Only the River Flows (He bian de cuo wu)

 

Director Wei Shujun

Author Yu Hua

ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS (He bian de cuo wu)              B+                                                  China  (101 mi)  2023  d:  Wei Shujun

There’s no understanding fate; therefore I choose to play the part of fate.  I wear the foolish, unintelligible, face of a professional god.                                                                                        —Albert Camus, opening film quote from his play Caligula, 1944, part of his Cycle of the Absurd

Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival before becoming an arthouse box office hit in China, this heavily stylish, neo-noir murder mystery was shot on 16mm in the Zhejiang and Jiangxi Provinces, apparently the first mainland Chinese movie to be shot on film in years, where the film stock had to be scanned and printed in Taiwan, given a beautifully dark and murky look with desaturated colors by cinematographer Chengma Zhiyuan.  Reminiscent of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s neo-noir horror film CURE (1997), and the psychological crime thrillers of Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok) (2003) and Diao Yinan’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (Bai ri yan huo) (2014), this was adapted by Wei and Kang Chunlei, who also has a prominent role as a suspected murderer in the film, from Yu Hua’s morally ambiguous short story in his 1988 compilation Mistakes by the River.  A rapper turned filmmaker, having majored in sound recording from the Communication University of China in Beijing, Wei is the only post-90’s Chinese director to have been selected three times for the Cannes Film Festival, working with different combinations of screenwriters on every project, but his earlier film Striding Into the Wind (Ye Ma Fen Zong) (2020), ironically about a sound recordist, left something to be desired, an aimless and empty slacker comedy that was admittedly offbeat and quirky, not something you typically see from China.  Yet here what immediately grabs one’s attention is Emil Gilels coolly playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No ... YouTube (6:10), the same pensive piece used in Edward Yang’s Yi Yi: A One and a Two... (2000), while the everpresent flashlight was also prominently featured in Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day (Gu ling jie shao nian sha ren shi jian) (1991).  Opening in December 1995, the film takes place in a small rural town with only 50 homes, where a murder has been committed along the shoreline of a nearby river, with a woman known locally as Granny No. 4 (Yang Cao) emerging as the victim.  By setting the film in this time period, occurring between the events of Tiananmen Square and the more recent economic boom, it evokes a period just before technology brought changes to forensic science, evidenced by boxed desktop computers, cassette tapes, transistor radios, Polaroid photographs, and incessant indoor smoking, a time when citizens led a repressed and silent life, when adherence to social norms was the most important thing, often pushing people to shame and secrecy, yet it was also a time when everyone did everything together, like eat, work, play, where socialization was done face to face, as opposed to now when everybody is isolated on their phones.  The police chief (Hou Tianlai) has given his squad a vast new headquarters in a broken down movie theater that has fallen into disuse (audience attendance in China was at an all-time low in the mid 90’s, so the government decided to allow screenings of Hollywood films), providing an office in what was the projection booth, surrounded by broken projectors and abandoned reels, symbolic, perhaps, that what we’re watching is not always reality, urging his lead detective, Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong) to wrap things up quickly, as all eyes of the Party bosses are on this case, determined to prevent another serial killer like Andrei Chikatilo, who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990.  More concerned with appearances and the incarceration of the presumed murderer than any motives that may have driven the crime, the Party assumes the role of the protector of society.  What really stands out, however, is the self-reflective quality of the film, a poignant character study of a man who’s finding it increasingly difficult to ascertain truth and justice, as the conventions of a detective movie start breaking down, placing us directly into the mindset of Ma Zhe, perhaps as much to do with existential angst as the solving of a murder, with offbeat flashes of wry humor and no traces of any graphic violence, while the investigation team is busily stabbing pig carcasses to see which blade may be the most similar to the murder weapon.  The camera revisits the scene of the crime from multiple perspectives, actually assuming the position of the murderer, with the victim showing no fear or apprehension by his presence.

