Director Bi Gan
LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (Di qiu zui hou de ye
wan)
A-
China France (138 mi) 2018 d: Bi Gan
Bi Gan is capturing the world’s attention with his new film,
opening at the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes, as he’s redefining what
cinema can be, creating intoxicating imagery through a daring and innovative
style, where the final hour is thoroughly enchanting and transfixing, shot in a
single, unbroken take in 3D, which he apparently captured on his 5th and final
take, cutting his earlier attempts short, dissatisfied by elements of the
production design which did not meet his aesthetic criteria. Bearing no
resemblance whatsoever to the Eugene O’Neill title, instead the Chinese title, Last Evenings On Earth, comes from a
short story by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño, a writer whose works are elusive
and powerfully suggestive. Similarly, Bi Gan has created a world where
dreams and memories intersect, becoming at times thoughts that can only be
imagined, that never happened in real life, but are just as vital and relevant
to the existential lead character, absorbed in his own thoughts and his own
life, as in his mind they could have happened, as the mind wanders, yet may
have existed only in his dreams. This haunting netherworld is what
interests this director, as he’s nothing less than brilliant in his ability to
visually convey fractured stories that fully capture the viewer’s interest and
imagination, where nearly all rational thought ceases to exist. It’s a
totally different style of film, to be sure, yet it’s utterly captivating.
Handed a pair of 3D glasses when you enter the theater, yet a disclaimer opens
the film, “This is NOT a 3D film, but please join our protagonist in putting
the glasses on at the right moment.”
Divided into two distinct halves, the summer and winter
solstice, when the lead character enters a rundown movie theater about an hour
into the film and puts on a pair of 3D glasses, the screen turns dark and the
final hour officially begins, an enthralling interior venture into the unknown,
introduced by the title sequence. It should be said that the director’s
first film was equally mesmerizing, 2016
Top Ten List #2 Kaili Blues (Lu bian ye can) (2015), and arguably more
emotionally affecting, though the director was discouraged by the low-tech
production values, featuring a remarkable 41-minute unbroken shot that is the
centerpiece of that film, where most of it is shot outdoors from the back of a
motorbike. Both are moody and atmospheric memory plays where the past,
the present, and an imagined future are seamlessly merged into an
impressionistic mosaic that can’t distinguish between illusion and reality,
where there’s little action to speak of, with the camera caught up in a
stream-of-conscious mindset that silently observes the constantly shifting
world around them, arriving unexpectedly at one place, eavesdropping on
conversations, following compete strangers, as if on a whim, mysteriously intervening
at times, retreating up and down a labyrinth of rocky stairs, where there is
constant movement, yet the mood is defined by passivity, where a nocturnal
dream language prevails. Even in the opening, a voiceover narration
reminds us that movies aren’t truthful, “The difference between films and
memory is that films are always false,” as they’re based upon memories that are
only partially truthful and partly made-up.
Kaili is a place in the southwest of China known more for
its mining industry than producing filmmakers, yet it is the home of the
director and the setting for both his first two films, where the river and
distant mountains are recognizable landmarks in each, also the rocky steps
traversed by the camera that are used in each film. One of the
interesting cultural aspects is the presence of the Miao minority, who were
openly featured in the first film, with Bi himself from the Miao minority, yet
here their music has been integrated into the film, adding an unseen yet
spiritual dimension, yet overall the wondrous musical score was written by
Point Hsu and Giong Lim, Hou Hsaio-hsien’s musical composer since GOODBYE
SOUTH, GOODBYE (1996), now working with Jia Zhang-ke as well. The film
has an intoxicated air of steamy romanticism, using a film noir style
protagonist who doubles as the narrator, like a 40’s film happening in the
future, starring Huang Jue as Luo Hongwu returning back to his hometown of
Kaili for the death of his father, recalling the lush visuals of Wong Kar-wai,
one of the major revelations of the 90’s, also a prominent influence on 2016
Top Ten List #1 Moonlight by American director Barry Jenkins, as evidenced
by a brief visual essay, Moonlight
and Wong Kar-wai - YouTube (1:48). It’s curious how nostalgia is
evoked through period music, as Wong Kar-wai was notorious for his superb
musical selection, Bi Gan, less so, showing a fascination for the music of pop
singer Wu Bai, including 莫文蔚Karen Mok & 伍佰Wu Bai【堅強的理由Reason
To Be Strong】我 ... YouTube (5:46), though his
musical choices are less recognizable internationally, yet similarly ruminates
on the past, routinely jumping back and forth in time, using names of
characters in the film that are actual names of popular singers, though a
running joke throughout the film is that they sound like the names of movie
stars. The device that sets the journey in motion is the removal of a
clock on the wall, with Luo discovering an old photograph of a woman whose face
has been burned away with a telephone number hidden in the back of the
clock. With this, the story begins in the sweltering heat, as we see the
replacement of a lightbulb that is engulfed in a rain shower flooding the
floor, where in a Tarkovsky motif, it appears to be raining indoors, as Kaili
is a subtropical area where it often rains, especially during summer.
