Summer Palace

Evoking the strident student activism in the days of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, Ye’s film follows small-town girl Hao Lei to the fictional “Beiqing University,” where she finds romance with a fellow undergraduate, is swept up in the ardent idealism of the moment, and then, in the years that follow, settles into adult disillusion. Banned in Mainland China after its Cannes premiere for both its verboten politics and frank sexuality—it’s the first Mainland movie to feature full-frontal male and female nudity—Summer Palace is a raw, restless work infused with both the vigor of youth and the bittersweetness of post-crackdown comedown.

Co-presented by Bay Area Chinese Culture Salon

 Part of The Forsaken Times: A Journey Through Lou Ye’s Cinema