Red Cherry

(Fox Lorber)

What starts as a story of rugged schoolday lyricism, with two Chinese orphans attending school in the Soviet Union, collapses when the Nazis invade; the subsequent loss of innocence is as abrupt as a bullet to the head. With imagery that is terrifying and sublime, Ye Da-Ying's film enters the ranks of atrocity art alongside The Painted Bird and Schindler's List.