Emotional Tugs, Real and Fictional Delicately balanced between fact and fiction, Song Fang's "Memories Look at Me," contemplates dying by honoring the living. The film's tone, however, is more sweet than sad as Ms. Song - most familiar to American audiences as the nanny in Hou Hsiao-hsien's "Flight of the Red Balloon" - travels from Beijing to visit her parents (played by her actual parents, Song Di-jin and Ye Yu-zhu) in their cramped Nanjing, China, apartment. Over a series of quiet conversations, her theme of shared recollection as the essential glue that binds one generation to the next slowly emerges. Tears are shed more than once, but without the stickiness of sentiment; instead, Ms. Song (directing her first feature) positions the anxieties of the few - like her sister-in-law's worry about a daughter leaving for college - into a touching commentary on the fears of the many. Given the screenplay's overt engagement with serious illness and gradual decline, "Memories" (part of the Museum of Modern Art's ContemporAsian series) never feels mournful or morbid. Death is everywhere in American movies, but rarely is it handled with this film's tranquil acceptance of the end we all face. As neighbors and relatives wander in and out of the frame, contributing their own detailed reminiscences, their gentle interactions weave a wistful tapestry of loss and resilience. And when Ms. Song notices her father's sagging cheeks and her mother's ragged fingernails - and tucks both parents in at night, making them the children - her attention to their welfare is one of the film's loveliest threads. A recurring image shows her watching them sleep, as though burning a new memory as a hedge against their mortality. Adopting a modest aesthetic that doesn't distract from the story's meditative drift (scenes were written based on Ms. Song's intimate knowledge of the performers), the cinematographers Guan Dong-pei and Zhou Wen-cao navigate the film's tight spaces gracefully and unobtrusively. The result is a slight yet profound exploration of generational choices and our fear of living our parents" lives. "Sort yourself out in the present," Ms. Song's mother, concerned about her daughter's still-single, still-drifting status, advises when she hears her express the desire to be 17 again. The older woman knows there is nothing to be gained by trying to hold on to what inevitably slips away. Memories Look at Me Opens on Thursday in Manhattan. Written, directed and edited by Song Fang; directors of photography, Guan Dong-pei and Zhou Wen-cao; produced by Jia Zhang-ke and Ms. Song; released by Xstream Pictures. Part of the ContemporAsian series at the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, Museum of Modern Art. In Mandarin, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. This film is not rated.