Oasis

Oasis

CHEN Mengqiao • 2022

Duration: 01:54:24
Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: Chinese, English
Country/Region: Mainland China

The top of the commercial building surrounding by neon lights is circled into a desolate lighted court, which is run by Xiaodong. The fourth floor of the building is a nightclub. The middle-aged men playing football and the beautiful drunk nightclub ladies crowd in and out of the building’s narrow elevator, mixed with sweat, alcohol and hormones.Ah Hui, who lives on the third floor, sells beer at the stall downstairs. Her discarded mattress is picked up by Dong, then the two meet in the elevator. Ah Hui has been alone for many years and develops romantic feelings for Xiao Dong. However, faced with the court’s increasingly predicament and the confusion about the future, Xiao Dong finally decides to leave.

AWARDS & FESTIVALS

2022 Nice International Film Festival, France2022 Canada China International Film Festival, China

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

CHEN Mengqiao

CHEN Mengqiao

Director

The court on the rooftop is a place to sweat and unwind. People rise from the bottom part of the concrete forest to the upper air, viewing the city at a distance and breathing freely. Here, people are getting closer and attract each other in a rising but narrow space. Their lives seems to be as thin as watergrass in the ocean, but stubbornly refuse to confirm the survival principles. Only the wilderness and the city face each other silently. The city invades the territory of the wilderness, replaces the natural scenery with orderly prosperities. However, countless lonely and desperate individuals are hiding behind the prosperity. By exploring the relationship between these individuals, the most fitting gap between the wilderness and the city is revealed. To be kind to the wilderness is to be kind to human beings themselves, since city creatures can never defeat the wilderness which is the skin of nature.