano in an old steel factory so the little daughter of divorce would choose to stay with the father is quite real and fairly central, all the while watching I had the feeling this film was really about something else. The suddenly abandoned steel factory contained a lot of highly technical tools that must have been quite expensive when they were new. The motley assortment of characters seemed quite familiar with even the most esoteric of the abandoned tools. And I never could fit the recurring motif of the destruction of the giant smokestacks into the piano story. Later, the director's statement I read made sense of all this; rather than try to paraphrase it, I'll just repeat it verbatim here:
"The film captures the transition of China from an industrial era to a capitalist one as a result of its rapid modernization. It's set in the early 1990's when working class people, who had long been the foundation of the nation, were facing serious everyday challenges as money-losing state-owned factories shut down. Unemployment and uncertainty swept through China's industrial northeast.
"Through the story of Chen's fantastical scheme of making a piano from scratch for his daughter, the movie gives us a glimpse into the living conditions of China's poorer working class, and their psychological and spiritual trials during that tumultuous time. The piano project brings the workers back together and into the factory life they sorely missed. It fills a void in their hearts and gives them a sense of accomplishment in fulfilling something beyond their harsh everyday lives.
"In particular, the film highlights the workers' perseverance and suppressed romantic spirits despite their day-to-day hardship. The blasting of the smokestacks symbolizes the end of a bygone era, a sad but inevitable product of economic transformation. Though they have to yield to the harsh reality in the end, the factory misfits with few resources muster their strengths and ingenuity to create the most extraordinary music in life."
Yet this is not a mish-mash of ill-fitting parts all stirred together. All the varied pieces somehow fit together quite nicely to convey a slice of life and the psychology behind it.
The palette is largely constrained by the pervasive factories, railroads, and buildings, which are at best decayed and sometimes little more than piles of rubble. Even so, there are bits of bright colors here and there, sometimes an incidental object (especially in a living space), and sometimes the costumes of phantasmagoric dancers. There's little sunlight, but not a lot of shadow either. There are so many broken windows they become just part of the background scenery. The sound track is clear and interesting. Sometimes the music we hear isn't well-synchronized with the player's finger movements, but that's a minor detail that's easily overlooked. Often music will begin diegetically within the story, but after a few bars lift off and become a separate non-diegetic voice. The cuts and fades are seamless, very much receding into the background rather than calling attention to themselves; I certainly didn't notice any "obviously meaningful" montages or jump cuts.
While the story of making a piano in an old steel factory so the little daughter of divorce would choose to stay with the father is quite real and fairly central, all the while watching I had the feeling this film was really about something else. The suddenly abandoned steel factory contained a lot of highly technical tools that must have been quite expensive when they were new. The motley assortment of characters seemed quite familiar with even the most esoteric of the abandoned tools. And I never could fit the recurring motif of the destruction of the giant smokestacks into the piano story. Later, the director's statement I read made sense of all this; rather than try to paraphrase it, I'll just repeat it verbatim here:
"The film captures the transition of China from an industrial era to a capitalist one as a result of its rapid modernization. It's set in the early 1990's when working class people, who had long been the foundation of the nation, were facing serious everyday challenges as money-losing state-owned factories shut down. Unemployment and uncertainty swept through China's industrial northeast.
"Through the story of Chen's fantastical scheme of making a piano from scratch for his daughter, the movie gives us a glimpse into the living conditions of China's poorer working class, and their psychological and spiritual trials during that tumultuous time. The piano project brings the workers back together and into the factory life they sorely missed. It fills a void in their hearts and gives them a sense of accomplishment in fulfilling something beyond their harsh everyday lives.
"In particular, the film highlights the workers' perseverance and suppressed romantic spirits despite their day-to-day hardship. The blasting of the smokestacks symbolizes the end of a bygone era, a sad but inevitable product of economic transformation. Though they have to yield to the harsh reality in the end, the factory misfits with few resources muster their strengths and ingenuity to create the most extraordinary music in life."