FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

In 1987, Yu Hung begins to fulfill her dreams by going away to college at Bangkok University, leaving her boyfriend and her small town life behind. She quickly integrates herself while away, making friends with Li Ti and even finding herself a new man in Zhou Wei. They fall hard for each other, but theirs is a tumultuous relationship, mirroring the environment around them. The political landscape may be changing and protests aren’t just dividing the country, they’re inadvertently tearing apart this young love.

Director/co-writer (along with first-timers Mei Feng and Yingli Ma) Lou Ye’s last film for the next five years (he was banned by the Chinese government for exhibiting the film without approval; he has also been similarly banned for “Suzhou River”) is an interesting, yet overly long exploration of the give and take between hope and disillusionment. In this tale, the latter usually wins out. He paints a clear, subtly profound picture of not only the cultural climate of the time, but also of these specific individuals. He leaves the strokes broad enough to leave room for interpretation while at the same time building a strong enough foundation that the story and the emotions work simply from a literal base level.

I wish I could say the same about the cinematography. It’s certainly not poorly constructed or framed, but although there are some very nice shots, it’s all pretty standard. For instance, the beginning of the film all seems to have been shot to look like dusk, not only a metaphor for Yu’s current emotional state in her hometown, but also to symbolize the end of an era for her and her country. The scenes of chaos surrounding Tiananmen Square (aside from the news footage used) and other shaky moments are simply personified through an equally tumultuous camera.

While the acting didn’t wow me either, I did enjoy it more. The dialogue is at times minimal and the actors are very reserved except during the much needed emotional outbursts that are crucial to the story in order to better understand the feelings in the community from that time. But you can’t always tell what’s going through Yu’s head. Good thing she keeps a diary to help us along near the beginning. The scenes that work the best, however, are those that are set to music and dialogue can’t be heard. Once again, it’s not because the actors are bad – they aren’t, but rather because those advance the emotional thread further in a short amount of time.

Anything to shorten the film is a good thing. That is, until they reuse the same song over and over again for the last twenty minutes of the film. It runs a long 140 minutes, hampered further by the false ending halfway through. The film reaches a great stopping point, and then decides to go through a timeline that points out crucial events around the world and in their personal lives, and then it continues again in 1997. The story is equally strong, but after being led to believe it was over, you care a little less. Maybe they pumped it full of sex scenes to overcompensate a little bit.

All of these points are actually relatively minor. If anything really hurts the film to a large degree, it’s that it’s very tough to feel any sort of emotional bond with the characters. You’re able to identify with the disconnect that Yu forces upon herself and exudes so well in each scene that you can’t get attached any more than she can. She wants to break up with Zhou because she can’t leave him. You want to be invested because you’re curious to see what happens, but ultimately you wind up just as jaded as Yu.

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