Harsh aftermath of rape
Writer-director Vivian Qu apparently believes China’s male-dominated society will go to great lengths to protect predatory men at the expense of their female victims, and she doesn’t hide her contempt in “Angels Wear White,” her complex, ambitious account of the aftermath of the rape of two elementary schoolgirls.
The culprits: a powerful and wealthy official — and the father of one of them who arranges the tryst in a motel room, apparently to curry favor with his boss. Fighting for justice: a crusading female lawyer, who searches for evidence when she fears the local police official is stalling the case.
But the heart and soul of the film is the undocumented teenage girl who was covering the reception desk at the motel at the time of the rapes and could be a key witness, but she fears for her job and her safety.
Filmed in Xiamen, a coastal city about 1,300 miles south of Beijing, the film opens with 12-yearold Wen (Meijun Zhou) fascinated by a giant plaster statue of Marilyn Monroe with her white dress blowing up — the famous shot from “The Seven-Year Itch.”
The theme of innocence corrupted by sexuality is established, and we next see Wen with her best friend Xin (Xinyue Jiang) in the lobby of a budget motel in the company of an older man who turns out to be a high-ranking government official. A maid, Mia (Vicky Chen), who is working at the reception desk, sees them enter a room together on a security camera.
When Xin reports the incident to her mother, she calls the police, where a Lt. Wang (Mengnan Li) begins an investigation.
The case attracts the attention of a lawyer, Hao (Ke Shi), who has made it her life’s work to be an advocate for victimized women and girls.
Numerous roadblocks crop up: The security tape is “lost”; Mia’s boss, likely paid to “lose” the footage, threatens to fire her if she talks. And the government official has his own Michael Cohen to pressure the families into accepting a financial settlement.
But “Angels Wear White,” which played at the SF Film Festival in April and has been picked up exclusively by the 4 Star in San Francisco, has more on its mind than merely a social justice-themed procedural. Qu fleshes out her characters to expose the societal and familial pressures that tend to limit options for females.
We spend a good bit of time with Wen, product of a broken home who is shuttled between father and mother. Most heartbreaking is Mia, a girl who clearly wants to do the right thing.
The world-weary mood of the movie is summed up by the attorney, Hao, who is asked by Lt. Wang: “Ever thought of doing something else, besides this type of case?”
She responds, “There are too many ‘this type of cases.’ ”
She knows her work will never be done.