The
Yangtze is the river of rivers. It probably facilitates more commercial traffic
than the Mississippi and definitely carries more ancient baggage than the Nile.
Gao Chun also has his share of both. His slightly dubious delivery up-river
will take a massively allegorical turn in Yang Chao’s beautiful but obscure Crosscurrent (trailer here), which had its American premiere as the opening night film of
Luminosity, MoMA’s retrospective
tribute to cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-Bing.
They
say sailors have girl in every port, but Chun has the same mysterious woman at
every stop along the way from Shanghai to Yibin. He has inherited his captaincy
from his late father as well as the shadowy client, whose undisclosed cargo
Chun is delivering. In accordance with tradition, he also carrying a black
carp, whose death should signal the end of Chun’s morning period. However, he
will get understandably sidetracked by An Lu.
Sometime
she appears as a prostitute. Other times she is a Buddhist Stylite of sorts.
Yet it is always unmistakably her—and their connection remains highly potent. Guided
by a mysterious book of poetry discovered on-board his inherited river barge, Chun
seeks out further encounters, at the expense of his time table.
Evidently,
Gao Chun and An Lu are traveling up and down different temporal streams of the
same river. That means she is getting younger as he is getting older.
Fortunately, the narrator pretty much tells the audience this straight out,
because you would not glean it from looking at the actors.
Lee
won the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale for his cinematography—and it is pretty
clear why. Visually, Crosscurrent is
a masterwork of light and color. He frames some awe-inspiring river vistas, yet
also gives the film an indescribably uncanny look. However, Yang’s maddeningly
diffuse screenplay is not likely to rack up a lot of awards. Granted, Crosscurrent is supposed to be
meditative, but at times it is better described as slack.
Still,
there is a there in there, somewhere under all crushing symbolism. Nor can you
fault Yang’s ambition, when he stages a struggle between the sacred and the
profane, which culminates on the Tibetan Plateau. The symbolism is heavy, but
rather spot-on when the massive Three Gorges Dam becomes the man-made behemoth
that cleaves the two lovers apart. Despite Yang’s unsubtle portents and Lee’s
overwhelming visuals, Qin Hao and Xin Zhilei develop some smolderingly
mysterious chemistry together. Most folks would also take detours to renew
their acquaintance.
