We Went to Wonderland: A Film by Xiaolu Guo

When: Sunday, May 4
Where: Rubin Museum of Art: 150 West 17th St.
What time: 2 p.m.

With Xiaolu Guo

Tickets: $15 (includes museum admission)

Copresented with the Rubin Museum of Art

The old Chinese man has no voice. But he writes notes:

“Water is no good in the West.”
“Flowers are long dead on Karl Marx’s grave.”
“English trains don’t respect the people’s time.”

As he observes the drifting clouds, his wife looks at the Houses of Parliament. This is the first time they will leave their native China. They will likely never return. He wants to see the world before he dies, but she just longs for home.
 

The couple were followed by their daughter, Chinese filmmaker and novelist Xiaolu Guo, who used a digital camera switched to video function to record her parents’ journey to the West. Shot in black and white with this one tiny piece of equipment, the film is an intimate look at two people’s interior lives.