Arthouse cinema the world over is often attacked for wallowing in misery for its own sake (witness the critical reception for Michael Haneke's recent Western remake of his own Funny Games, or the backlash against Alessandro Innaritu and Guillermo Arriaga; Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Babel). On the face of it, Peng Tao's second film Little Moth from 2007 seems a prime example - two penniless confidence tricksters buy a crippled child to pass off as their own, in order to squeeze a few extra coins from passers-by - but the miniscule budget and the director's utter lack of pretension mean what could have been chest-beating melodrama becomes something utterly riveting.
The script sets the tone right from the off, making it perfectly clear this is nothing more than a business transaction. Xiao Ezi (the 'Little Moth' of the title) is a young girl from a rural village who suffers from an unspecified side-effect of blood poisoning meaning she can't even stand up, let alone walk. The couple hand over the money for her and head for the city.
Predictably, however, sooner rather than later their plans begin to fall apart; the husband is focused on the potential profits to the extent he withholds Little Moth's medication, but the wife begins to feel protective towards the girl and the rift between the two only widens over time. As strangers with ulterior motives, local thugs and other down-and-outs close in on the unhappy family, the chances of a happy ending begin to look decidedly slim.
No-one is exempt from criticism. Even the children in Little Moth are effectively portrayed as doggedly, hopelessly naïve, and the adults as obsessed with bettering their meagre fortunes to the detriment of everyone else, ready to claw their way past anyone who interferes. Like Li Yang's Blind Shaft, this is the new China, where capitalism gets taken to naked, ruthless extremes.
At the same time the film never chooses to take an overtly political (or even socially-conscious) viewpoint. This is partly the script, unencumbered as it is, less the meditative pragmatism or lyrical frustration of the Fifth Generation and more a blunt cinema verité approach. Even those characters exposed as morally bankrupt are never painted as outright monstrous; passing judgement is left entirely up to the viewer.
It also comes down to the filmmakers' lack of funding. Little Moth is 'point and shoot' inasmuch as this is the most Peng Tao and his crew can afford, but for all the lack of visual embroidery and the bemused passers-by visibly gawping in many of the exterior shots, the handheld DV cameras give the film something of the Dardennes brothers' queasy immediacy (Lorna's Silence, The Child) that a bigger budget could never hope to match.
The cast of unknowns are hardly the strongest ever put on screen, but they're always watchable, and Peng Tao covers for their shortcomings admirably. The documentary style excuses a host of sins and sometimes elevates the narrative beyond all expectations. Several key moments focusing on Little Moth as she sits in silence are far more effective in context than any amount of dialogue could ever have been.
The film may meander at times, but the pacing is relatively steady and the ending pulls the different plot strands together beautifully to chilling effect. Again, the eventual direction the story takes should hardly come as a surprise, but the terrible, flat inevitability of it all is far more strength than weakness. Peng Tao isn't quite a Lee Chang-Dong - the injustice on display here doesn't quite rouse the same sick, disbelieving anger as Oasis - but the payoff is still quietly accomplished.
The production does feel somewhat thrown together, though, and even at a trim one hundred minutes the guerilla cinematography can be a trial. Peng Tao is undeniably talented, but Little Moth never quite goes far enough to convince the viewer there's an auteur sitting behind the camera, and the lack of any real standouts in the cast does hurt the film, for all its aspirations towards realism.
Nonetheless, overall Peng Tao's second film more than counts as a success; the director knows how to work within his limitations; he handles some truly dark material and neither shies away from it nor dresses it up, and mines compelling drama from it where he could have pulled out a saccharine life lesson. Unfairly passed over outside of limited exposure on the festival circuit, for anyone even remotely interested in the best of mainland Chinese cinema Little Moth comes highly recommended.