Kaili Blues. (12A.)
Directed by Bi Gan.
Starring Yongzhong Chen, Yue Guo, Linyan Lui, Feiynag Lao and Lixun Lie. Subtitled. Now streaming on Amazon Prime. 113 mins
He may have only just Bi Gan, barely thirty years old with two movies made, but the young Chinese director has already established that time and experiments with its passing are going to be recurring themes in his work. Viewers seeking this out after gliding transfixed through the magical 138 minutes of his Long Day's Journey Into Night may find getting through the 113 minutes of his debut a bit of a slog. Again set in his native city Kaili, in the south-east of China, its narrative jumps around the character of Chen, a doctor and a former gangster, who spent nine years in prison and is worried about the wellbing of his nephew Weiwei (Lixun Lie.) More than that I couldn't say; the shuffles back and forth along the chronology are hard to follow and the film seems full of details that non-Chinese viewers won't grasp.
Bi Gan may be proper arty, inspired to make films by Tarkovsky's Stalker, but he knows that in a cluttered global market it's useful to have a gimmick to make yourself known and he's chosen really long takes as his. Journey concluded with a 59-minute shot, Kaili has a 40 minute one. It is one of the clunkier ones I've seen, the camera jolts several times, and if you're not engaged with the film it won't have any great resonance but as it jumps off and on of scooters and crosses back and forth over a river you appreciate the stunt of it all.
(I mention it with some reluctance. It's an incentive to watch, but knowing that it's coming is a distraction; you'll probably spend a lot of the film wondering, Is This It, Is This The Beginning, which gets a bit distracting.)
Though Kaili Blue doesn't entice like his second feature, it is filled with sparks of creativity and individuality. The opening credits are a poem read out over the radio by the lead character. (It is taken from his anthology called Roadside Picnic, the title of the novel Stalker is based on.) There's a scene 20 minutes in where the image of a passing train is projected onto a wall during a dialogue scene that is inexplicably magical and the film's final image is a wonderful wrap-up. Mostly though I felt as disengaged as the Chinese punters who were effectively tricked into seeing Long Day's Journey Into Night by an advertising campaign that suggested it was a mainstream romance rather than arthouse piece. Bi Gan is definitely a talent to watch, this film a little less so.
Directed by Bi Gan.
Starring Yongzhong Chen, Yue Guo, Linyan Lui, Feiynag Lao and Lixun Lie. Subtitled. Now streaming on Amazon Prime. 113 mins
He may have only just Bi Gan, barely thirty years old with two movies made, but the young Chinese director has already established that time and experiments with its passing are going to be recurring themes in his work. Viewers seeking this out after gliding transfixed through the magical 138 minutes of his Long Day's Journey Into Night may find getting through the 113 minutes of his debut a bit of a slog. Again set in his native city Kaili, in the south-east of China, its narrative jumps around the character of Chen, a doctor and a former gangster, who spent nine years in prison and is worried about the wellbing of his nephew Weiwei (Lixun Lie.) More than that I couldn't say; the shuffles back and forth along the chronology are hard to follow and the film seems full of details that non-Chinese viewers won't grasp.
Bi Gan may be proper arty, inspired to make films by Tarkovsky's Stalker, but he knows that in a cluttered global market it's useful to have a gimmick to make yourself known and he's chosen really long takes as his. Journey concluded with a 59-minute shot, Kaili has a 40 minute one. It is one of the clunkier ones I've seen, the camera jolts several times, and if you're not engaged with the film it won't have any great resonance but as it jumps off and on of scooters and crosses back and forth over a river you appreciate the stunt of it all.
(I mention it with some reluctance. It's an incentive to watch, but knowing that it's coming is a distraction; you'll probably spend a lot of the film wondering, Is This It, Is This The Beginning, which gets a bit distracting.)
Though Kaili Blue doesn't entice like his second feature, it is filled with sparks of creativity and individuality. The opening credits are a poem read out over the radio by the lead character. (It is taken from his anthology called Roadside Picnic, the title of the novel Stalker is based on.) There's a scene 20 minutes in where the image of a passing train is projected onto a wall during a dialogue scene that is inexplicably magical and the film's final image is a wonderful wrap-up. Mostly though I felt as disengaged as the Chinese punters who were effectively tricked into seeing Long Day's Journey Into Night by an advertising campaign that suggested it was a mainstream romance rather than arthouse piece. Bi Gan is definitely a talent to watch, this film a little less so.
