Film selection and commentary by film critic Aleš Stuchlý. Programme from cycle Intensities. Screening in partnership with Edison Filmhub.

Hypnotizing and romanticizing neo noir film by Gan Bi, the most talented among contemporary Chinese filmmakers, is a magic meditation on time and space and an enigmatic poem about loss and pain. The film resembles a dream woven from unreliable memory and even less reliable reality. In terms of colours, light and composition, the film is like a mesmerizing vision born from a melancholically blurred present and a past that possibly never existed. Captivating rhythm and mournful imagination of the film about a man searching for his long-lost love evokes darker and more abstract version of early films by Wong Kar-Wai and masterpieces by Andrei Tarkovsky.

The film takes the viewer to fantasy ruins of a provincial town of Kaili in the South-East of China and peaks with over 50 minute-long take-vision filmed as one unbroken long take in 3D. The Long Day’s Journey Into Night is built on mesmerizing effect and mood more than the plot and clear distribution of information but for a good reason: the less we know, the less we forget.

Aleš Stuchlý

Drama / Mystery
Director and Screenplay: Gan Bi
Dir. of Photography: David Chizallet, Hung-i Yao
Music: Giong Lim
Cast: Wei Tang, Sylvia Chang, Meng Li, Jue Huang, Yongzhong Chen, Hong-Chi Lee, Meihuizi Zeng
Producer: Zuolong Shan

Film critic and journalist Aleš Stuchlý (1981) studied film science at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University. Since 2009 he has worked in Czech Radio – Radio Wave, where he hosts the film magazine Čelisti (Jaws). In 2015 he started working for Film Europe, where he organises festivals Be2Can, Weird Europe, and Scandi. In 2017 he was a member of the jury of European Cinemas Label at the festival in Locarno, a member of the jury of both the ARAS award and the short movies’ competition at the AFO festival in Olomouc. Since 2019 he has worked as a decision-maker and speaker for the Karlovy Vary Film Festival.