The Floating Landscape
The good news is that Ekin dies about 30-seconds
into the film. The bad news is that since this is film there are lots of
opportunities for that all too often used device, the flashback. It is
not that I have flashback phobia, but its something that has to be used
carefully or it can feel almost manipulative. That was my feeling here
– there really seemed no point to the many short flashbacks other than
being able to have Ekin in the credits. I also tend not to like flashbacks
that are filmed in a different manner than the rest of the film as if the
past was in a different color than the present.
This can admittedly be utilized as a visual cue
so that the viewer immediately knows he has been thrown back to another
time, but since we know Ekin is dead my guess is that most people will
realize that we are in flashback mode when he shows up – but nevertheless
the flashbacks are filmed in a washed out otherworldly white that makes
you think you are either in heaven or a Seven-Eleven. There is actually
one flashback in which Ekin looks a bit like a frozen Popsicle in a Seven-Eleven
as he lies there dead – some of his best acting ever perhaps – and it struck
me that as he has gotten older (and as YTSL wrote me, beginning to resemble
Gigi Leung) and taken on senior statesman like status, he seems much more
willing to die in his films and I think he should be praised for this.
Other than this I have no major complaints about
what I thought was a fairly solid if rather glum drama. It is quite slow
moving (as one should expect in a film produced by Stanley Kwan) and I
have to admit to looking at the timer on a few occasions to see how far
the film had gotten, but somehow along the way almost without one noticing,
it manages to pick up some emotional weight and by the end I found myself
rather moved. Director Carol Lai (Glass Tears) once again brings her lovely
eye for design, color and framing and uses the cinematography to perfectly
capture the inner desolate mood of the film until the final colorful minutes
when the tone of the film changes. The film’s basic theme is about moving
on with your life. Though the main focus is on Karena Lam getting over
the death of her boyfriend, Ekin, the film also touches on a man still
in love with his ex-wife and an elderly woman who has lost her husband
of many years. The message is simple enough – go through your needed grief
and pain but don’t get stuck in it like an insect in sap.
Right before dying Ekin sketches out a landscape
of a tree set against the background of a mountain and tells Karena that
this image from his childhood has been invading his thoughts but he can’t
remember where it was. After he goes to that special place where only Idols
reside, a disconsolate suicidal Karena feels the need to find the location
of the sketch and to see it as Ekin did. She travels to his hometown, Qingdao
in China, and stays with one of his relatives, Tung (Su Jin) and begins
to look for the landscape. In her search through the streets of this old
town (hmmm – think mountain – not many of those in the middle of a city),
she
strikes a friendship with the young postman Lit (Liu Ye – Lan Yu) and as
he tells her “who better than a postman to find this place”. As this friendship
deepens Lit worries that she will never get over Ekin and Karena feels
horrible guilt that she is slowly beginning to forget her dead lover and
care about another man. Once she finds the spot though, she knows that
it will be her time to leave and not look back.
The film is based on the writings of Jimmy Liao
who’s work was also the source of the recent Turn Left, Turn Right starring
Gigi Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro and like that one it is a quasi-romance
in which the characters almost don’t connect and fate has to come in and
lend a hand. It is a darker and more morose work than TLTR was though with
little humor. In fact when Karena breaks into an ear-to-ear smile at one
point it is as if the sun finally came out. This is a splendid performance
from her – her best yet - never allowing herself to spill over into melodrama
or hysterics; all her emotions are contained and yet very visible and painful
to the touch – very much following through on the promise she showed in
July Rhapsody and Inner Senses but I felt was missing in Tiramisu, Heroic
Duo and Truth or Dare. She also sings the theme song which I thought sounded
very good.
My rating for this film: 7.0