A poet-turned-food critic who could be the contemporary Chinese version of J. Alfred Prufrock shuffles through a mid-life crisis in The Shadowless Tower (Bai Ta Zhi Guang), the latest offering from director Zhang Lu (Yanagawa). The meandering screenplay and feckless hero (played by Yanagawa actor Xin Baiqing) recall the mellow, I-give-up atmosphere that Korean director Hong Sangsoo has made so charming and oddly popular in his work, though here there is much more incident and interwoven family relations, ending the resemblance.
Though it takes most of its 2 ½ hours to get there, The Shadowless Tower does finally blossom into the winsome sketch of a man unable to commit himself to love or even gear up for the second half of his life, an attitude Zhang Lu presents without judgment or condemnation. Its bow in Berlin competition should be the prelude to more festival life, where the leisurely pacing and laid-back personality of the hero will find greater acceptance.
One constant that lights up the entire film is its unexpected setting in the heart of old Beijing, a warren of alleyways and stucco walls (recently repainted by the city, much to the characters’ surprise) and one-storey buildings. Literally towering over this labyrinth is a 13th century Buddhist stupa known as the White Pagoda. Shaped like an oversized chess pawn, it is the center of the Xicheng district and visually dominates it, though no religious significance seems to pertain to it in the film. It is more like a symbol of human insignificance. According to legend, it casts no shadow on the ground – its shadow falls in Tibet, some 2,000 miles away.
Just like China’s shadow, one might think. This political metaphor may be too much to read into the White Pagoda, were it not for the odd identification of characters later in the film as Uyghurs and Mongols, two other ethnicities who have felt the Chinese yoke of repression and forced assimilation into Han culture. Taken together, the idea of cultural diversity is subtly woven into the fabric of interrelationships in the film, along with the weight of history.
In this ancient district sized to human dimensions, affectionately lit by cinematographer Piao Songri, we find divorced 40-something dad Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing) still living in his deceased mother’s apartment. It is a modest two-room affair, and one room is rented out to an unemployed male model who is very depressed and who Gu comforts in a lovely, off-hand scene. Having abandoned writing poetry some time ago, he has become a food critic, and is shown savoring some fried entrails which the chef confides few people eat anymore. The implication is that Gu is a relic from the past, a role he seems to enjoy.
Two things happen to upset this pleasant status quo. The first is a budding romance with an edgy 25-year-old photographer who takes the lead in their would-be affair and pushes it as far as it can go, all the way to a rented attic room where they can be alone. Ouyang, the bold young woman, is impishly played in cropped hair and a youthful wardrobe by Huang Yao, who won acclaim for her role in The Crossing. To tease Gu and underline their age difference, she passes him off as her father.
This is very sensitive territory, because Gu Wentog’s father has been missing from the family since he was five. And here is the other upsetting thing that shakes up his world: his good-hearted brother-in-law (Wang Hongwei), who with Gu’s sister has taken care of his bright daughter Smiley since his divorce (it’s a complicated family), informs him that his biological father Gu Yunlai has been in touch. Not just once, but all through the years, he has ridden 300 miles on his bicycle to furtively glimpse his son and daughter and granddaughter. For the first time, perhaps sensing his days were numbered, he has left his telephone number.
Now it emerges that Gu Yunlai’s wife threw him out of the house after he was accused of molesting a woman on a bus. He was punished with a year in a labor camp and the loss of his family. This knowledge makes it even harder for Gu Wentog to reunite with the old man, though he finds it psychologically imperative to visit the seaside town where he is living and even examine the room his father lives in, while dad flies a red kite on the beach. Naturally Ouyang tags along, complicating things but also opening up an emotional pathway for the two men to talk.
By the end of all this, the viewer is hooked on the indecisive Gu Wentog and his broken family. It is as though the film started without a clear direction, but found its raison d’etre going along, scene after scene, with a lot of unvarnished emotional truth in the final moments and indeed in the final shot, which reaffirms the idea we are made out of our history.
Director, screenplay: Zhang Lu
Cast: Xin Baiqing, Huang Yao, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Nan Ji, Li Qinqin, Wang Hongwei, Wang Yiwen
Producers: Xu Jiahan, Peng Jin
Executive producer: Jianxin Huang
Cinematography: Piao Songri
Editing: Liu Xinzhu
Production design: Zheng Yican
Costume design: Bai Yun
Music: Xiao He
Sound design: Wang Ran
Production companies: Shanghai Lu Films, Beijing Nanji Film Co.
World Sales: Films Boutique
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (International competition)
In Mandarin, Cantonese
143 minutes
