Movie Review: Long Day's Journey Into Night

Long Day's Journey Into Night **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Gan Bi.

Written by: Gan Bi.

Starring: Wei Tang (Wan Qiwen / Kaizhen), Jue Huang (Luo Hongwu), Sylvia Chang (Wildcat's Mom / Red-hair Woman), Hong-Chi Lee (Wildcat), Yongzhong Chen (Zuo Hongyuan), Feiyang Luo Wildcat - Childhood), Meihuizi Zeng (Pager), Chun-hao Tuan (Ex-husband of Wan Qiwen), Yanmin Bi (Woman Prisoner). 

 

Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan’s brilliant Long Day’s Journey Into Night is clear a noir film – it is such a noir film, that it even rains sometimes when it’s indoors. The visuals are pure noir – and the setup seems to be as well. It follows Luo (Jue Huang) on a journey to find the woman he loves – he thinks her name is Wan Qiwen, and perhaps later it’s Kaizhen, he’s not too sure. He knew her once, they were lovers, they went to the movies. There is a gun involved, perhaps a murder, and then she disappeared. He has been searching for her ever since – and he keeps meeting people who knew her too – or maybe they did – but she’s gone now, where they aren’t quite sure.

 

For 70 minutes or so, we wander alongside Luo as he searches for her, or remembers her. Like his stunning debut film Kaili Blues, Long Day’s Journey Into Night is part memory, part fantasy, part reality – and Bi Gan doesn’t have the normal signposts to delineate which is which. You just have to kind of figure out which is which – or perhaps not. It’s not always clear that Luo knows which is which either. And then after those 70 minutes, Luo sits down in a dilapidated movie theater that seems to about to fall down, in a town where everything looks like that, and puts on a pair of glasses – and finally the title of the movie splashes across the screen. This is our indication that it’s now time to put on the 3-D glasses we were given when we walked into the theater. What follows is a mesmerizing 59-minute single take shot in stunning 3-D. It continues to follow Luo – who has to make his way up from a mine to the town in order to see that night’s karaoke competition – where he thinks Wan Qiwen will be playing. First, he has to beat a 12-year-old at Ping Pong, the take a scooter journey to a large pulley system, which he will ride to descend into town. He gets sidetracked though at the local pool hall by Kaizhen (who, like Wan Qiwen is played by Wei Tang, and may be the same person – or may not – she has certainly been made to look different). He will spend most of the rest of the movie with her – trying to convince her to sing a song for him, even though she says she has a boyfriend. But they seem to have some sort of connection, don’t they?

 

So, yes, Long Day Journey’s Into Night (an odd title to be sure, given the famed Eugene O’Neal play of the same name that has absolutely nothing to do with this movie) is a noir film, but not a typical one. In his mind, Luo has made out this woman he searches for to be everything – the thing that could make his world make sense again. We get a few details of his life – he used to run a casino, but he doesn’t work anymore, he returns home to have who we assume is his stepmother say that his father left her the family restaurant – and Luo the beat up old van. He doesn’t fight her over it – just asks her not to change the name of the place, which was his mother’s - and takes the van. He needs the van anyway to slowly creep around Kaili – to follow the woman around when he sees her.

 

The majority of the attention the movie has received is because of that dazzling, brilliant 59-minute shot that ends the movie. That attention is deserved – it is such a meticulously planned shot, that has to cover a lot of ground, and always seems perfectly timed. Bi Gan didn’t shoot it in 3-D, but converted it afterwards – but it’s still the best use of 3-D I’ve seen in a film in years. It gives depth to the image, doesn’t use it for a gimmick. There are only a few filmmakers – Jean-Luc Godard probably the last one with Goodbye to Language 3-D – who seem to be trying to do something with 3-D technology which isn’t just a way to charge audiences another couple of bucks at the box office to see a film that simply ends up being darker than if you just watched it projected in 2-D (seriously, how many 3-D films have who seen where it actually mattered? Avatar, Hugo, Life of Pi, Goodbye to Language 3-D and now this are the only live action films I can think of). The 59-minute take is mesmerizing and brilliant – and far more ambitious than the already awe-inspiring 40 minute take near the end of Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues.

