Lost Springtime

Directed by Alain Mazars

Chinese opera, whether of the Peking variety or not, is a very demanding art-form, requiring decades of study to be even partly mastered. In this film, Yan Yuejun was a Soochow Opera performer who fell afoul of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, and who has served his time undergoing compulsory "re-education." Now he is living in Inner Mongolia, driving a truck for a living, which is surely proletarian enough to suit his earlier tormentors.