As the year is preparing to draw it's curtains, i'm delighted to share another surprise find of 2021 after 'Neptune Frost' and 'Ninjababy.'
This one's a weird road movie full of Lynchian atmosphere. I remember when i watched Adilkhan Yerzhanov's Yellow Cat (2020) and it impressed me so much. It is the same feeling for Bipolar (2021), a strange soul-searching cross-Chinese road movie with Leah Dou (daughter of musicians Dou Wei and Faye Wong) in a narrative that is based on Orpheus myth, real-life experiences, Tibetan folklore and Gosha Wen's Hasting Express.
The film begins with a quote and it couldn't have been summed up better. It is followed by a telephone ring and we are introduced to a young woman (Leah Dou) in a phone booth, covered in dust, fingerprints, broken glass and decaying paint. There is a mixed emotion in the inaudible conversation. At first, she burst into giggles and the 2nd call brings tremors. Then it cuts to a fantastic monochrome shot in a swimming pool as the isolation and claustrophobia takes its toll and the title card appears. She lands in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa for a spiritual awakening and to forget her bad past. We then meet the 'Sacred Rainbow Lobster' trapped in a tank to draw in visitors. The hostess tells everyone to take a closer look, click a picture as the lobster has special power to heal people from their pain. The sacred rainbow lobster and the mob gathering reminded me of the dead whale in Béla Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies". The lobster as a delicacy to a rich businessman draws the attention of the protagonist. After sometime, however, an accident occurs, call it a personal encounter with the large marine crustacean and there's a shift to saturated psychedelic colour sequence with an amazing song (Happy Jack) by Dick Waiter. She then cancels her pilgrimage and starts a journey together with the stolen lobster, a trip of "self-discovery" "liberation". Her main motive of the trip is to free the lobster, returning it to the ocean and it's in the vicinity of Ming Island Lighthouse. The plot progresses weirdly in the sense that the destination to another and the water is captured by arthouse aesthetics. The water plays as a metaphor to combine dreams, unconscious mind and reality marked by grief and emotional distance. These are all combined into one of the strangest and weird doesn't even begin to describe the journey and the staccato of weird scenes. Director Queena Li lines up a tableau of the most varied of characters including a cameo by Khyentse Norbu as a wig seller. Everything we see on the screen takes place as if in a strange dream, which often shifts from past to present. We're also shown flashbacks of the protagonist as the androgynous singer-songwriter and i loved every minute of it. The multithreading and multiplicity of characters make it interesting and complex at the same time and the weirdness doesn't stop there.
The same applies to the score, it transcends all logic for a road movie format and the soundtrack leans more on an unorthodox approach. That climax sequence dance had me smiling with Cobra Man's Weekend special in the background followed by the closing with Tadi and DJKR's 'Seven Diamond Lines'.
Final thoughts, this is a weird journey supported by its own laws, and every viewer after the ending will have mixed feelings. However, I believe Queena Li's vision must be appreciated in making this trip which works as a spell and doesn't let go regardless of the outcome.
