Fires in the plain: a dizzying thriller
Produced by the director of Black Coal, a tortuous black film divided into two periods – 1997 and 2005 – which brilliantly tells the Chinese youth crushed by the system
This is the kind of tortuous thriller whose Chinese cinema gratifies us regularly. Produced by the filmmaker Diao Yi’nan, a master in the matter, author in particular of Black Coal And Lake with wild geesethis thriller, Ji Zhang’s first feature film, carries the seal of this parentage. Its visual power draws the contours of a world country that major economic changes at the edge of the new millennium will have confused. As for the story, its convolutions reflect a constant loss of both psychological and physical landmarks. Whoever probes with the most acuity this moment of history taken in the chaos of a reconfigured space-time is undoubtedly Jia Zhang-Ke Wild lights also echoes these Lights in the plain. This means that the present feature film has a particular incandescence in him.
The action began here in 1997 to continue in 2005. Between these two compasses, an existential vacuum. Everything here has a smell of apocalypse with the factories of factories which leave exsangues, aimless. “” You will break from your banality! We hear in the first minutes of the film. The light signed by the same chief operator as the penetrating Only The River FlowsChengma Zhiyuan, takes up this idea of detailed colors to better cover with a veil a decor that no longer breathes. A series of unexplained murders broadcast an unhealthy odor on these southern southern plains. Who ? For what ? In this interlacing of intrigue and trapped linen, a young woman marked in her flesh will be the sacrificial face of a whole society of defeated. The insidious beauty of the staging is in tune with this inntened vertigo. Strong.
By Ji Zhang. With Zhou Dongyu, Liu Haoran, Yuan Hong… Duration: 1h41. Released on July 9.
