People Mountain People Sea
(Ren Shan Ren Hai)

Guizhou, south-western China. Right from the first shots, this masterly second film introduces a paradoxical mixture: the immutable serenity of a mountain landscape is shaken by the soft, almost mute, violence of a murder committed with a knife, in broad daylight. The general indifference and the absurdity of the crime are conveyed through long shots, rather than the more predictable medium shots. Yet, the visual harshness, enhanced by almost burnt-out images, is only the first in a series of surprises. When Lao Tie, a peaceful local peasant, decides to take revenge on behalf of his murdered brother, the film turns into a brilliant variation on the chase motif, a fundamental feature of cinema. As he meets a friend who could help him if he was not completely destroyed by drug addiction, and then calls upon his ex-wife, beating her as if it was perfectly normal, Lao Tie gradually turns into an agent of the violence he is supposed to fight. His quest also reveals a devastated country, miserable houses where the wife survives with her second son, and the mine up north where the murderer is supposed to work. The police is corrupted, workers are crushed to death in mines, stealing is rife… Like a virtuoso, Cai Shangjun takes to further lengths the portrait of a dusty China which Wang Bing started with West of the Railroads (winner of the Montgolfière d’or award at the 2003 F3C.) Charlotte Garson