In one of the most memorable scenes in Night Falls, a young man is on his way back to his village when he walks into an empty old temple somewhere on the sparsely populated plains of northern China. He burns some incense, prays and rings the bell; when a stony-faced monk appears, the man gestures that he’d like to make an offering. Stoically, the monk reaches into his robe… and pulls out a laminated card with a QR code on it.
For any other filmmaker, this scene would have purely comic value. But for director Jian Haodong, subversiveness lies in defying audience expectations, particularly regarding the homecomings of prodigal sons and daughters. Night Falls refuses to portray those left behind in rural backwaters as country bumpkins stuck in another age. As the film proceeds, its protagonist witnesses how country folk are as savvy about the world as he is, just as attached to their smartphones and to scheming about modern ways to break out of poverty.
Rather than offering a rustic reimagining of provincial China, Jian’s directorial debut – which won the top prize at the Pingyao International Film Festival and contended for the Young Cinema Firebird awards in Hong Kong – provides a very authentic glimpse of what life is like in the country’s rural hinterlands. The first-time filmmaker scrupulously refuses to exoticize the inhabitants for cosmopolitan consumption, which would be the ultimate act of betrayal to his kin. Instead he directs a semi-autobiographical road movie set in and around his own ancestral village in the western reaches of Shanxi province, with supporting roles largely filled by his childhood friends and relatives. The result is a genuinely moving eulogy looking back at his past, from a present that’s whirling by him at the speed of light.
Unfolding like a stripped-down version of a Jia Zhangke movie (like Jian, he grew up in a small town in Shanxi), Night Falls is a powerful portrait of a young man seeking to reconcile himself with the decisions he made and the people he abandoned as he fled to Beijing’s bright lights. With the protagonist becoming increasingly confused on his way home and discovering hardly any convenient closure for his tortured soul, Jian’s film is as emotionally charged as it is visually impressive. This is an achievement in itself for someone who hails from a family of miners and who studied mining technology in college and spent more than a year toiling in underground coal faces to save enough money for his cinematic calling.
Based on the tribulations of his own life at the onset of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Night Falls revolves around a day in the life of Liang Zhe (played by Liang Ji), a 30-year-old man on his way home to attend his grandfather’s funeral. His life is a mess: his budding career as a filmmaker in Beijing lies largely in tatters and his possessions have just been thrown out of his studio by his landlord. As he makes his way to his village in a protracted journey on a smoke-filled coach, a dust-covered lorry, a small van and finally a motorcycle, his anguish is heightened by the casual remarks of people around him about the fame and fortune he must have acquired in the capital.
Rather than lording it over his rural relatives and friends, he learns how things have changed back home. Elders talk about youngsters getting their master’s degree or relocating to work abroad; a young passenger with whom Liang strikes up a conversation – which he interprets as a chance at romance – gets into a swanky limo he’ll never able to afford. While a driver delivers a well-informed takedown on the flaws of an Audi, he mentions a once-unemployed middle-aged friend who’s now living high as an online product marketer.
Amidst this cacophony of sights and yarns about the might of the market economy, Liang also meets old friends who inform him about departures and deaths among them. His most engaging encounter is with the local barber Haipeng (Zou Fei). As Liang sits down to have his hair washed and trimmed, their past as high-school sweethearts is slowly and subtly revealed. Here, Jian is superb in teasing frisson and frustration from the pair’s awkwardness towards each other as they move about in her cramped shop, their chaste and regretful yearnings oozing out of a painful past.
By the time Liang hops on the back of his father’s motorcycle for the last leg of his journey, Jian has clearly conveyed his character’s personality and traumas. As he speeds down those wintry, tumbleweed-filled country paths to his final destination, one can’t help but identify with Liang’s sorrow from afar, feelings cinematographer Xu Ranjun evokes through a rugged visual palette of browns, greens and greys. Zhang Yichin’s score and Li Qiyan’s sound design are just as successful in creating a physical landscape which is at once alien and captivating for an urban audience watching from afar. Night Falls heralds a new chapter in the making for an promisingly observant and humane cineaste.
Director, screenwriter, producer, editor: Jian Haodong
Cast: Liang Ji, Zou Fei
Executive producers: Yang Jun, Li Jiabing, Jian Haodong
Cinematography: Xu Ranjun
Music: Zhang Yichin
Sound designer: Li Qiyan
Production companies: Facing the Sea (Hainan), Magic Media (Beijing)
Venue: Hong Kong International Film Festival (Firebird Awards, Chinese-language Cinema)
In Mandarin (Shanxi dialect)
93 minutes
