Final Rating: 3.5/5
Coming of age is a thoroughly crucial aspect of filmmaking. There is a vital element to the documentation of a very important period of someone’s life: the transition from childhood to adulthood. Nonetheless, despite its heavy fictional form presence, the documentary seems like the perfect device for the coming of age.
Recently, Clarisa Navas’ The Prince of Nanawa (El Princípe de Nanawa) showcases the aging of a young man, similar to Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. In the sophomore effort by Chen Dongnan, following their 2021 Singing in the Wilderness, Whispers in May (春日幻游), the director follows the story of young teenagers in the Liangshan Mountains. In Whispers in May, we accompany Qihuo’s rite of passage, a fourteen-year-old.
The film is an observational study of the aging of those teenagers who seek a traditional skirt for the rite of passage, characterizing the occurrence of the first menarche. There is a particular fascination for the environment as a whole. Qihuo is still a child who enjoys running in the mountains, due to the necessity of throwing out the teenage energy in a land of nature. There is a lot to unfold in the documenting of a genuine and inevitable process of human life: growing old.
Nevertheless, it is a fascinating exercise of observing yourself on the screen and comparing it to the challenges of Qihuo’s life. Despite the geographical location, the anger, the uncertainty, and the thrills of adolescence happen everywhere. Chen captures the transition in the life of a young girl through physical shifts with rituals in different cultures. Similar to indigenous identities, the first menstruation is a sign of becoming a woman, and it requires the acknowledgement of that through rituals that present the individual as an adult to their community.
The most fascinating aspect of Chen’s film is the closeness to the subject through a camerawork that provides a sophistication in its imagery. Ming Xue & Xiao Xiao’s cinematography is a complex and poetic disposal of the camera as a pen that writes the lines of this poem. The director expands her vision of the beauty of life in the observation of the small elements of life: running around cows in the cold mountains.
Additionally, the trio comprehends the magnificence of the circle of life in the act of growing old, which is apart from age as a number. There is a more complex element attached to the ritual of passage, in this case, marked by a physical change. Now, that girl might become a mother. In that community, she is an adult. Now she is an involved actor in that circle.
There is a cruelty in the obtaining of that meaning through what you might provide to the world, in the woman’s case, a child, or the continuation of the human circle. By proposing a ritual to a fourteen-year-old, it has the emphasis on that fact. Yet the camera and the approach by the director lean towards the poetics of a material item as the objective of that moment: finding the ideal skirt.
It is the responsibility and an activity appropriate for a fourteen-year-old. Even if it symbolizes a new look that society is assigning to that individual, the film by Chen is a poetic look at the slow fading of innocence. The runs in the field get traded for responsibilities. Deliberately, until the age of college or any stage that requires a leadership role for that individual.
Ultimately, Whispers in May might not work entirely as a whole. Yet, the young filmmaker Chen Dongnan proves they have a fascinating eye for beauty and for the process of aging, inevitable for all human beings.
Whispers in May was seen during the 2026 Hot Docs film festival. Thank you to Filmotor for the screener.