Opening with a sequence in which a young boy dressed as a policeman and carrying a toy gun chases his friends around an upper floor through a maze of corridors of an abandoned building, opening and closing doors without finding anyone, until he reaches a door which dangerously opens into the emptiness of free-falling space, where there is a precipitous drop down to the rubble of a construction site below, with the child seen staring out into the abyss, a premonition, perhaps, of the detective coming up blank in his search for answers, yet otherwise having no relation to the story, and the boy is never seen again, with the unfinished construction reflective of a time when the rapid development across small villages had come to a sudden halt.  All the director’s titles invoke spatial metaphors, not really the point in making the film, but somehow the people in the story connect to that physical space, becoming a thematic point of emphasis that viewers are drawn into.  Essentially a police procedural movie, like a puzzle piece, with Ma Zhe examining the murder site, interrogating witnesses, always accompanied by his more excitable second in command, Xie (Tong Linkai), while meticulously exploring the clues, with the film playing out as a work in progress.  Of peculiar interest is the overly descriptive name of one of the potential suspects, known only as the “madman” (Kang Chunlei), who has suddenly disappeared, someone the victim adopted after becoming a widow, something of the village idiot, instantly becoming a person of interest, but it’s rare for a name to connote such an ominous nature.  When he’s found, Ma Zhe’s interrogation techniques are not what we suspect, as the “madman” never utters a word, described by others as harmless, so the detective attempts a non-threatening approach, silently hanging around, observing from a distance, gathering what information he can, while still pursuing the evidence.  His arrest somewhere around the midway point seems to suggest the case has been solved, with Ma Zhe’s seemingly satisfied superior pondering “Why haven’t you wrapped up your report yet?”  Indicating he still needs to sort things out, this opens the eyes of viewers, who suspect more is lurking in the darkness.  A woman’s purse is discovered near the crime scene, containing cassettes of familiar pop songs, but at some point a woman’s voice breaks in, where she is clearly speaking to a secret lover, as the town’s buried secrets emerge, exposing a couple in a secret relationship and a gay hairdresser who tries to hide his identity, yet seemingly wants to be arrested, already having a criminal record for public indecency, described here as “violations of morality.”  Running down these leads proves to be difficult, and may not have anything to do with the case, but they are part of the process of moving from suspect to suspect, where the stress takes its toll on Ma Zhe’s professional and private life, as his wife Bai, Chloe Maayan from Lou Ye’s SUMMER PALACE (2006), Bi Gan’s 2019 Top Ten List #6 Long Day's Journey Into Night (Di qiu zui hou de ye wan) (2018), and Diao Yinan’s The Wild Goose Lake (Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui) (2019), is a primary school teacher who is expecting a baby, with the ultra sound informing them that this child may be suffering from an incurable congenital defect and might have cognitive development problems.  Coming against the background of a mentally challenged suspect and possible murderer, also strained by the effects of China’s one-child policy, Ma Zhe suggests she have an abortion, but his wife thinks otherwise, turning into a debate about the value of life, becoming an aggravating source of tension between them, as he’s completely invested in the murder case, but she is seen calmly attempting to put together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle of a mother and child, yet in a fit of rage, he flushes a few of the remaining pieces down the toilet.  Moments later, however, we see the entire puzzle framed on the wall with no pieces missing, completely at odds with reality.  In more mundane moments of domestic tranquility, watching them slurp noodles with chopsticks is a thing to behold, taking us back to filmmakers Wong Kar-wai and Hou Hsiao-hsien, where it was a signature trademark with both. 

