by Brian Hioe
語言:
English
Photo credit: Film Poster
CRYPTIC AND BEAUTIFUL, Bi Gan’s Resurrection is a feast for the senses. If the plot of the movie is not as tightly compact as Bi’s previous efforts, there is more than enough to take in from Resurrection.
Set in a science fiction setting where humans have discovered the secret to immortality–to not dream– “Deliriants” who persist in dreaming are tracked down by “Big Others” that seek to restore them to a sense of normality. Resurrection follows Miss Shu, a “Big Other”, and her pursuit of a Deliriant through six different sequences.
In this sense, Resurrection comes off as something like an anthology film, following the Deliriant through different dreams–effectively different lifetimes, structured together by Millenium Mambo-like narration from Miss Shu, played by Shu Qi. This begins with a first sequence shot as though it were a silent film.
Photo credit: Film Poster
Bi Gan seems to be in dialogue with the whole of cinema, then, with references to anything from the early silent film of German expressionism to the iconic Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. This has a particular emphasis on Sinophone cinema, with different visual styles in each segment of the movie intended to gesture toward other moments in Sinophone cinema, all the way through the 1930s, 1940s, to Fifth and Sixth Generation Cinema. The last segment seems to recreate Bi Gan’s previous work, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, down to the single-shot style that Bi Gan pioneered in both that film and its predecessor, Kaili Blues.
Resurrection’s technical merits are, as with his other films, strikingly impressive. Apart from wonderful sound design, some tracking shots are especially impressive. The final segment, in which the camera at once takes on and breaks free from the first-person perspective of several characters, is another technical accomplishment for the director.
Even if the six different segments that comprise Resurrection do not completely fit together, ne is left wondering what Bi Gan aims to say about cinema. Likewise, one is struck by the audacity of a young director who has decided to take on the whole history of cinema with what is only his third movie. Perhaps he hopes to suggest that cinema has traded its capacity to dream in return for immortality, yet that he remains faithful in the continued power of cinema to conjure dreams–however dangerous that capacity may be interpreted by others in society.
