Screens — Long Day’s Journey into Night, Shoplifters, Bulbbul
By Adolfo Aranjuez
Long Day’s Journey into Night
Bi Gan, 2018 // 138 mins // Stan
There are films that stay with you well after the last end-credit has left the screen; Long Day’s Journey into Night, Chinese director Bi Gan’s hypnotic, widely acclaimed sophomore feature, is one such work. On first inspection, it bears all the hallmarks of straightforward noir: a woman, a search, shady characters, a troubled male protag who doubles as narrator. Indeed, the ‘storyline’ (if it can even be called this) centres on drifter Luo Hongwu, who is consumed by his desire to locate Wang Qiwen, a mysterious woman he met by chance and had fallen in love with some years prior. That love affair, shown in flashback, could itself have been fodder for a standalone piece: Qiwen was, in truth, the paramour of a local crime boss, and she and Luo had been trysting while the mobster was away. But Long Day’s Journey ultimately subverts generic expectation, revealing itself to be a cinematographic masterpiece (with shades of Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Wong Kar Wai) and a profound meditation on memory, time and the vagaries of both.
Dreaming is a central concern of the film, and its visuals, at once garish and phantasmagorical, betray this preoccupation—acidic, neon-lit night-time scenes are especially memorable. The ‘narrative’ also unfolds slowly, almost hesitantly, akin to the meandering motions of a sleepwalker. Like dreams, Long Day’s Journey is made up of moments, and the transitional logic from one to the next isn’t always clear. When the film hits its final hour, we even witness a disruption that simultaneously chimes with and challenges everything we’ve just seen. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will note that this second half consists of a single unbroken take—a feat of expert camerawork, not to mention a masterclass in direction and acting, if there ever was one.
‘The difference between film and memory is that films are always false,’ broods Luo at some point. Whether our hero does end up reuniting with his beloved (and whether any or none of this happened at all, where Luo’s world is concerned) is something that Bi and Long Day’s Journey keep abstruse. The reward of this somnambulant piece is not the relief of narrative clarity, but rather—through its vibrant shots, shrewd musings and a soundtrack that pairs tension with temptation—the absorbing, dizzying experience.
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Shoplifters
Hirokazu Koreeda, 2018 // 116 mins // SBS on Demand
Japanese auteur Hirokazu Koreeda is renowned for his naturalistic dramas that explore family, morality and human ties, and 2018 Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters is perhaps the culmination of this decade-plus of filmmaking. In the past, his stories have contemplated more ‘obvious’ subject matter—parentage, attachment, grief, reconciliation—but Koreeda’s thirteenth fiction feature raises questions of a more intricate nature: What constitutes a meaningful familial bond? Does capitalism engender connections founded more on utility than empathy? What ethical lines can be crossed in the interest of survival, and of avoiding hurt? And who is responsible for those whom society has offered no safety net?
Shoplifters introduces us to a group of outsiders who have coalesced into a makeshift family: a father- and mother-figure, an ‘older sister’, a ‘grandmother’ and a ‘son’. Each of them contributes, in some small way, to ensuring that there’s food on the table, whether that involve legitimate (but underpaying) jobs, deceptions that prompt handouts or, as the film’s title suggests, petty crime. One day, a new member is inducted into the adoptive unit: a young ‘daughter’ whose biological parents have subjected her to abuse and all but forgotten her after she disappears. As she gets to know each member of her new ‘family’, we learn how their grifting, difficult existence—the film makes plain that they live in near-poverty—is nevertheless filled with tenderness. Alongside scenes of schemes cunningly pulled off are compassionate interactions while lying on the floor, conversing about hopes or visiting the beach.
Things, of course, inevitably come to a head after mistrust develops and the foundations of bonds built on lies begin to crumble. Abandonment—by kin, by state, by each other, through death—emerges as an implacable weight-on-the-chest, catalysing a series of relationship breakdowns and, for some, societal repercussions. By film’s end, with the ‘family’ dispersed, we’re reminded that, while blood and water may fuel interpersonal ties, both can lose their potency in the face of neglect or self-protection.
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Bulbbul
Anvita Dutt, 2019 // 94 mins // Netflix
And so we go from the daze of dreamlike memory, to the sobering revelations of realism, to the miasma of an unforgettable nightmare. The directorial debut of Indian screenwriter and lyricist Anvita Dutt embodies a refreshing turn for Bollywood, blending the Gothic with Hindu mythology to create an engrossing horror work that comments on misogyny, abuse and women’s ownership over their bodies.
Bulbbul opens with the titular character on her wedding day. Scarcely old enough to understand what is going on, she is a child bride betrothed to a local aristocrat who lives with his twin brother, sister-in-law and a younger brother; it’s with the last of these that Bulbbul forms the most significant relationship, owing to their similarity in age. A time jump then introduces us to Bulbbul in adulthood, now the matron of her household, but the plot proceeds (at first mysteriously) in two alternating timelines; in the background, we learn of a chudail (‘demon woman’) terrorising men in the area. Before long, the predictable pieces of this narrative jigsaw become clear—jealous husband; acts of abuse; the silence demanded by protocol; victimised, vengeful woman—and, indeed, the use of the supernatural as an outlet for the suppressed is one of the genre’s oldest tropes, clueing us into the events that are sure to come next.
What does make the film stand out are more tangible things: its expressionist aesthetic (the red wash used to link the demonic with the abject and the ‘monstrous feminine’); its sumptuous costumes and set designs; the hypnotic performance of lead Tripti Dimri; the subtle but acerbic jabs at colonisation (the story is set in nineteenth-century Bengal), tradition and misdirected belief. Strengthening these are the film’s polemical bravery and its unflinching focus on our (anti)heroine’s perspective, which ensure that our attention remains held when desensitising familiarity threatens to waver it. Like many a wronged woman in Gothic revenge-horror, Bulbbul succeeds in doling out some just deserts—and, in Dutt’s hands, this gives us a satisfying, clean conclusion, despite all of the bloodshed.