Essentially a crime drama, what’s unique is the contemplative, existential aspect of the protagonist, where the root of his discomfort is never established, but is apparent throughout.  While his trustworthy dedication and loyalty to the job are never questioned, it’s his intelligence and adherence to rational thought that stands out, as Ma Zhe has a moral outlook that rises above his coworkers, as he is capable of seeing things they don’t, with lingering questions that dig deep into his soul, creating a personal conflict, yet the film is completely invested in his character, with all the moral ambiguities, taking us on a journey that continually feels overly understated and discreet, delving into unexplored territory, as facts and evidence become interlinked with subjective memory, pure conjecture, and even guesswork.  After the prisoner escapes and more murders occur, including a student poet and a young boy, the “madman” again becomes the focal point, but something interesting happens, as the psychological mindset of the criminal and the lead detective somehow merge, with Ma Zhe so obsessed with the case that he begins seeing the suspect everywhere, contaminating his mind, burrowing deep into his subconscious, undermining his police instincts, creating an impressionistic, off-kilter montage that seemingly takes place entirely in his imagination.  A turning point occurs when he falls asleep in an empty movie theater and experiences a surrealistic, David Lynch Twin Peaks style dream sequence, with each of the murder victims speaking to him, concocting an entirely different conclusion to the case, driven by a projector that bursts into flames, becoming a metaphor for the fallibility of truth.  This unexpected aspect of the film is quite surprising, taking us where few films are willing to go, essentially five minutes of an homage to cinema like few contemporary directors still dare to do, with a lead protagonist unraveling into a descent of madness, obsession, and personal isolation, as it defies all rationality and deductive reasoning typically associated with police work, instead creating a muddled netherworld that feels more symbolic than real, yet all the evidence is re-evaluated in this new light, filtered through an altered mindset, where it’s hard to distinguish between what’s real and what’s imagined.  This only heightens the mystery, drawing viewers into a mystifying unknown, yet the film inscrutably builds Ma Zhe’s character throughout, rarely seen without a cigarette, becoming familiar to us, where we appreciate what we know about him, as his integrity and ardent professionalism continually stand out, becoming the driving force of the film, dominating all that we see, yet there’s something else happening here, an undercurrent of doubt, with no cut and dry answers, which elevates this into unexplored territory, expressing a disarming honesty, becoming an unfinished and incomplete portrait of moral authority, which is rare in a police procedural.  This plays into Yu Hua’s literary vision, an author known for his abstract writing style, whose stories portray disturbing personal realities of modern China, accentuating the interplay of diverse meanings, particularly between imagination and reality, innocence and guilt, blurring the lines between postmodernism and tradition, often venturing into the absurd, examining the dark side of human psychology and society in a non-traditional way, with subjective storylines that investigate and illustrate the challenges of cultural disintegration and identity loss.  Defiantly ambiguous, this absorbing yet completely atmospheric crime drama is heavily punctuated by images of abandoned and neglected houses, narrow streets, and torrents of rain, apparently washing the sins away, generating a suffocating atmosphere that blurs the lines between good and evil, but the film’s exploration of complex social and moral themes, such as fetishes, identity, and the intricacies of human emotions, play a significant role in allowing viewers to draw their own conclusions.  This is a uniquely innovative film built upon a classical film noir structure, which looks to the past as a way of trying to understand the present, becoming an impressionistic mosaic on the ephemeral nature of truth, which is one of the more dangerously perplexing problems of modernity.  

Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud)

