Fish and Elephant

Fish and Elephant has the fairly uncontested title of being mainland China’s first lesbian movie. Released on video, the technology and budget definitely constrained this project. Despite this, I have incredible respect for Fish and Elephant. It is a true a trailblazer of cinematic depictions of queer women in mainland China.

Fish and Elephant focuses on the life of Xiao Qun, a zookeeper and lesbian. Xiao Qun struggles with the fact that in the overtly heternormative structure of mainland China, her identity as a lesbian is completely invisible. Xiao Qun’s mother sets her up on multiple dates with men in the hopes that her daughter will marry. Instead, Xiao Qun meets Xiao Ling and the two women begin a relationship. In their shared apartment, they can at least be visible lesbian subjects to each other if not to the world outside their walls. Elsewhere, Xiao Qun’s ex Junjun has murdered her abusive father and re-enters Xiao Qun’s life as a fugitive.

Non actors and non-actresses make up the entirety of the cast in Fish and Elephant. They all do very well and gives a very realistic feel to the film. That the film is shot on video and clearly lacks such things as contained sets further makes this film feel incredibly true-to-life. Where the realism of Fish and Elephant falls down then is in the subplot of Junjun. Her subplot feels much more dramatic than the rest of this film. When a fugitive ex-girlfriend enters the picture, it feels a little less realistic. It’s also the least interesting bit of the film despite being the most dramatic. I was invested in Xiao Qun’s relationship with her mother and Xiao Ling but much less invested in Junjun as a character.

This is far from the most polished film but everyone’s gotta start somewhere. I’m so grateful for this film for being the one to start. It took until 2001 for mainland China to have this, its first major lesbian film. By contrast, there are multiple films considered to be mainland china’s first film about queer men. Whichever title you choose (Farewell my Concubine or East Palace West Palace), they predate depictions of lesbians by several years. There also continue to be more films coming out of mainland China about queer men than queer women.

Fish and Elephant is not only China’s first lesbian film, it remains one of China’s only lesbian films. Even though it’s been 17 years, I’m still waiting for filmmakers in mainland China to build upon the foundation that Fish and Elephant gave them. I’d very much like to see mainland Chinese lesbian films, underground or otherwise be released.

My final thoughts on Fish and Elephant  is that objectively, this film has an average script, good characters, average directing and good acting. Personally, this isn’t a film I particularly want to go back and rewatch as it does have an amateur feel to it. Yet with both of these things said, I don’t want to bad-mouth it too much. Fish and Elephant’s very existence is so important and so bold of director Li Yu that I’m not gonna get after her for the content of the film given that the basic presence of the film is so deeply important.

Overall rating: 5.6/10

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