READ Martin, Fran. “Critical Presentism: New Chinese Lesbian Cinema” (partial chapter, on “Fish and Elephant”), in Backward Glances:

ere are two questions you have to write in the one paper.
You don’t need to type “NAME, COURSE,DATE,PROFESSOR” at the beginning, you can just straightly start the essay. This is a journal style, so please generate your idea to answer the questions. Follow the questions and answer all of them will be fine. But you have to show your understanding toward the article in the essay, for example you can list some examples to answer the questions.
The total you need to write is about 300 words.

Question 8.
PLEASE WATCH the film “Fish and Elephant” BEFORE CLASS. Dir. Li Yu (李玉). Fish and Elephant (Jin nian xia tian 今年夏天). In Mandarin. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317763/2002. On reserve in Film Library, call # FVLDV 4780-1.
What did you make of the film? Would you describe this as a “lesbian” film? Who were the main characters? Would they describe themselves as lesbian?

Question 9.
READ Martin, Fran. “Critical Presentism: New Chinese Lesbian Cinema” (partial chapter, on “Fish and Elephant”), in Backward Glances: Contemporary Chinese Cultures and The Female Homoerotic Imaginary, Durham: Duke University Press, 2010: 164-179.

According to Martin, are “underground” films like Fish and Elephant available in Mainland China, or are they virtually impossible to find? What does Martin mean by “vertical” vs. “horizontal” time in the film? How does the lesbian “vertical” narrative of the film disrupt the “horizontal” narratives of heterosexuality in the film? (What does Martin mean when she writes on 172/149 that “Rather than the teleological chain of cause-and-effect events associated with the film’s horizontal movement, the scenes dwell on the subjective and poetic qualities of the isolated moment, with little action or narrative progression”?) In your opinion is the lesbian “space” represented in the film a “utopian” space/utopian alternative to hetero/conventional marriages in the film?