China Girl

Testing: Post 1.
Have just finished going through a Ferrara marathon in order to read Nicole Brenez's book (which was as superb as everyone said). Previously, I had seen only New Rose Hotel (still my favorite) and Bad Lt (with the Driller Killer and The Funeral, the one I liked least).
China Girl I was excited about. The film is obviously a pamphlet against racism. The first level of reading is introduced in the first few minutes: the two big brothers and their racist friends, the criminal organisations that meet above the characters' social levels... Everything is put in place to install a regime of equivalence.
But the film goes beyond that by insuring that this simplistic reading is installed so early and obviously: now that this point has been made, the film will be about not only proving how baseless the prejudices are, but opposing two different versions of equivalence. Brenez is right to point out that the two lovers are one of the only versions of pure good in Ferrara's cinema: to the equivalence of the criminal organizations, Ferrara contrasts the equivalence of their innocence, the equivalence of what both cultures can produce that is beautiful (they teach each other how to say "I love you" in their respective languages, for example). The hurlement de rage of the film is therefore not only to declare that the two cultures have their meeting grounds, but to affirm that those can be love as well as crime. It is also despair at the final destruction of this, the only valid utopia of relating to the other.
(Still struggling with how to integrate images)