Engulfed by a cryptic yet compelling ethos in which the larger forces of social transformation in China or expressed though the intimacy of its central characterization, Suburban Birds is a stunning debut feature from Qiu Sheng in which space and time are malleable forces used to explore the beauty, mystery, and melancholy related to the human experience and our larger relationship with the natural world. Enigmatic in that it refuses to define the events of its story in any way which gives the audience a facile sense of clarity through denouement, Suburban Birds rests at the fulcrum of introspection in which indecision and contemplation are central nodes for discovery, and the intangible nature of memory serves as a complex but vital tool for navigation. A meditative experience, the pathos of its central protagonist is richly textured, providing a expansive network of potential commentary and discourse related to sexual repression, social transformation, industrialization, and self-worth. Intimate yet expansive, aesthetically stunning, and thematically complex, Suburban Birds carries obvious similarities to other notable contemporary filmmakers from the region like Jia and Tsai yet it stands on its own, being a fantastic debut effort and precisely the type of work which reinvigorates my passion and love of the medium.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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