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Chinese writer Yu Hua is not any stranger to Cannes. The famed postmodernist author’s work first graced the silver screens of the Palais again in 1994 with director Zhang Yimou’s masterclass adaptation of his seminal novel, “To Live.” A searing portrait of a single household’s wrestle by means of China’s mid-century upheaval and the Cultural Revolution, “To Live” would go on to win the competition’s coveted Grand Prix award, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and the Best Actor Award. Almost 20 years later, Yu Hua’s prose returns to Cannes in a special mode by means of Wei Shujun’s “Only The River Flows,” the filmmaker’s third consecutive function to premiere at Cannes since 2020. Eschewing the sweeping canvas of “To Live” for a mesmerizing, intractable noir, “Only The River Flows” facilities on a mysterious homicide in a riverside city, the lackadaisical forms surrounding the case, and the detective obsessive about fixing the killing.
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Don’t let the intimate, thriller trappings of “Only The River Flows” idiot you; it’s each bit a snapshot of China — and China’s change — as Yu Hua’s different works. Through Wei Shujun’s enigmatic lens, the movie opens as a younger boy in a Teamster’s jacket traipses by means of a dilapidated condo, solely stopping when a blown-out wall reveals the chugging of excavators, ripping aside the outdated neighborhood. It’s the 90s, Deng Xiaoping’s reforms are in full power, and the tectonic plates below Chinese society are shifting as soon as once more.
Also amidst this variation, within the metropolis of Peishui, is police detective Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong), a haggardly good-looking gumshoe tasked with fixing a current homicide: An older girl has been discovered bludgeoned to demise at a close-by river’s edge, and the first suspect is the city’s resident vagrant, recognized colloquially solely because the “madman” (Kang Chunlei). The chain of command pushes for an open-and-shut case, however Ma Zhe — as we suspect — is just too good at his job and too diligent to comb problems below the rug. What start as wrinkles within the case quickly unravel right into a darkish comedy of errors, with inexplicable connections starting to weigh closely upon the detective’s psyche. Hidden affairs and sudden confessions turn out to be irritating roadblocks, and Ma Zhe’s pursuit of the handicapped “madman” begins to bleed into his private life as his pregnant spouse (Chloe Maayan) discovers their unborn baby could or might not be born with a psychological incapacity.
When it involves “Only The River Flows,” I’m an inexpensive date: Its luxurious low-light, 16mm compositions — courtesy of DP Chengma Zhiyuan — are as grizzled as its fraying protagonist, the tinkling of Chopin is bleakly efficient because the movie’s earworm-esque homicide motif, and the riverside killings affectionately recall the elevated brummagem of Brian De Palma. Its neo-noir development, as dream-like sequences, invade Ma Zhe’s unspooling sanity, is seemingly tailor-made for lovers of thorny, inscrutable mysteries. But in the long run — maybe by design — one thing is lacking from “Only The River Flows,” its closing vacation spot of revelation perpetually out of attain, very like Ma Zhe’s elusive “madman” perp.
Zhu Yilong’s hardboiled detective makes for an interesting heart, particularly because the fissures of actuality deepen and the traces between desires and nightmares dissolve, however “Only The River Flows” has a central thriller too liminal to bridge its abundance of noir-tinged observations. A police officer on the precipice of obsession, the rippling material of political reform, the nagging specter of parental concern: it’s all barely held collectively by its languid whodunit. Better as a portrait of a small river city and its denizens’ idiosyncratic secrets and techniques, the items of the jigsaw aren’t meant to suit collectively, however “Only The River Flows” additionally falls in need of the grand, impenetrable tapestry it needs to weave. [B-]
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