Chinese film featured Thursday

  As China slowly becomes more like the West and even aspires to the role of economic leader, one of that country's most accomplished directors brings us a film that could be about any urban middle-class couple in the world.

  “In Love We Trust” will be shown Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Historic Yuma Theater, 254 S. Main St. The screening, part of Arizona Western College's “Thursdays at the Theatre” (formerly the Sun Cinema Series), includes an independent short film and a hosted discussion. Language is Mandarin with English subtitles. Run time of the feature is 115 minutes; admission is $5.

  The characters suffer from work stress, they live with the complications of divorce and infidelity, and they face ethical dilemmas related to the advances in modern medicine.

Thicker than water

  Eight-year-old Hehe is a cute as her name. She and her mother, Mei, and stepdad, Xie, live in a tiny high-rise apartment just like so many millions of others. They're happy, though, at least until Hehe starts running unexplained high fevers.

  Hehe's biological dad, Xiao Lu, as a building contractor has to put up with the familiar capitalist headache of labor problems. On top of that, his new young wife, Dong Fan, is a bit of a prima dona and pesters him about not being ready to give her a child of her own.

  Everybody's life quickly gets a lot more complicated when Hehe is diagnosed with leukemia. She doesn't respond to chemotherapy, and the next step would be a bone-marrow transplant.

  Both parents are tested as possible donors, but neither of them is a match. Mei insists that the only hope left is for her and Xiao to have a second child together through in-vitro fertilization so that there will now be a genetic match.

  This isn't a sure-fire solution, though. The government-run hospital has rules about how many times the fertilization technique can be tried. And what if it doesn't work?

The life you save

  As with many thoughtful foreign productions, this one is free of the emotional techniques we're so used to - sentimental music, manipulative lighting, simplistic morality. As implied by the film's original Chinese title, “Right Left,” life is full of complexities and ambiguities, and there are consequences no matter which way we turn.

  Again, these are typical people who could be our own neighbors from down the block. So the themes are universal; still, the characters' particular professions are convenient in the telling of the story.

  Mei is an effective real-estate agent. Most of her locations move well, but there's this one apartment that she just can't get rented. It's either too big or too small for everyone who sees it, and its only piece of furniture is a queen-size bed…

  As for Xiao - he's directly involved in the creation of the pervasive bleak high-rise architecture that spans the Beijing skyline and seems to proliferate forever into the distance. Does it indicate a loss of tradition, a growing lack of human connection among us? Can this cold distance be bridged?

  In this story, in order for there even to be hope for the child, someone must be hurt. Still, there will be an opportunity, if only they can see it, for each of the characters to transcend his or her selfish concerns and rise to the highest levels of compassion and understanding.