The Sound of the Piano Is Long

"The Sound of the Violin" uses delicate line drawings, a violin, the life history of a worker artist, and a late listening session to tell the story of how ordinary workers in New China built a dignified and savory spiritual world through the intertwining of labor and literature and art. It is a tribute to the simple aesthetics of the working class, a record of the warmth of trade union organizations, and a string song that travels through time: when the piano sounds, ordinary people who have been folded by the times straighten their spines again.