In Proust’s Swan’s Way, he uses a peculiar literary devise – a madeleine dipped into a cup of tea – which releases a series of memories in the mind of the protagonist. Beijing filmmaker Zhuang Yuxin employs a similar device in his directorial debut Teeth of Love. Zhang uses injuries to call up spectral suitors and old love affairs, radiating pain in the same way nerves signal the presence of a phantom limb.

Though the premise of Teeth is somewhat harder to swallow than Proust’s soggy cake, the film nonetheless promises to be an interesting cinematic experience. The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks triggered by Qian Yehong’s (Yan Bingyan) dreadful visit to the dentist.

Sitting in the big chair, she falls into a series of reveries which are no less dreadful than having one’s teeth yanked. The first flashback takes her to the beginning of China’s reform era, where she humiliates a school mate before realizing the true extent of his love. In the next, she engages in a sordid affair with a married man, while in the last she reluctantly ties the knot with a third aspirant.

Each affair is etched upon her body through a physical injury (back pain, abortion and extracted tooth) and each time the pain flares up, the memories come flooding back.

“I found that pain and love are closely related to and rely on each other,” explains the multi-talented Zhuang, who in addition to being a film director, works as a television screenwriter, producer and distributor, and teaches literature at the Beijing Film Academy. Zhuang believes that contemporary romance lacks the pain necessary to engender deep romantic memories. “In the end, people really do not respect the experience of being in love,” he says. Unlike other more bitter cinematic efforts which use the reform era to explore the effects of change upon the individual, Zhuang sidesteps the social commentary to deliver a touching, albeit sometimes cruel, tale. Here, he doesn’t so much tackle changing times; rather he chooses to focus primarily on the complex interactions between pain, love, memory and the human experience.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
June 2007 issue