ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES
Yu Likwai, the celebrated cinematographer of Jia Zhang-ke (MIFF 05 filmmaker in focus), reveals his dystopian vision in the futuristic All Tomorrow's Parties, which screened in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, 2003. Set in the mid-21st century, China and the Korean Peninsula are under the totalitarian rule of the Gui Dao dynasty. Two brothers, Zhuai and Mian, are labelled dissidents and sent for re-education at Camp Prosperity. Following a military coup, they taste an uncertain freedom as they flee the camp and seek refuge in the wreckage of a post-industrial landscape. Zhuai finds companionship in a young Korean mother, Xuelan, with whom he settles in a dank, abandoned apartment, and Mian seeks the love of Lanlan, a Chinese woman in ill health. The brothers dream of Port Perspective, but theirs is a grim world in which there is little space for hope or dreams. Yu creates an extraordinarily impressive visual milieu, which will linger long after you leave the cinema. You may also find that China's not so distant past resonates in this bleak vision of the future.