Director Jun Li's second feature film premiered in the Big Screen Competition, in this year's IFFR. “Drifting” is a social and character study. It features an outstanding ensemble of actors and shows a sensitive approach to an important social issue.
Drifting is screening at International Film Festival Rotterdam
At the beginning of the film, a man gets out of prison. Upon release, Fai is asked if he needs a recommendation for a social housing. Determined, he declines. He has already a home and it's on the street. With a group of friends, all very different people, Fai lives a largely independent life with only a few belongings. Only shortly after his return, he and his friends are surprised by a major government cleanup operation. Garbage trucks drive up at night and collect everything without giving the owners of the belongings a chance to defend themselves. With the help of a social worker, Fai and his friends try to make their voices heard. They want compensation for the things that have been destroyed. But not only that, to Fai in particular it is important that the government apologize to them. But he demands, quite obviously the impossible.
“Drifting” is about human dignity. The author positions himself uncompromisingly, without adopting, however, a moralizing tone. The homeless are portrayed with their strengths but also their weaknesses. Each of the characters manages to make an impression on the viewer. This is due to the acting performance of the actors, who were able to rely on precise dialogues. The plot gives enough space to the individual protagonists so that something interesting can come from each of them.
The embodiment of Fai by Francis Ng particularly stands out. Ng gives the character a balanced mix between vulnerability and determination. In his facial expressions, one believes one can recognize much of the pain Fai has experienced. Fai is the key figure of the film, who carries within himself precisely this inviolable dignity of the human being.
For “Drifting”, director Jun Li was inspired by the real street cleanings in Hong Kong in 2012. These had attracted particularly much attention at the time because, as in the film, a group of homeless people had fought back in court. Jun Li manages to take this real situation as a starting point to tell an exciting and touching story. He gives a face to a disadvantaged part of society that has not been shown before in such a differentiated way. He neither offers a solution how to solve the problem of ideal coexistence between social classes nor thinks he knows how to prevent homelessness all the same. In fact, he rather provides an emotional thought-provoking impulse.
“Drifting” is convincing not only on the level of content by offering a great balance between the hardness of the story and a fine sense of humour. It is also formally achieved through an independent and confident image finding. What is particularly striking, is how the contrast between the protagonists' modest huts and the Hong Kong skyscrapers that surround them, has been captured. A picture that could easily be seen as the essence of its message.
