The Red House: Movie Review

The Red House: Movie Review

Cast: Lee Stuart, Meng Jia
Director: Alyx Duncan

NZ director Alyx Duncan brings us this feature debut which scored highly at the New Zealand International Film Festival last year.

It's the story of Lee and Jia, a couple of mixed race, who've been together for years. When Jia is called back to China to carry out her family duty and look after her elders, Lee has no choice after 20 years together but to go along too.

So, while Jia heads home first, Lee begins to pack up his belongings and start a new life in their 60s in a new country.

The Red House is an uncannily assured debut from Alyx Duncan. It has a haunting and lyrical feel as the camera lingers on many images captured by the lens - and none of which feel manufactured for the use of the film (a rare feat these days).

The story, such as it is, is threadbare but there's a poignant intimacy between the pair and it's clear there's a bond off the screen as well as on. Reflective, thoughtful and beautifully shot, The Red House is perhaps one of the more memorably intimate and small scale New Zealand films to grace the screen in the past year or so. Stripped of budget and bathed in love and pathos, Duncan manages to get the best out of her minimalist leads.

Throw in the juxtaposition of New Zealand shores and the contrast of a dirty and downbeat China and you really have something a little different from this cinematic outing. It's spellbinding and evocative in equal measure - a sign that New Zealand can do slow cinema which tugs at the heartstrings and hints at some universal bonds and compassion between us. You'd have to have a hard heart to be unmoved by this tale.

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