“Everything began with the death of a friend,” recalling his
childhood friend Wildcat (Lee Hong-chi) who ran up gambling debts he couldn’t
pay back to a local gangster, ending up shot, his body found in an unused mine
shaft. Because of their connection he skipped town afterwards, looking
back with regrets that he didn’t offer more help, eventually finding work as a
casino manager. Emerging from his past is Wan Qiwen, Tang Wei from Ang
Lee’s Lust,
Caution (Se, jie) (2007), the beautiful femme fatale in a strikingly
alluring green dress. When he says she looks familiar, she has none of
it, calling his bluff, initially treating him with disdain, as she’s the girl
of a crime boss, though later, like fractured memories, replaying the scene in
different circumstances, she suggests it reminds her of a line from one of his
stories in the green book he carries around with him. Actually this book,
along with several other collected items along the way (like in a treasure
hunt), have magical properties, which only begins to describe the shifting
moods that viewers encounter throughout, as it has the feel of an Odysseus-like
mythological journey. The production values are exponentially improved in
this film, receiving a much bigger budget and an international crew from the
likes of prominent filmmakers Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wang Xiaoshuai, and Wong
Kar-wai. Using three cinematographers, he started with Yao Hung-I
shooting the first part, working for several months before he had to return to
Taiwan, taken over by Dong Jingsong, who shot Black
Coal, Thin Ice (Bai ri yan huo) (2014), with French cinematographer David
Chizallet who shot Mustang
(2015) concluding the final 3D shot. These technical improvements elevate
the lush visual design of the film to otherworldly heights, infinitely better
than Gaspar Noé’s ENTER THE VOID (2009), literally transcending the artform,
where stylistically this is one of the most accomplished films seen in years,
where you’d have to go back to 2015
Top Ten List #9 The Assassin (Nie Yinniang) to find a more visually
extravagant film.
“Fragmented memories, are they real or not?” The
director intercuts Luo’s search for Wan with pieces of her whereabouts, mixing
time spans, where her identity keeps changing over time, becoming fixated on a
mythical idealization of the perfect woman who always remains in the past, with
Wan seen only in flashbacks, finding them in the midst of a torrid love affair
while also retracing his steps in pursuit of her, where the black hair of his
youth is replaced by a more grizzled looking gray, visiting Wildcat’s mother
(the illustrious Sylvia Chang), whose family restaurant has now closed, leading
to a woman’s prison to see a friend of Wan’s (Bi Yanmin), showing her the
photograph, instantly recounting their involvement together in petty crimes
where only the prisoner was caught. In one of the more unforgettable scenes,
Luo approaches a beauty salon, viewing the proprietor playing a video arcade
game of Dance Dance Revolution set to
the throbbing music of Vengaboys
- We like to Party! (The Vengabus) – YouTube (3:44), with the music
providing an exhilarating rush of adrenaline. While all the scenes with
Wan are flashbacks, there are no sexy scenes together, as we’re never in the
“now” of the moment, always dealing with the implications, their shared secrets,
such as an aborted pregnancy (where he vows to teach their new child how to
play ping pong), as she’s connected to a karaoke-obsessed crime boss Zuo
Hongyan (Chen Yongzhong, the director’s uncle, who starred in his previous
film), where they dream of escaping to Macao, telling him she’s thought this
through many times before, but rejected it, as Zuo has promised to track her
down, leaving her no possibility of escape. She was the one who told him
the story of the legendary green book, leaving it with him as they make their
plans which never materialize. Later he expounds on reacting to stress,
suggesting one response is eating an entire apple, including the core, with the
director driving the point home with a shot of Wildcat eating an entire apple.
In an abandoned hotel, Luo thinks he’s tracked her down, only to discover she
was once a tenant there, but when she ran out of money she started telling him
stories, later becoming his wife. Now long divorced, the man confesses,
“She was such a good storyteller, I couldn’t tell what was real and what was
fake.”
Searching through the demolished ruins in the hills above
Kaili for a female karaoke singer who might be Wan Qiwen, performances don’t
start for an hour, so he whiles away his time in the seedy theater, with the
rest a singular dream, shot entirely in the dark of night, all captured in a
single unedited shot, as we soon find ourselves in the cavernous dark of a
murky cave lit by an oil lamp, most likely the same mine shaft where Wildcat
was found, where he’s surprised by a precocious young boy who claims he lives
there (Luo Feiyang), who could be a younger resurrected version of Wildcat, but
who could also be the son he imagined having with Wan Qiwen, as he’s quickly
challenged to a game of ping pong by the young upstart, promising to show Luo
the way out if he wins, which he does masterfully by utilizing the spin serve,
which completely catches the kid by surprise. Hopping a ride on his
motorbike, he takes him to a cliff edge, taking a zip-line aerial wire to the
other side, landing just outside a pool hall, introducing himself to the female
manager, Kaizhen (also Tang Wei in a retro hairstyle), feeling a close
connection, but she coldly tells him to get lost, “I’m not the woman you think
I am.” Yet he persists, challenging the young punks at the pool table who
are bothering her to scram and get lost if he makes a combination shot (if he
misses, that master shot must restart!). When they find themselves locked
inside, as the punks grabbed and threw away the key, Luo resorts to magic,
twirling the ping pong paddle given to him earlier by the young kid which
allows them to fly, a unique theatrical sensation, finding their way to the
outdoor karaoke bar, set in a haphazard carnivalesque atmosphere with a ticket
counter and food items on display, where a scant crowd is sitting around,
barely paying any attention. Luo gets sidetracked by a mysterious woman
carrying a torch of fire (Sylvia Chang again, this time in a red wig),
wandering through the outskirts of town and back again, catching up to Kaizhen
in a backstage dressing room, the final act on the program ending just before
dawn, finding themselves having a moment, getting reacquainted, taking a walk,
landing in the hollowed out remains of his old home, where legend allows the
house to spin if he recites the right words of poetry, sharing a kiss, becoming
a visually transfixing moment, with viewers sharing an artist’s meticulously
choreographed visualization of cinema exploring the empty spaces of a dream.
Despite a carry-over of similar themes from his previous movie, nonetheless no
one expected a film of this magnitude, bravely providing fertile territory for
new growth, cleverly utilizing 3D as a parallel state of consciousness, a
hidden world complete with its own magical secrets, a shock to the senses,
reminiscent to inhabiting the wondrous imagination of Gabriel García Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude for the very first
time.
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