Always

“Don’t overthink when you write. Free your mind and your imagination,” says a teacher at a rural school in Hunan province, China. In the case of Youbin Gong, these words fall on fertile ground. Always follows Youbin over the course of six years, starting when he's nine. He lives with his father at the home of his grandparents, who lead a hard life as subsistence farmers. He hasn’t seen his mother since she left shortly after his birth.

Filmmaker Deming Chen, who also grew up in Hunan, shows the gulf between adults and children there. Youbin uses imaginative poetry to give voice to his dreams of an existence beyond the harsh realities of rural life. With a 4:3 aspect ratio and black-and-white cinematography, the film employs a realist aesthetic to evoke Youbin’s coming of age; when he lets go of his dreams and childhood, the film shifts to color and widescreen format. In long, meditative takes, Chen captures the breathtaking natural world in which Youbin grows up.

Poems by Youbin and his classmates naturally also feature in this melancholic film. One reads, “The weeds bid farewell to the river/The trees to the wind/When I leave/There’s no one to bid farewell.”