Voyage en Chine

The film lives up to its name - Voyage en Chine ("Travel in China") - but unfortunately fails to go beyond: without nuances, the film seems an advertisement of the Orient. For someone who has not been to China and is curious about places of China away from the big metropolises like Shanghai, the film does hold quite a lot: however, the film is also full of exaggerations, like the woman jumping onto Liliane's nose. It is also strangely wrapped in joylessness, not helped by Moreau's lack of facial expressions and quite a cold, typically French character: the film follows a predictable storyline, told in countless Hollywood films, all using the same trick of putting some old unexplained bits of past life to pepper the ongoing self-discovery and/or self-healing process in a new place. The East is exoticized, the white person is the privileged guest, and finally, touched by this rebirth in the East, the white person decides to stay back: for how long such films will continue? The biggest weak point of the film is the complete lack of balance of how China is treated: any possible irritants are glossed over, are not shown or are explained away with language differences, and Moreau's journey is smooth, with a bit of wait here and there. The one good snide is that at the French bureaucracy: worse than even the Chinese, though of course the latter is oiled by bribes and knowing the right people. The actors in the film don't catch hold of you at all: most of them seem bored!