Lu bian ye can

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

This is truly a very surprising film. After glancing past a lot of reviews, I just thought of this film as the stereotype of many artistic films: obscure and crammed with inexplicable meanings. True, this film is all that, but not at all in a bad, sketchy way. First, you have to know that in order to really love the film, you have to be Chinese or have a very very deep association with the Chinese culture. Bi Gan, the director, tells a story from the most overseen part of Chinese culture, it is a part that often stems from a mixture of childhood memories, folklore, and the daily life. It touches me in a way not at all expected and seems to speak to me from the deepest, most hidden memories of childhood, when everything is sort of blurred and juxtaposed together. Second, what's also wonderful about this film is that Bi Gan was able to make this motion picture ----- which for decades has resembled storytelling ----- a poetic narration. He mixes together quite a bit of images and symbolisms, and although the way he puts it together seems to be quite intuitive, the product is incredibly beautiful.

+++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.

I was recommended to watch this film by a very good friend of mine who has the similar tastes on movies and literature and other kinds of art. He recommended me to see the short film Jingang Jing by Gan Bi. Yes, the short is good too, and has some kind of connection with Lu bian ye can. Back to the movie, it is the way he talk the story and shoot the film which makes me surprise and enjoy. When graduated from film Academy, Gan Bi became a video guy for weddings, and thanks to the wedding films experiences, he used the skills to this movie and the long dizzy shot brought me the climax of wander and fly. As a young director, this movie is a little immature to me, and to be honest, I enjoy this feeling.

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.