By Kristi Alexandra
@kristialexandra
If you missed last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival back in October, you wouldn’t have been witness to Mina Shum’s theatre premiere of Meditation Park. Lucky for Vancouver audiences, you’ll get the chance to catch it on the big screen again, starting tomorrow (Friday, March 9) at Fifth Avenue Cinemas. A Q&A with the local, independent filmmaker will follow the 7:25 p.m. screenings on Friday and Saturday.
The heartwarming dramedy set in iconic East Van will have locals reeling in laughter.
Meditation Park is the story of Maria (Cheng Pei Pei), a Hong Kong-born Vancouverite who’s spent decades being dutifully devoted to her vice-ridden husband Bing (Tzi Ma), as she grapples with the heartbreaking news of her husband’s infidelity.
The realization ultimately serves as a catalyst for unintentionally comic hijinks, and Maria’s new path to self-discovery as she connects with other senior Chinese-Canadian East Vancouverites and forges a life outside of her marriage.
Packed with femme-powered performances, including the inimitable Sandra Oh as Maria’s conflicted daughter, director Mina Shum shows that there’s room for claiming your feminism at any stage in life.
Shum, whose Hong Kong-born family established roots in Vancouver in the Sixties, wanted to tell the story from the point of view of a different kind of hero.
“It was this dichotomy that I always wanted to write about,” Shum tells Loose Lips. “Climate-wise in the world, there’s been a lot of feelings of powerlessness. Bad men are in power. There’s a list of reasons for people to be depressed about their lack of agency, and I thought, ‘What about writing an uplifting film about the most powerless person you can think of and the sheer act of picking a hero that you never see?’”
And that she did, opening a new consciousness about the inner lives of those all around us.
“I told a very liberal friend of mine about this idea, and he was like, ‘I never even thought those people who dug in the garbage can for recycling, I never even thought that they would have a life where they could experience infidelity,’” she reveals, noting that the revelation highlighted the importance of diverse stories and representation in film.
The Vancouver filmmaker says the character of Maria acts as a metaphor for the liberation of women everywhere, even where we’d least expect it.
“She is the expression of my agency and my imprisonment as a woman. I find that what happens now that we are educated and enlightened is that we’re now responsible for everything all the time,” Shum explains.
“Women take on so many different roles and we take them on so seriously, some of them because they’re new, some of these roles are new in terms of our own consciousness about our power and so we hold on really tight. Maybe the thing is to be gentler on ourselves. I feel like I’m in that generation where I can now choose to do whatever I want… but does that mean I have to do all of it?” she says with a laugh.
The same issues plague the film’s lovable main character, until she recognizes she can choose to do more for herself — like lunch with friends, learn to ride a bike, and discover financial independence. So why, of all cities and of all people, did Shum decide narrate the path of senior Maria from East Vancouver?
“If not your backyard, and not in your community, then who are your heroes?” she asks.
“Maria is such an unusual hero, that I hope it opens the door for more heroes of her type, because it opens the door to people recognizing themselves in film and media.”
Kristi Alexandra is an unabashed wino and wannabe musician. Her talents include drinking an entire bottle of cabernet sauvignon, singing in the bathtub, and falling asleep.
