Louis Vuitton Hawaii International FIlm Festival 2008

With a cinematic style that turns narrative into narration, CHERRIES loses much of the affective impact delivered through its beautiful visual and audio registers. While it captures the grandeur of Yunnan, the camera also closes in on characters in long takes and still shots framing them in portraits to capture a significance that escapes the overwhelming natural, political, and economic landscapes in which they live. Indeed, the pristine landscape is stained with economic policies committed to the legacy of Mao in which a lame farmer, Ge Wang, and mentally handicapped woman, Cherry, struggle to survive. But survive they do through the new affections they have for a baby, Scarlet, whom Cherry stumbled upon and adopted. Unfortunately, the film mostly progresses through the words of a mature Scarlet reflecting on her mother's life. The use of narration to develop the storyline runs opposite to Cherry's life which proceeds through gestures and not words. While possessing much potential, the film ultimately simplified its emotive effects by retreating from the affects of image and sound to the bland securities of speech.