Cities of Last Things

In a Chinese city of the future, where happiness is the creed and suicide a secular sin, a pensioner jumps to his death from a tall building. What follows are 3 episodes from his life, told in reverse order. There is the last day of his life, his time as a police officer, and his time as a wayward youth. Each earlier-in-life episode explains his actions later in life. This is interesting storytelling, slightly marred for me by not realizing that there were only 3 main time periods, and therefore trying unnecessarily to figure out if we had moved to an earlier time. From the director Q+A at the Toronto International Film Festival, the English title is inspired by the book Country of Last Things, while the Chinese title is Happiness City (Ironically, I believe).