Once Removed

Julie Mallozzi is a young filmmaker--half Chinese, half Italian--whose mother emigrated from China to America as a child with her parents in 1946, another family torn apart by China's Communist revolution. A "visit" turned into permanent exile, and today Julie's mother has forgotten most of her native language, and has only vague memories of early life in her homeland. In recent years, China has been playing catch-up with the West, and this new openness allowed Julie to visit mainland China, video camera in hand, determined to renew ties with her lost relatives. Many of her aunts and uncles were scientists or researchers in the "old" China, and they speak candidly here of careers and lives side-tracked by the "ten wasted years" of Mao's cultural revolution. Julie also follows the trail of a mystery involving the murder of Fei Gong, her great-uncle and a beloved pro-democracy professor (allegedly killed by the Nationalist Chinese), and visits her ancestral home in Suzhou, now transformed into a school serving the burgeoning educational needs of the "new" China. In the end, Julie finds more questions than answers--noting that, perhaps, her problem lies in searching for answers in China's past, while most Chinese prefer to contemplate the country's future. Thoughtful, though like other recent China odysseys (such as China Gold Rush [VL-1/01]) a bit bland, this is an optional purchase for larger collections. Viewers looking for facts about contemporary China would be better served by PBS's In Search of China (VL Online-10/01). Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)