‘Always’ review: CPH: DOX winner is a poetic meditation on growing up in rural China

Dir: Deming Chen. China/US/France. 2025. 89 mins.

In a tiny mountain village in Sangzhi county, on the northern border of Hunan province, a teacher inspires a class of young children to write Chinese poetry. One of the students is gifted eight year-old Gong Youbin, who finds in his writing and his imagination an escape from the poverty and loneliness of his upbringing. Harnessing the unexpectedly sophisticated verses written by Youbin and several other children, Deming Chen’s lyrical documentary absorbs the slow-burning rhythms and creative inspirations of rural life; this handsomely shot coming-of-age picture shadows Youbin over several years as his child’s dreams gradually give way to an adult’s realities.

A bold visual approach which mirrors the poetic elements of the subject matter.

The winner of the CPH:DOX top prize, the DOX Award, this meditative, observational film should be a title of interest for further festivals; critical support and word of mouth could tempt audiences into cinemas too – strikingly photographed by director Chen, this is certainly a picture that repays a big screen viewing. This is his second feature documentary from Chen afrer Song Of Shiratori (2021) This is not the first film to explore the challenges faced by a younger generation in an isolated rural existence – there’s common ground between Always and Liu Feifang’s The Fading Village (2019) – but the use of poetry elevates the picture. Through verse, the children are able to find the words to speak eloquently about their lives, using words that tend to elude them in conventional interviews and conversations.

Chen’s bold visual approach mirrors the poetic elements of the subject matter. The film switches back and forth between widescreen colour cinematography, and the luminous black-and-white academy ratio material that makes up the majority of the footage. The predominantly locked shots linger on empty landscapes; on leaves teased by the wind; on the misty forested flanks of the mountains – imagery that inspires the young poets, cropping up repeatedly in the verses that are displayed on screen in Chinese calligraphy. Music is so low-key and minimal that it is almost subliminal, but the film’s use of sound, drawn from the natural world that surrounds the village, is immersive.

Youbin lives with his grandparents and his father in a modest single-storey farmhouse. He never knew his mother, who abandoned the family when her child was three months old after Youbin’s father lost his hand in an accident. Youbin’s frail, wizened grandmother is brutally critical of her son, dismissing his chances of finding another wife with: “Get married again? He can barely make ends meet.”. Youbin’s father grins and smokes and says very little. But the whole family is united in their pride in Youbin’s academic achievements, regaling a social worker who is assessing the family for special assistance with the details of Youbin’s excellent results.

Meanwhile Youbin splits his time between playing in the fields – he builds dens and catches a mouse among the stubble of last year’s corn crops to keep as a pet, much to the excitement of the family’s cat – and studying on a low chair, repurposed as a desk.

But gradually, as the film unfolds, there’s a shift in the focus of his time, and Youbin takes his place in the field alongside his father and grandfather. The poetry increasingly takes a back seat as Youbin, exhausted from physical labour, prefers to spend his spare time catching up on his sleep. In the final verse included in the film, titled ’Farewell’, Youbin poignantly acknowledges that childhood has come to an end, and his poetry has died with it.