Lu bian ye can

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.

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.

The set up for this film is long and not particularly interesting. The protagonist often narrates poetry that I didn't care for, and everything before the long tracking-shot felt boring and not anywhere near as compelling as the film that the director, Bi Gan, would go on to direct (Long Day's Journey into Night).

But everything from that long tracking-shot up to and including the ending (what a final shot!) is something unlike anything I've ever experienced before in film. Like a future or long-past memory being made and enacted in real-time.

We follow a handful of characters as they move about a small town in rural China, the camera switching seamlessly between them in an act of mesmerizing cinematography, no matter how they are travelling or however relevant they may seem to be to the mediocre plot. As this happens, we begin to familiarize ourselves with the location almost to the point that we could map it out, if we had to. You start to feel as though this town is a place you have actually (but only briefly) visited as a tourist who will go on to look back on the time spent there with bittersweet nostalgia. The people, the place. All of it. It has a personality of its own, but calls upon some of your own memories of places and people you remember well, but don't truly know all that well. Just as a tourist would remember but not know the people and places from his transient experiences with them.

Never have I felt so much of a connection to a location in a film, to the point where it practically feels like a real-life experience of my own.

All this might sound very wanky, which is something I was going to accuse the film of being until it reached this part of the film. It won't be the kind of movie that everyone will enjoy, and I'm not even sure I can recommend it.

I'm not entirely sure I understand the film's overall message. And I'm not even quite sure I want to, as it may take away from my very personal journey that it took me on. I probably won't even re-watch this film. Just as you can't relive memories so vividly. That said, just like Bi Gan's more recent film (Long Day's Journey into Night), it clearly plays around with the ideas of memory and dreams. Though I think Kaili Blues is more of a challenge to understand, with all the wanky poetry, cultural differences and references to "wild-men" urban legends.

Some great films can be ruined by a scene, whereas other films such as this, could be elevated from mediocrity to something fresh, exciting and beyond words.

Overall, Long Day's Journey into Night is a far better structured film, with a much more interesting protagonist and plot, but the flawed masterpiece of Kaili Blues manages to achieve something far more significant in its last 55 minutes (that goes by as quickly as a memory of a dream), than most films can hope to achieve in their entirety.

Bi Gan is a director worth the attention.

Kaili Blues - 8/10. Long Day's Journey into Night - 7/10.

I ended up going alone for Kaili Blues for a 10 PM screening at the Mumbai Film Festival 2015. In accordance with standard procedure, I entered the cinema hall baked and ready to enjoy what my cousin described the night before as simply mesmerizing. At first, the theme of the film is familiar. It is essentially a mission to rescue someone (Weiwei) whom the protagonist (Chen) loves. As the film progresses, it takes on an increasingly surrealistic tone, almost losing its way from reality into the imagination of Chen as he travels the hills of China in search of his beloved nephew. The highlight of Kaili Blues is its cinematography. But there is a directorial element that I absolutely adored; the extended shots! Almost reminiscent of Birdman or a Tarantino film, the camera effortlessly follows our hero on bike, foot and boat uninterrupted, as he experiences his past, present and future. I wish this film all the best and hope it releases in a cinema near you!