FLOATING LIFE

Australia is a nation of immigrants, no less so (and in a good many ways more so) than the USA, and filmmaker Clara Law is one of the new arrivals herself. In FLOATING LIFE she transmutes her firsthand knowledge into the globe-girdling saga of the scattered Chan family, with members in Germany, Australia, and Hong Kong. Apprehensive about the coming Chinese takeover of Hong Kong, the elder Chans uproot themselves to Australia to dwell with their youngest daughter, whose sterile house perched on a vast expanse of the Outback is a chilling contrast to their crowded ancestral island. Flying in from Germany to offer moral support, First Sister also feels struck by the sense of displacement, distance, and loss. “Are we not all immigrants in the world? Where are our roots? writes Law, who attempts to answer those questions in this poignant, funny, and worldly drama. In English and Cantonese and German with English subtitles. – Charles Cassady