 

But the rest of the film is as brilliant visually as that shot – just in a different way. Bi Gan embraces those noir visual clichés, but takes them to a different level. This is a dark film about memory, love and loss –and visually, one of the most distinctive films of the year. Kaili Blues felt like the bastard love child of Lynch, Tarkovsky and Weerasethakul – all filtered through a unique sensibility. This is the next logical step for him – and it’s a mesmerizing film. See it on the big screen, no matter what you have to do to see it. That last shot will lose some of its power if you don’t. Regardless though, the film certainly confirms Bi Gan as one of the best young filmmakers in the world right now.

Classic Movie Review: Kaili Blues (2015)

Kaili Blues (2015) 

Directed by: Gan Bi.

Written by: Gan Bi.

 Starring: Yongzhong Chen (Chen Shen), Yue Guo (Yang Yang), Linyan Liu (Zhang Xi), Feiyang Luo (Wei Wei  - Little), Lixun Xie (Crazy Face), Zhuohua Yang (Monk), Shixue Yu (Wei Wei - Older), Daqing Zhao (Elderly Doctor). 

 

Chinese director Bi Gan’s debut film Kaili Blues is about as distinctive of a film as debut films get. You can see his influences in it clearly – some David Lynch, some Andrei Tarkovsky, some Apichatpong Weerasethakul – but all filtered through the directors own sensibility to come up with something entirely his own. As many first time directors do, I think Bi Gan is perhaps trying a little too hard here – trying to get all the tricks he can think of into one film, just in case he never gets to make another one. And yet the visual style and storytelling is so strong that it overcomes that problem to become one of the more interesting directorial debuts this decade.

 

To describe Kaili Blues is more likely than not to fail at describing what makes Kaili Blues a special film. It is the story of Chen, a doctor (of sorts) who works at a rundown clinic in the title city, alongside an elderly woman. He has spent time in jail – during which time he has lost his wife and mother. He has a house – and a half-brother – known as Crazy Face, who has a son – Wei Wei – who Chen is closer to than Crazy Face is. The first half of Kaili Blues is about establishing Chen, his time, his place, and those around him. The second half dives deeper in the mysteries around them – and about time and space altogether.

 

The second half takes Chen on a journey to a nearby town – Dangmai – which in many ways makes the rundown town of Kaili look great by comparison. He is there to find Wei Wei – who Crazy Face may have sold, as well as other tasks as well. The show stopping part of the second half is a brilliantly executed, mesmerizing 40-minute shot through the town of Dangmai. Sure, Bi Gan and cinematographer Tianxing Wang – are showing off here, but the shot works on a deeper level than most shorts of its kind. It connects the people and places together, bringing them together and intertwining their memories together. We know that we aren’t in a linear narrative here – the past, present and future are colliding in this town, in this shot – as Wei Wei is no longer the 10-year-old he was when we last saw him, but now a 20-year-old young man.

 

I am, I admit, struggling to figure out what to say about Kaili Blues in some ways, because I’m not quite sure how to describe it in a way that will evoke its meanings. The storytelling in the film is strong, in that it is confident, not so much because it is clearly defined. Bi Gan isn’t interested in that really. The film is visually mesmerizing from beginning to end.

 

I wanted to watch this film before I saw his follow-up – Long Day‘s Journey into Night (which, unfortunately, is starting to look like I will miss on the big screen – it came and went from the Lightbox is a week, and even during that time, had very limited screenings. Muck like I am sure this film loses something not being seen on the big screen, that one will as well. But the confidence of this film has made me very interested in seeing whatever Bi Gan has up his sleeve next.