Black Coal

An ex-detective re-investigates a strange unsolved murder case that effectively ended his career five years previously. In doing so he ends up becoming increasingly involved with a young woman who seems to be connected with a series of similar killings.

It was good to see an example of a Chinese neo-noir. My previous experience with films from China has been usually of movies of epic proportions with big production values. So it made for a refreshing change to see something more low-key and contemporary. This one sets out its stall very well with the sinister discovery of various body parts being found in bags of coal spread all over the country, huge distances apart. The introduction of a femme fatale into the mix only ups the intrigue level further. And I have to say that on the whole I did enjoy this film and found it compelling, with its Chinese origins ensuring that it was a little different and punctuated with unpredictable moments. By the end of the piece it would be only fair to say that some questions still remain. I thought the ending was really very strange indeed with an odd final few moments and an ambiguous feeling. It almost feels like a superfluous ending but maybe I missed something in it. In truth odd things happen on a number of occasions throughout this one and reasons are not always very forthcoming, I am guessing this is a film that would benefit from a re-watch possibly. Also good was the wintry atmosphere of the snowy locales where the action unfolds that created a feeling all of its own which worked well. But I would probably have to conclude that, while I definitely liked this one, it does falls short of being great. It's not really that suspenseful for this type of film and the plot development doesn't ultimately reveal all that good a mystery in the final analysis. Certainly a good enough movie I have to emphasise but it just has a few hard to ignore unsatisfying flaws as well though.

Funny how all these genius critical theorists here are giving thumbs down to everything but have nothing to say. Why not take my review and bust it to bits, deconstruct it, tell us how horrible it is? Come on, make your sentences pirouette for me.

In the meantime...

How does a Chinese director empty the noir sensibility of any and all of the glamour associated with its Hollywood counterpart? How does it become a study in pure dourness and grimness? If you're Yi'nan Diao, the first thing you do is set it in a place as grim and dour as a northern Chinese factory town circa 1999. In this frozen wasteland that may or may not be Harbin - it doesn't matter, it could be Siberia - the ball gets rolling when dead body parts start showing up on the conveyor belt of a coal processing plant: after all, in this time and space in China, the human body is just another physical commodity

Following a bloody shootout that leaves the two main suspects and two of his partners dead, we jump forward five years to find the surviving detective, Zhang Zili, paralyzed by the trauma, retired from the police force and passed out in the snow in an alcoholic stupor. But things are never what they seem in noir, right? So he's dragged back into the case when a former partner of his suspects the involvement of a black widow- like female at the heart of the matter. An exotic call girl? A mysterious nightclub singer? No - just some depressed woman who works at a dry cleaner's where she's regularly mauled by her piggish oaf of a boss.

The plot is unimportant, really, because the film is one big painting, a night-time world where the neon signs of the internet gambling dens and bleak taxi-dancing joints are beaten into submission by the cold dark chill of northern China, where all color and light are sucked into the film's essence, which is nothing but a black hole, a gravitational death machine that swallows up every photon in sight. At one point, while spinning around the world's most depressing ice skating rink, Zili asks his former partner, "Does anybody ever really win at life?" Of course not. Like all the other catatonic ice skaters, he's just going round and round, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind (depending on one's point of view) getting nowhere while people continue to copulate and kill and die. The key to the film is the direct translation of the Chinese title, which means "daytime fireworks." I'll let you figure that out for yourself, but if you like your noir pitch-black, this one's for you.

There are definitely some impressive technical flourishes here. The lighting and the colors used are gorgeous, and really do highlight a lot of the film's atmosphere, which is the other good thing about it. It's able to achieve atmosphere in a rather surprising way, but it's just too bad hat that atmosphere is wasted and doesn't really highlight much. The acting is decent, but the story and the screenplay leave a lot to be desired. The characters just aren't developed all that well, and just are so, so dull. The film's sense of pacing and development are non- existent. I don't think this is anything worthwhile, although I'm sure many will like it just fine.

The plot is that two cops who have had their careers ruined, by a case that went horribly wrong, decide to reunite. This they do after a murder that has striking similarities to the one that floored them happens again.

Zhang Zili has lost everything, his wife, the job he loved and has turned to the bottle as he goes through the motions as an underpaid security guard. Then he gets the chance to solve the case that is his nemesis. This is not a police procedural though; this has elements of the heart, base existentialism and even dark humour.

This is from director and writer Yi'nan Diao who brought us 'Night Train' and 'Uniform'. He comes from a very industrialised part of China and this is generally reflected in his films - and indeed it is here. Also the loneliness that comes from the isolating capacity of industrialised living. This though is a confident and assured piece of film making. Even when I thought a scene or two had stayed going a tad too long, he just reveals why and all of a sudden you are right back on track. In Mandarin and running to around 100 minutes this will appeal to those who appreciate modern Chinese cinema and who like a bit of dark brooding to their crime thrillers.

It seems that, every few years, there are one or two Chinese films that, despite being slow-paced, dark, and lacking A-list stars, somehow manage to attract a large domestic audience without being controversial enough to risk complete censorship. In 2014, the only example I have seen so far is this, Black Coal, Thin Ice. The reason for its domestic success is presumably because of its awards at the Berlin Film Festival.

As the story unfolds, despite being based around a series of murders, the film has a pace more similar to an art-house film than a crime- thriller. A couple of scenes were impressively disturbing, made even more so by the slow paced, subtle atmosphere surrounding them.

The setting of a polluted, dark, seedy city in a long Heilongjiang winter seems perfect for the noir tone of the film. A subtle musical score, with some dissonant strings combined with (terrible) Chinese pop songs (intra-diegetic) creates a fantastic atmosphere. The closest thing to it I have seen is Suzhou River, which, now I come to think of it, has a lot of similar motifs (I haven't seen Diao Yinan's previous films).

The acting performances were all impressive, the female lead (played by Taiwanese Gwei/Gui Lun-Mei) seemed suitably out of place in the Far Northeast of Mainland China. Liao Fan's male lead, and Wang Xuebing's character, were both impressive.

Despite a bit of dark humour that made me giggle, Black Coal, Thin Ice is a relentlessly grim and slightly disturbing film. I was impressed that it wasn't (more) censored in China, as it paints a pretty depressing picture. Despite being enthralled by the film, I won't be booking a flight to Heilongjiang any time soon.