Red Sea Film Festival 2022 | Our Lady of the Chinese Shop

Our Lady of the Chinese Shop is set to the voice of a narrator (Meili Li). His voice is as smooth as the dripping water, which is a constant during the opening scene from Angolan writer/director Ery Claver. While the dripping is a result of a leak, the sound is representative of the mood we find Domingas (played by Cláudia Púcuta) and her husband Bessa (plated by David Caracol) embodying. Grief. The building is shedding tears for them.

The film follows multiple story arcs of different characters in Luanda, Angola. While these characters show familiarity with each other, what brings their threads together is “Our Lady of the Chinese Shop.” And who is the titular “Our Lady of the Chinese Shop”? Well, she’s a small figurine of the Madonna mass produced so quickly that the ink bleeds, imported from China to Angola.

Early on, you get a title card for a film chapter, and if your mind is anything like mine, it will find a reason to justify the title card as being typical and linear. It wasn’t until a little bit past the halfway mark that another title card, and the following scene, made me realize there was some structural intent behind the chapter cards and how they play out.

One of my favourite things about the film possibly came about out of necessity. The film was made during covid, as shown by masks worn by various characters and background actors at different times. However, it became the most evident when we got to the scene at the stadium. An independent film would’ve struggled to fill a stadium of this size even before Covid. So instead, the seats in the stadium stands were occupied by clothing on lines – like scarecrows or paper human chains. Now they could’ve tried to hide or mask it, but they made it obvious, even leaned into it. Choices were made to directly film the fluttering clothing in close-ups. The clothing added a bit of surrealness, which highlighted the placement of the scene within the film, both structurally and contextually. This, combined with the canned applause, much louder than the actual gathered crowd, elevated the scene. The scene cut away multiple times to the Chinese Merchant who brought “Our Lady” to town. He acted as an observer/proxy for the audience in the scene, possibly meant to tip you off to the unnaturalness of the scene. However, the clothing already did this and more effectively.

The film mixes fire and water, which are not the easiest things to capture on film. I thought cinematographer Eduardo Kropotkine handled water well, but the fire was not the greatest. I don’t know why that was, if the fire was added in post-production, or if it was because there seemed to be a blue filter that was combating the flames for colour dominance in the scene. Whatever the reason, it was the only thing that really jumped out at me, besides the brilliant decision to focus and lean into the fake people in the stands at the stadium.

Another thing I enjoyed about the film is that even though Domingas, Bessa, and Zoyo (played by Willi Ribeiro) are going through rough times in the film, it didn’t paint their worlds in complete darkness. Too often, if people are grieving or seeking revenge, everything in their world reflects that. And while you get some of that, with the literal manifestation of Domingas and Bessa’s grief in the leaking ceiling, as Zoyo and Domingas navigate the streets of Luanda, there is life and light to be seen in the background. You also get to traverse many streets of Luanda showcasing the city. Our Lady of the Chinese Shop is Ery Claver assured feature film debut which had its world premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in the Concorso Cineasti Del Presente section. Since then, it has appeared in other film festivals, like the London Film Festival where it screened in the First Features Competition. It will next screen at the Red Sea International Film Festival where it is in the Competition section.

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