Shun Li and the Poet (2011)

I wanted to but couldn't!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Although the film is set in Venice, don't expect beauty. It's all rather grim, unrealistically so. But ugly is the modus operandi for any director that wants to be taken "seriously," so there you go. This is the typical rubbish being made to affirm the sacred beliefs of a particular bleeding heart audience, who need to be convinced over and over again, that immigration (from 3rd world countries into Europe) is something that must simply be accepted, and that nationalism is bad. Most immigrants here are shown as saintly sensitive innocents, whilst the local working class population are portrayed as a nasty racist violent bunch of peasants. Is a film like this really necessary, when boatloads of savage Africans, rape, murder and pillage their way through Italy under the guise of being "poor refugees?" I think not.This is pathetic pantomime of the most basic kind, presented as profound drama for pseudo-intellectual libtards.

With tears in my eyes and thunder in the background, the movie ends.A young Mainland Chinese woman has somehow emigrated to Italy where she works in a factory, a café, and another factory. The story focuses on her stay at the café in a fishing village just south of Venice. The community in the village is the primary backdrop, and creates the tension between the residents and the Chinese. In particular, she meets a fellow immigrant who is considerably older than she, with whom she develops a unacceptable (according the the community) friendship.Some of it is so beautiful to look at that I am not sure of the significance, only the sensation of transformation. Even in factories, sleazy streets, fights, and fishing huts, we appreciate not only the reality but also the spirit of the scene.Maybe I have seen too many crime movies, but I was certain that her work for the freedom of her son was a scam, especially because she was moved several times, threatened with "starting over", and cloistered. Her friendship with Bepi was lovely, yet disallowed. Why? we ask. So little support was offered my work-mates. Why does this program even exist if there is so little personal concern?Lian, the roommate was another interesting character. She seems as emotionless as Shun Li and seems to have comfort in Tai Chi, thus enabling her to provide some care to Shun Li. It appears she did have deep feelings or else a very powerful sense of loss that remains unexplained. The film was education, it was touching. It was lovely and it was sad.

Film Movement continues to bring to our attention treasures of cinematic art that we might not otherwise see. IL SONO LI (SHUN LI AND THE POET) is one of those rare gems of a movie that in a very gentle, quiet, simple fashion tells a story that in some way connects us all. Written and directed by Andrea Segre it gives notice of a major new light in cinema and we can only hope the success of this film will encourage him to create more in this genre.Shun Li (Zhao Tao) works in a textile factory in the outskirts of Rome to enable her to get her papers that allow her eight-year-old son to come to Italy. She is part of the large Chinese organization that makes money off cheap labor in another country to keep the immigrants in a near slave like contract. She is suddenly transferred to Chioggia, a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon, to work as a bartender in a café pub. She rooms with another girl in similar circumstances. Bepi (Rade Serbedzija), an older Yugoslavian fisherman, nicknamed the Poet by his friends, has been a regular at that little pub for years: he left Yugoslavia at the time of the overthrow of Tito. Shun Li and Bepi are two lonely souls far away from homeland. Their encounter is a quiet almost poetic escape from solitude, a silent dialogue between cultures that are different, yet not more distant. They become close friends, but their friendship upsets both the Chinese and local communities, who interfere with this new voyage, and after confrontations and threats and fears, Shun Li returns to the factories until something beautiful happens and she returns to share this with her friend - a moment that is as touching in its surprise and tenderness as any on film.The supporting cast is strong - both Chinese and Italian - and the cinematography by Luca Bigazzi is breathtakingly beautiful. The quiet, unintrusive but salient musical score is by François Couturier. This film is a soulful, eloquent exploration into the human heart made more poignant because of the coming together of tow immigrants who must now share a foreign language. In Italian and Mandarin with English subtitles. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp

No one on earth can understand an immigrant better than another immigrant. A truism for sure but which has seldom been illustrated so well as in "Io sono Li" (Li and the Poet), the first fiction film of Italian documentary maker Andrea Segre.Immigration is embodied here by two complementary figures, Shun Li and Bepi.Shun Li is a young Chinese woman who has succeeded in emigrating to Italy, without her son (whom she sorely misses) but with a debt to pay back to the illegal network that "helped" her to get there.Bepi, on the other hand, is an old retired fisherman and amateur poet who left Yugoslavia for the little laguna town of Chioggia thirty-five years before. Both will meet in the osteria (bar-restaurant) where Li works as a replacement barmaid and of which Bepi is a regular and a touching if difficult relationship will develop between them.That is all there is to this film in terms of narrative, but "Io sono Li" does not need a strong plot to manage to exist. This delicate gem actually delivers much more than its story : a fine description of a rarely shown little town in the Venetian Lagoon, an attack against illegal emigration network, a criticism of intolerance and, best of all, the sensitive portrait of two engaging loners wonderfully played by Tao Zhao (the muse of director Jia Zhangke) and Rade Serbedzija (the Croatian actor who played the bio-chemical expert in "Mission Impossible: II). When you leave the theater you understand "Io sono Li" is a real achievement.It has all the virtues of a documentary without being dryly factual.It is moving, even very moving as the film comes to its close, but without resorting to cheap tear-jerking tricks.It is an involved work but its commitment is discreet and remains in the backgroundTo make a long story short, 'Io sono Li' is a remarkable first feature that should not be missed.