Actress Jeanne Moreau and actor Maurice Ronet

Actress Jeanne Moreau with the director Louis Malle

Miles Davis

ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud)                 B                    

aka:  Frantic

France  (91 mi)  1958 d: Louis Malle

Louis Malle, who got his start working as an assistant director/research assistant to Robert Bresson on A Man Escaped (Un Condamné à Mort s'est échappé) (1956), was only 24 when making his first feature, quite unusual at the time, adapting a novel by the same name from Noël Calef, collaborating on the screenplay with French novelist Roger Nimier (who received a backlash of condemnation for his right-wing political leanings), yet inventing a role for Jeanne Moreau that was virtually nonexistent in the novel, sketching a film that is at times spacious and overly detached, yet hauntingly spare.  Maximizing an internalized perpective, making use of street locations, the film was shot in black and white, creating a low-budget B-movie thriller that introduced actress Jeanne Moreau to the world, making her an international sensation, though she was by then a recognized theatrical star from Comédie Française and had already made more than a dozen films, including Jacques Becker’s French gangster picture with Jean Gabin, TOUCHEZ PAS AU GRISBI (1954), that happens to feature Moreau and Lino Ventura, both of whom reappear here, using Melville’s cinematographer Henri Decaë, whose insistence to use natural light in night shots from the illuminated store windows of the shops along the Champs-Élysées was revelatory at the time, given a documentary sense of naturalism, anticipating the breezy cinéma vérité style of the French New Wave.  Most astonishingly, however, who could ignore Malle’s collaboration with jazz legend Miles Davis in FRANTIC (1958), the American film name when it was initially released in 1961, renamed ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (where the LP record under the original title remains a collector’s item), composed in one all-night session, music that so beautifully captures the aching sorrow of loneliness, sadness, anxiety, and regret, JEANNE MOREAU IN "LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD" (MILES DAVIS THEME) YouTube (2:15), improvisations perfectly in synch with Moreau’s long wandering nocturnal walks down the Champs-Élysées (much of it shot from a baby carriage on a moving dolly, including the reactions of ordinary people walking down the street gaping at Moreau), a moody portrait of Paris in the late 50’s, with Moreau feeling isolated and removed from the rest of the world, where her haunted face becomes the drama, lost in her own thoughts, remaining a complex enigma throughout the film, and a prelude for a similar sequence in Antonioni’s LA NOTTE (1961).  Etched with a predominate theme of fatalism, the noirish-tinged atmosphere perfectly expresses the continual moral failings of the characters portrayed, each with a go-for-broke mentality, where you can be at the top of the world one day, but at the bottom the next.  Set to the romanticized strains of an existential love story, our ill-fated lovers, Jeanne Moreau as Florence Carala and Maurice Ronet as Julien Duvalier, are separated throughout, never once in a single scene together, yet a lingering opening phone call suggests they can’t live without the other, agreeing to meet in a half-hour, with hopes they will be together always, where their love feels strained, perhaps even fantasized, feeling more like an obsession, where its mere existence depends upon carrying out the perfect crime, which viewers see in great detail right from the outset, leading to murder, a crime of passion. 

While Julien appears to get away scot free, he notices a traceable clue he left behind, returning to the scene of the crime, but since it takes place on a Sunday in an office building closed for the weekend once he presumably left, he ends up getting stuck between floors in the elevator once the power is shut off.  Thinking this would just take a minute, he leaves his car running on the street, quickly taken advantage of by a pair of young adolescent lovers, small-time crook Louis (Georges Poujouly) and florist Véronique (Yori Bertin), who swipe his vehicle in an infamous joy ride (viewed by Florence, who sees the girl in the front seat, assuming Julien chickened out on their plans), making a mad dash to a euphoric freedom that comes with not having a care in the world, expressing contempt for the bourgeoisie, a model for Godard’s young lovers in Breathless (À Bout de Souffle) (1959), and a signature moment in the French New Wave, which never really accepted Louis Malle, as he was not part of the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd that got their start writing pointed criticism of established conventions, yet this film helped pave the way, though it lacks the playfulness and buoyant spontaneous ingenuity associated with the movement and is instead a picture of modern alienation predating Antonioni, becoming a vacuous character study known for its lengthy wordless sequences.  Finding Julien’s gun in the glove compartment, while wearing his trench coat and gloves, the couple fantasizes themselves through his quixotic life, a former officer of the French Foreign Legion and a veteran of the Indochina and Algerian wars, a man leading a double life, respectable on the outside, but hired to do the dirty work for his boss, a wealthy industrialist Simon Carala (Jean Wall) whose business is a front for crooked arms dealing.  Political implications are embedded into the backstory, with Malle offering a surprisingly prescient subtext centered upon France’s sullied colonial history (Algeria wouldn’t gain independence for another 4 years), creating an allure of subterfuge, espionage, back-room deals, and corruption.  These kids can only imagine whose car they’ve stolen, racing up and down the highway, thrilled with driving as fast as they can, attempting to outrun a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, but is dismally outclassed, following the car to an outlying motel where they cause a minor fender bender, meeting a German couple on holiday, Horst Bencker (Iván Petrovich) and his trophy wife Frieda (Elga Andersen), who invite them over for drinks.  Deciding to register under the name Mr. and Mrs. Julien Tavernier, the lovebirds are welcomed by the charming warmth of the older couple, where Horst has a bon vivant, larger-than-life personality, like a worldly Charles Boyer, angrily recalling a lack of champagne during his involvement with the conquering German Occupation of Paris during the war (which is only 12 years removed), then emptying several bottles of champagne while the women play with the tiny cigarette lighter-sized camera, like a James Bond device, before retreating to their separate rooms.  Louis decides to leave under cover of darkness, thinking he’ll swap cars, but is caught red-handed trying to steal the Mercedes, resulting in an eruption of gunfire, with Louis emptying the chamber, shooting both of his neighbors with Julien’s gun, quickly retreating back to Paris.  Feeling doomed, sure to get caught, but not wanting to separate, they consume sleeping pills in a suicide pact. 

