“Somewhere Only We Know”. The film opens with a young Chinese girl at a night club in PRAGUE; she gets filthy drunk and wakes up in a young man’s house. Jin had come to Prague to learn more about a letter her grandmother left her. Jin traces her grandmother’s history, and learns that she had work at a doctor’s office as a nurse. Dr. Novak and Lanix (the grandmother) fell in love, but never marries, because the doctor had been married. His wife was supposedly killed in a concentration camp. When Dr. Novak learns that his wife had survived the concentration camp and he leaves Prague to find her, and Lanix returns to China.
The film appeared Americanized - There is an engagement and wedding scene that mirrors a traditional American proposal and wedding: the fiancé proposes, the couple is married by a priest, and there is an after party. The groom wears a long dress over his pants which seem ‘Soviet.’ I was expecting to see a traditional Chinese wedding.
Jin discovers her purpose in Prague, she leaves in the middle of the night to return to China.
The film ends, leaving the viewer with unanswered questions as to Jin’s purpose - was it to find love and pursue it, or to find her grandmother's lover. Was her life different from that of her grandmother? Overall, the quality of the film was decent, and easy to follow; however, it is not a film I can show to Kindergarteners.
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