A film by Cai Shangjun
With: Xin Zhilei, Zhang Songwen, William Feng
Ex-lovers reunite years later, burdened by past regrets and sacrifices. Their meeting stirs old feelings and pain until they finally embrace, crying, before parting ways again.
Our rate: **
A film that relies heavily on its dramatic storyline, which is somewhat unpredictable in its development. Its structure is reminiscent of the Dardenne brothers’ approach to raising awareness and stirring emotions, but the dramatization is obvious and, as a result, loses some of its intensity. The false rubs shoulders with the true. The story itself, rather than providing answers to the little mysteries (narrative devices) it scatters here and there, surprises us somewhat with its twists and turns, and in this respect, like The Stranger, seems to pose questions to the viewer. The film thus explores feelings as diverse as guilt, pity, love, and motherhood, placing them in a resolutely contemporary context (self-commodification is a recurring motif, reminding us where modern society is pushing and dragging its contemporaries). The relatively flat staging, apart from a few well-orchestrated face-to-face encounters and glances through frames, does not allow the narrative to go beyond what it is: a story that, as we said, we do not really believe in, whether it be the stage IV cancer with its rarely shown symptoms and disabilities, the heroine’s break with her married life, led until now by fear and pity, whose trigger raises questions (a rape), as did the founding act that led to the initial breakup, and as will her final decision (and what makes it possible, as it seems so contrived and fictional). This young woman makes strange decisions, in an almost masochistic approach. she flees the man who showed her love by paying for the mistake she made, in a spirit of sacrifice, she will help him out of pity in the face of his impending death, and will even consider rebuilding her life with him, again in a spirit of sacrifice, which arises in her after he has committed the irreparable, transforming him from victim to executioner. This relatively interesting reflection on the relationship between executioner and victim could have taken the film in a more universal direction, but it clearly chooses, in terms of form, to remain close to its story and narrative rather than seeking a resonance or depth that would probably have gripped us more than this simple emotional register, which is ultimately ordinary.