Jou

A cinematic essay interweaving private archive images and a mixture of reflective, speculative and poetic intertitles that, like “an old movie from the 20th century”, invites us to meditate on what Des Pallières once liked to call “our old homeland”.

Eloïse is sitting alone on a bench in Paris. She can't remember who she is, where she comes from or how did she get here. So, she begins a funny investigation on her life. This amnesia might help her finding love and reinventing her life.

Zhou Mo, a 32-year-old vice president of a social software company, is seen as an independent and confident modern woman by her colleagues. To her best friends, she's a little girl with a strong sense of self-worth; and to her boss, she is a capable yet troublesome assistant. However, love doesn't seem to flow as smoothly for her. She meets Jiang Qi, a sweet man much younger than her; Yu Dazhi, a male chauvinist businessman; and Xia Yu, her minimalist ex. Love, perhaps, is like that: meeting the right person at the wrong time, and the wrong person at the right time. Despite her stumbling journey, she continues to fight through the battlegrounds of love and life. Is marriage a necessity to safeguard love? Is it correct to love someone without the purpose of marriage? What is the true reason for getting married, and is it possible not to marry at all? Can love really not be controlled? Even if she must constantly face challenges, she still wants to find the answers.