Lu bian ye can

This is one of the most beautifully shot films I've ever seen.

A "hangout movie" but you're not sure if you really want to be there (or anywhere). There are boogeymen sprinkled throughout Bi Gan's debut feature film that are never seen: hairy "wild men" who live in the forests, gangs who do violent things like cut off people's hands before burying them alive. But it's the evils in plain sight (isolation, sadness, aging) that we really need to watch out for. At times, the film's slowness feels forced, and it's constant allusions to clocks/time kind of beat that metaphor to a pulp. But it's none the less a solid first feature from a budding Chinese director.

KAILI BLUES: A DEMANDING, STUNNING EXPERIENCE

KAILI BLUES is an extraordinary film….not just a good first feature, not just a good independent Chinese film.…but an imperfect dazzling masterpiece.

Audiences who watch normal films bring strong ideas of what makes effective, satisfying storytelling.…I came expecting another good festival art film from China, yet even as a film director/critic, it took me 45 minutes to suddenly realise and understand what the director was brilliantly achieving with fresh cinematic language and vision. From then on I was mesmerised and deeply moved.

This film doesn't satisfy cinematic art or entertainment preconceptions….It is unique, thrilling personal cinema, that communicates on different conscious and subconscious levels, conceptually, visually, emotionally.

BI GAN, the very young film director/poet in his 20s, is already an honest, open, accomplished artist, with well-deserved self-confidence (ego firmly in-check), dynamic creative ambitions, and skills to accomplish them. I don't want to burden him with this, or sound pretentious and preposterous – but I couldn't help flashing on Orson Welles during "Citizen Kane".

Wang Tianxing's cinematography was stunning, perfectly merging with the dynamic style and viewpoints of the story. No matter how many camera persons were used or their professional experience, everything flowed seamlessly emotionally. The magical 41-minute single moving shot is as revolutionary as Sokurov's landmark "Russian Ark," with greater psychological and emotional resonance. Memory, fantasy, and reality weave through and around each other.

Film crafts and cinema language are used smoothly and very effectively: visually powerful rural locations in Kaili, Guizhou Province, China (used with subtlety and respect), "costumes" (real lived-in clothes), props (from real homes and villages). Production design, sound, and editing are all creatively professional.

The Producers did a remarkable job during pre-production, shooting, and post-production, because there must have been daily stressful problems to overcome.

The actors – 99% non-professional - are perfectly cast and directed. Chen Yongzhong's memorable presence holds together all the wonderful characters in the 110-minute film.

Traditional Chinese, Miao, children's song, local band, actor's song, new music, and terrific end credit duet, are all evocative and touching.

KAILI BLUES should be seen at least two times, and discussed by film students in every international serious film school, and by audiences who are passionate about cinema in all countries within and outside China.

(Since this is a glowing review, I must say that I have absolutely no connection with the film or anyone who made it.)

Your mileage may vary depending on which direction the trains and time are flowing. Curious to see bi-lingual Mandarin/English reviews, I tried to pause on the poems voiced over during the film, but too often they washed over me like the constant flow of water through-out.

The film is both heavy on symbolism, as well as strongly rooted on the earth, specifically the territory in the Guizhou Province, which apparently looks both rustic and post-industrial. Another review mentioned vehicles that fail that is a good metaphor for the film, but the viewer does travel with this film, if not where one might expect.

I am curious if the language ends up being a bigger tipping point to what is at play here. The blurring of characters/time perhaps indicated by key phrases or tenses. Or even in tense phrases, the scene in the make-shift salon where our Dr. Hero gets his haircut felt unsettling in an interesting way. And I wasn't even the woman giving the good Dr. his trim.

Besides the much discussed long single shot, so much fascinating tracking done (presumably by quite and highly reliable motorcycles) and great projected images at times.

Again I remain curious if this feels foreign to even folks familiar with the physical, if not emotional territory covered. I look forward to more films from Gan Bi after this auspicious beginning.

+++Chen is a doctor-he has a irresponsible brother who mistreats his son. As the movie progresses snippets of information about his previous life are dropped, almost casually, either through dialogue or flashbacks. Indeed, one theme is the temporal intermixture.

It's interesting for me to have insights into Chinese modern lifestyle shown directly through the street life (The Iron Ministry, Blind Shaft). Hence we see people going along with their business, poor people or desolated ones. Also, we see superstition, tedium, old traditions, appliances that don't work and vain attempts to fix them.

The second part is almost a different film. We leave the city, often grim, with glum buildings and we enter a mostly enchanting mountain area. As a reviewer mentioned we have a long shot as in Russian's Ark by Sokurov. Perhaps this technique is associated with filming in a way also seen in music videos: several young people, the same ones, continuously pop out and into the scene. The twirling sequence culminates by Chen revealing last piece of the story of his life to a hairdresser.

Now, the director pulls out an interesting feat. People borrow to each other moments of their lives and some people substitute for others. It is like being in a dream, which is constructed subtly and as if without strain. Examples: the flashlight story of Chen's coworker reappears in the story he tells to hairdresser; the latter is a substitute for Chen's ex-wife; the nephew is substituted by a motorcycle driver he meets who has the same name, draws watches, has a watch painted on his wrist, is bullied and to whom Chen offers protection-all these exactly like with his child nephew. Even more, two casually introduced persons share same nickname, Idiot.

And yes we share some more themes, more common in Chinese movies: lost love, responsibility toward family, choices to correct fatalities that lead to more tragedy.

---The camera filming the long shot has several failures, such as jerking or lack of focus. I can't say the movie is a masterpiece and it feels the debuting director wanted to express too much. But he made a compelling, interesting feature.