The Morning Time Disappeared - A Capsule Review

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Yanting Jiang

The Morning Time Disappeared - A Capsule Review

The show that I watched was Wang Jianwei’s The Morning Time Disappeared, 2014, in Vancouver Gallery, which is a single-channel video with audio.

The script, based on Franze Kafka’s story, “Metamorphosis”, is similar to the original text except for some minor modifications: its action takes place in present-day China, and the protagonist’s body is transformed into a large fish instead of an insect. In The Morning Time Disappeared, Wang uses the absurd and dramatic physical morphing of the protagonist as a metaphor for the change that pervades the whole society. The film describes a Chinese family that has recently moved from the countryside to Beijing. Until one day the son wakes up and find he has grown a fish gill on his neck and soon undergoes a nearly complete physical transformation into a fish. After that, he was repelled by others including his parents who locked him in a bedroom, causing him to lose his freedom. Finally, the son passes away in the bedroom and nobody was heartbroken over the death of him. The narrative has highly abstracted plots in the film which expresses the absurd and metamorphic relationship human and society.

The image above shows the layout of the house: the center is the living room, the right side is the parents' bedroom and out of the bedroom is his sister’s working space. Every time the son tries to enter the living room, he was attacked and driven away ruthlessly by his family, from verbal abuse to serious injuries and finally to death. Comparing to the son’s dark and dirty room, the living room seems like a paradise, but in fact, it is hell.

The whole film is carried by the protagonist’s point of view, no matter how the other places change, the viewer’s vision always focuses on the room where the son lives. From the protagonist’s room, the audience can observe the other spaces, and to know how the family situation changes after the son morphs into a fish.

The most obvious metamorphosis is the attitude change when the family found that the main character has been staying at home and not going to work. At the start, there was gentle regard from his mother, and then his father began knocking on his bedroom door with his fist, urging him to come out while his sister on the side begging him to open the door with a sad tone. The family forces the boy in their own ways, which formed a sense of pressure to the son.

As an audience, this film does not only give visual impact but also spiritually. The artist implies the relations between the protagonist and his family members as a social reality and pressures. The fish symbolizes the living conditions of contemporary people. In the film, the son as a fish is a fragile and isolated individual. He attempts to integrate into the human community but his family cannot accept him. I feel as though Wong successfully showcases the struggles within modern Chinese society to his audience, who may or may not have personally experienced it, in a way that allows us to empathize with the protagonist.