This enormous, sumptuous, magnificent movie is almost too much, which is not a complaint. Resurrection is one of those movies that decided to tell the story of a universe starting with a kitchen sink and then built out from there. It’s very long – 160 minutes in this edit – and those of us with only a passing knowledge of Chinese history will probably be somewhat confused by the various time skips, but who cares. This enormous, sumptuous, magnificent movie is worth every second.
It’s set in an alternate universe where people don’t dream. The opening sequence, filmed in the style of a silent film, carefully explains this dream logic, mainly in how the “fantasmer” (Jackson Yee) has the ability to be resurrected, moving forward through time to escape the woman (Shu Qi) hunting him in order to eliminate his kind. Or something like that. There is so much going on here, so many in-camera tricks, forced perspectives, ridiculous costumes and unbelievably beautiful images to power a hundred fevered blogs for a decade, but wait till the movement through time gets going. In one sequence, a soldier who has been abandoned by his unit accidentally awakens the spirit residing in an old statue, incidentally a keen smoker, by peeing on it. In another a kind of vigilante recruits a child to attempt to con a wealthy bereaved father out of some money. In another, in one of the all-time great “oners” ever put to film, a young couple caught up in some criminal trickery on the night of the new millennium decide to make an impossible escape, involving the theft of a ship and an escape timed to the breaking dawn. This shot lasts about a half an hour and its denouement was greeted with screams and cheers from the Cannes Film Festival audience. And this was nowhere close to the true ending.
Writer-director Bi Gan’s achievement here is so spectacular that it received a special prize from the festival, though the movie will apparently be re-edited (by himself) before wider release. I expect this will tighten up some of the logistics and perhaps clean up some of the plot. As things are Dong Jingsong’s roving camera and M83’s pulsing score makes you feel like you are exploring a secret museum and pulling yourself into wonderful immersive worlds around every corner. But it’s not all bewildering: the moment where the young man holds out his arm to the young woman he just met, who grins and teasingly chomps down, is as simple a depiction of people falling in love as can be imagined. The ways Resurrection uses classic film language to play with time and perception of reality is just so special it needs to be seen. Resurrection is a bathtub full of champagne. It’s too much, but sometimes too much is just right, and the overwhelming luxury is a brilliant reminder of how wonderful is the world.
This is the most breathlessly incoherent rave I have ever written, but I hope helps you feel the sensation that exited the cinema with me. I don’t care I didn’t understand half of what happened. I don’t mind I couldn’t keep the characters straight. I cannot wait to see it again and once again allow a movie to make me feel like an explorer leaping into the unknown.
Resurrection (Kuang ye shi dai) recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Cannes site for the title.
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