Meanwhile, Julien attempts to crawl his way out of the elevator, but is unsuccessful, while Florence wanders the streets endlessly searching for him, returning to the places they frequent, not really expecting to find him, feeling lost and despondent, with the moody, introspective music of Miles Davis playing through the interludes, eventually finding herself in a late hour bar scene with drunken associates of Julien painting an ugly picture of his sordid early career.  The bar is raided by the vice squad, suspects are rounded up and we confirm her actual identity from Lino Ventura as Chérier, the Police Inspector, politely apologizing that she was mistakenly included in the arrests, noting her husband is a distinguished figure that regularly lunches with the Interior Minister, receiving special treatment, in stark contrast from the others, as she is quickly released.  When police discover the gunned down German couple, all evidence points to Duvalier as the murderer, shot by his gun, with his trenchcoat left behind in his car, making the front page of the morning newspaper headlines.  When police arrive at the office building where he works, they turn the power to the elevator back on, allowing Julien to discreetly exit without being seen, but he’s ravenous, ordering coffee and croissants at a nearby café, where he’s quickly recognized by the newspaper photos, with police arriving at the scene, bringing him in for questioning, discovering Carala’s body in the same building, but it appears he committed suicide, shot by his own gun.  Police, however, refuse to believe Julien’s explanation that he was stuck in an elevator all night and charge him with murdering the Benckers, a crime he did not commit, yet he’s guilty of killing someone else in a film filled with mistaken identities and misunderstandings.  It’s the presence of Lino Ventura that adds weight to these scenes, as he’s a cool and calm figure, always measured and circumspect, forever associated with Melville, and the centerpiece of Army of Shadows (L’Armée des ombres) (1969).  His mannered professionalism contrasts with the impulsive spontaneous combustion of the other tragic figures, weighing carefully what witnesses actually said, following leads and examining the evidence, finding it curious that both Mrs. Carala and Mr. Duvalier both contended they barely knew the other, yet both spend eventful nights that he has to dutifully deconstruct, finding them at the center of the crime, though both share the same alibi of only a casual acquaintance.  Turning into a police procedural, inspired by Hitchcock-like themes and precise execution, including the long hours Julien spends alone in silence struggling to escape captivity (mirroring Moreau’s long and captivatingly silent walk), yet also the dimly lit, uninterrupted interrogation scene that is brilliantly choreographed, a shadow play of darkness and light, with the two cops circling in and out of the surrounding darkness, elevated by the powerful presence of Lino Ventura, the finale is emphatically conclusive, distinguished more by mood than dialogue, where the Miles Davis music literally transforms the film, with the bottom dropping out of this incriminating love affair, turning a love story into a crime thriller filled with calamitous implications.  

Elevator To The Gallows - video dailymotion entire film in French, no subtitles, YouTube (1:31:30)