Summary
An effective noir film with a compelling opening and beautiful photography that paints a different side of China to the state-sanctioned one.
Following Diao Yinan’s breakthrough film Black Coal, Thin Ice – which won the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival – he arrived at Cannes 2019 amidst great expectations. Competing for the Palme d’Or this year, a prize that ultimately went to Parasite, Diao’s THE WILD GOOSE LAKE (南方车站的聚会) is in fact an understated piece of noir.
The film begins in mystery. The worse-for-wear Zhou Zenong (Hu Ge) waits for his wife, but instead is greeted with the noir staple of a woman in red, Liu Aiai (Gwei Lun-mei). The story unfolds in a non-linear fashion, as we learn that Zhou is a fugitive running from the law after killing a cop, while Liu is a sex worker, or what is politely referred to lakeside as a “bathing beauty.”
What’s most striking from the start of this film is Diao and cinematographer Dong Jingsong’s (Long Day’s Journey Into Night) arresting use of colour. Scenes are bathed with the purple and pink neon glow of the surrounds, suggesting a seedy underbelly even when there is nothing more than conversation occurring. Whole scenes are played out in silhouette, perhaps asking us to put aside what we are seeing and listen to what is being said (or not said). It’s almost like a petit version of a Wong Kar-wai film dropped in the middle of a gangland.
Which is why Diao’s film has largely been said to be a subversion of expected Chinese cultural norms, or at least one that offers an alternative view to the state-sanctioned one. This is a side of China, albeit from the perspective an unnamed city, where the lines of morality are less clear and there is a fluidity to our allegiances as a result.
The film soars during the throwback action sequences, ones that simultaneously combine the aesthetics of modern rapid-fire editing with something consciously recalling the action cinema of China’s 1970s or 80s. There’s a memorable sequence in the film’s back half that uses an umbrella to catch a splatter of blood, and it’s one of the most effective action visuals I’ve seen in quite some time.
Hu Ge’s (1911) steady performance anchors a script that plays with linearity, but it is Gwei Lun-mei’s performance that is the true standout. The term ‘brave’ gets bandied about a bit, but the Taiwanese actor is transformed in a role that repeatedly punishes her character. There is one especially comfortable scene of a prolonged rape, for example, which feels slightly extraneous when it arrives in the final act.
THE WILD GOOSE LAKE is a film that plays with a lot of ideas, mixing them altogether in a dreamlike narrative. This sometimes results in a less than coherent structure, but the stylistic flourishes and top-notch acting will undoubtedly keep audiences keen on seeing this flipside of China.
2019 | China| DIRECTOR: Diao Yinan | WRITERS: Diao Yinan | CAST: Hu Ge, Liao Fan Gwei, Lun-mei, Wan Qian | DISTRIBUTOR: Umbrella Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 December 2019 (AUS)
