Mao Tse-Tongue

Given that I'm sure none of you lot were sad enough to stay up until 2am this morning watching Yu Li's Fish And Elephant (2001) on Channel 4 I thought I'd give you my considered view on the first (and possibly last) sensitive, poignant etc. film about three skinny Chinese lesbians (and a mother too).

The film appeared to be on a lower budget than RI:SE TV and featured a totally unprofessional cast (including a real-life couple as the central lovers) filmed entirely on location in Beijing. The first character we get to know is a female elephant keeper who gets so tired of soaping down wrinkly trunks she embarks on a lesbian relationship with a funky clothes designer at the discount drop of a blouse price. Sew far sew good but when the elephant keeper's mum shows up intent on getting her daughter married and quick then hilarity, sensitivity, poignancy etc. ensue.

Throw in an absorbing subplot involving the zookeeper caught red-handed delivering a tampon to a feisty fugitive ex, plus some amusingly extraneous inserts such as a five-minute sequence where two random drunks fight over who is a dustbin ('You're a dustbin!' 'No, you're a dustbin!' 'No, YOU'RE a dustbin!' ad nauseum, maybe it lost a bit in translation) and you're left with a genuine curiosity that certainly wasn't for all tastes.

Occasionally, the film lapses into arthouse cliche. When a character says 'Sorry I killed your fish' the appropriate response might be 'Yeah, fins haven't been the same since' but no, this prompts her lover to burst into a monologue about how she hasn't seen her father since the age of five. It's the sort of dialogue that only happens in the movies.

All in all though I'm not going to carp too much about a film featuring some skinny Chinese lesbians swapping shirts and spit amidst the sensitive, poignant etc. moments, particularly with the addition of some genuinely (unintentional?) surreal episodes. Plus it's not everyday you find yourself musing on the similarities between an elephant's mouth and a woman's genitalia. But then, maybe I'm just dating the wrong girls.