Suzhou River

I saw this film last night at the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema and I was mightily impressed. This film has been compared to Hitchcock's Vertigo, with good reason, but this is a highly original film. Lou Ye's film is less detached and cold than the Hitchcock, and for that reason more emotionally affecting. The choice to use POV shots for one important character, for instance, makes it easier for the viewer become attached to Meimei/Moudan, the lead female character. The actress in the dual role shows amazing emotional range. And the city of Shanghai is a place whose grit, decay and urban energy is palpable. The climax of Suzhou River is heartbreaking, and the coda leaves one with the POV character's feelings of yearning and world-wear

Although I enjoyed watching the movie, I thought sometimes if there's enough substance beneath the beautiful and sometimes poetic pictures. Thinking about this interesting movie and remembering scenes for one day - yes I think there is. The two melancholic love stories are indeed intelligently combined. Surely nothing for the typical popcorn-eaters, but highly recommended for people looking for 'real cinema'.

Lu Ye made himself infamous for the Chinese government by making dark side of China movies. And Suzhou River is no exception and we love him for it.

We follow the narrator around the Suzhou river while he is searching for a job as a photographer for a strip club. While there he falls inlove with a stripper named Mei Mei, while they are dating, another couple is dating at the same time, Mardar and Moudan, the two girls Mardar and Moudan has one thing in common, they have the same face.

This movie is ment to be a society critic movie, and why not since we are use to see a beautiful side of China some times an overdoing side. So why not show a hiding side. Even though it's difficult when we follow the eyes of the nameless narrator and never see his face but then again it's from 2000 most movies at that time were experimental which ended in 2008. But the story is intriguing and you can feel the atmosphere like you are there, 7/10.

"Suzhou River" is set in an off beat and low key Shanghai, unrecognisable as the Chinese city of bright lights. Shot from the perspective of an unseen narrator, Li Jiqian, "Suzhou He" toys wonderfully with the identity of its characters in a city filled to over flowing. Ma Da, a motor cycle courier is looking for Peony (Xun Zhou) a girl he lost years earlier. Has he found her in Meimei? Meimei asks "Am I the Peony your looking for?", half hopeful, half mocking. A pivotal moment in self awareness in a society held together for so long by conformity.

Hand held camera work, shot, it seems, mainly in natural light sets "Suzhou He" apart from many recent Chinese films released in the West, especially the beautiful, luminous films of the 'Fifth Generation' film makers so popular outside China. An interesting and arresting look at love, life and relationships of a new generation in China.

Most of this film is shot directly from the point of view of the narrator, an unseen videographer who travels the titular river recording the myriad stories played out on its banks and vessels. Even the scenes in which he is not involved could well be his thoughts of events as he recounts what he has been told by others and it is this that is initially the most striking element of Suzhou River. It makes the viewer feel much more involved in the unfolding tale, although at times the rapid cuts and shaky camera are unnecessarily disorientating.

The narrator begins to tell us about his life - his job, his girlfriend Meimei who he obsessively videos and his fascination with the people of Suzhou River. But then this takes a back seat to his recounting of one of the many tales infamous within the community, of Mardar the motorcycle courier who is relentlessly searching the city for his lost love, Mudan. Her body was never found after she threw herself into the river from a bridge when Mardar was forced into kidnapping her by his gangland boss. But then this tragic story collides with our own narrator's as Mardar is convinced that he has finally found his long lost love and that she is Meimei. Obvious comparisons have been drawn to Vertigo's plot of a man undone by his lover's suicide and determined that he has found her again.

This debut feature from Chinese director Lou Ye benefits greatly from his unconventional style which seems to make the events more tangible. He portrays the river itself as a metaphor for life, its swirling eddies and undercurrents the many stories it keeps within its deep mysterious heart, with no effect on the mass flow of life, but turning the individual lives of those involved upside down. The parts of the film dealing with the burgeoning affections of Mardar and Mudan are excellent (particularly for Zhou Xin, who plays both of the two vastly different lead female roles equally well) , however I felt the events gathered pace a little too quickly towards the end, rushing the story of the narrator and Meimei in comparison to that of Mardar and Mudan. The result of this was an ending which seemed a tad abrupt and so the empathy for the narrator was not as heightened as it might have been, even with the great device of us seeing everything through his eyes. Despite this Suzhou River is a stylishly original tale who's depth and undercurrents make it stand out from the majority of the flotsam and jetsam our video stores carry.