You wonder how long Yan (Xilun Sun) can remain in place after lifting himself up on a pull-up bar in the striking opening shot of “A Brief History of a Family,” his concentration only broken when he’s struck by an incoming basketball. When he crashes to the ground, it becomes a fair indicator of where he would land on the socioeconomic spectrum in Jianjie Lin’s hypnotic drama, having nowhere to go but down for all the strength he’s shown just to hang around when he’s said to have an alcoholic for a father back home and perhaps unable to seek a proper remedy for the resulting injury if he had to pay for any medical care. However, it isn’t the bad break that it appears at first when his classmate Wei (Lin Muran) comes to his aid on the playground and eventually takes him back to his house at the end of the day where if nothing else, his mind is taken off of any pain of his own when he’s entranced by the luxuries all around in the home of Wei’s biologist father (Zu Feng).
If Wei’s opulent home is a reflection of the new China, Yan’s presence in it becomes a reminder of the old for better or worse, unsettling his moderately wealthy hosts by pouring soy sauce on rice at dinner when typically that’s a meal for him rather than an accoutrement when any advances the country has made in recent years due to the end of the One Child Policy and a modernized economy efforts clearly haven’t reached him. Yet he endears himself to Wei’s parents when he has ambition that their own pampered son seems to lack as he can usually be found retreating to his bedroom to play video games. Showing a wicked sense of humor without ever turning the film into a comedy, Lin takes full advantage of the bemusing premise that both Wei and his parents have ulterior motives for leaving their door open to Yan at all times when the son doesn’t want to be bothered in the midst of his quality time with his PS5 and the parents can appreciate Yan taking an interest in their pursuits that Wei never has. His knee isn’t the only thing that seems to heal over the weeks he spends with them when Wei’s father brightens at the prospect of sharing his classical music collection and his mother (Guo Keyu) is happy to have someone to cut fruit and vegetables for dinner with.
The fact that Wei’s father is a scientist gives Lin the leeway to quite literally put the entire family under the microscope in one of the director’s bolder stylistic conceits, but how he surfaces more complicated dynamics is impressive when Wei isn’t the apathetic teen his parents believe him to be, afraid of telling them about wanting to take part in a fencing competition that doesn’t align with their own goals for him. If anything, the spacious home that’s a marker of success starts to appear as having far too much room for secrets when all involved have to conceal their true desires from one another, and the absurdity of Wei being liberated to pursue his own path by the wealth his family has amassed, only to choose a life that they don’t want for him, reveals itself as Yan’s far more traditional ideas about what constitutes prosperity — as well as how to reach it — are more seductive to them, as progressive as they may think themselves to be. That they are as paralyzed in some ways as Yan is at the start of the film, caught between the past and the future, exposes the multidimensional challenges facing those who living in such a rapidly changing society, and although true to the film’s title, Lin delivers a concise encapsulation of a culture yet leaves nothing overlooked, appearing to be the future himself with such a strong grasp on history and even more muscular storytelling.
“Brief History of a Family” will screen at Berlinale on February 21st at 6:30 pm at Zoo Palast 1, February 22nd at 11:45 am at Haus der Berliner Festspiele, February 23rd at Cubix 5 at 3:45 pm, February 23rd at 9 pm at Cosima Filmtheater and February 24th at 9:30 pm at Cubix 8.