Line of Events
A Chinese woman lives for herself in silence, celebrating the prosperous Belle Epoque with song and dance. The female lead doesn’t speak a single line of dialogue throughout the film. A meditation on love and the passing of time; a woman searches for her lost lover in the ruins of a deconstructed city, as well as her own shattered memory, the Three Gorges Dam swallows up entire cities, just as time swallows up people, women sing and dance in joy and pain, and dreams rise and sink again. Life changes, and we often don’t notice. Using mostly b-roll and clips from previous films, Zhang-ke weaves a clever and imaginative story. While I wish all the material was new and combined with a more connected story, I can’t deny that Zhang-ke has a magical and mesmerizing touch to everything he does, even his wanderings. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival.
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