Night of Peacemaking

Mongolism is among Tao Hui's very early films, produced when the artist was still in art school at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing. The characters of Tao Hui's early films are loosely based on popular costume dramas from 1990s Chinese television. Shot in brilliant color, the film follows a young protagonist clad in bright green historical costume. Yet from the beginning, narrative levels are interwoven as a contemporary figure is shown putting on make-up and dressing up. Except for one line, there is no dialogue, only ambient noises: dripping of water, animal sounds, singing, and the percussive rhythms of the marching band's playing.

In the back of a taxi sits a young local actress wearing a bridal gown and smoking, talking with the driver who remains out of shot, reprising the star's words in Persian. In their new geographical context, these observations on social ambition, the desire for love and the difficulty of finding it become an implied criticism of the restrictions imposed on women in Iran.

Seven scenes selected from the countless scenarios in the director's notebooks, including a group of ethnic minority girls in a spoil pit in the rain, a reporter interviewing a corpse, and a deity sailing on the river. An exhausted narrator retells her life's story. Fleeing her small village for the city, the young woman, in spite of her tenacity, gradually grows nostalgic. A torrid love affair with her music student results in one child and a failed marriage. Unable to bear the consequences, she ends her life on the banks of a river.