Chongqing Blues at the London Film Festival

I made a last-minute decision to see Chongqing Blues and I'm very glad that I did. I thought the film is very good and now I wonder whether all the other films I see in the festival might be cast in its shadow.

The film uses the simple story of a father trying to understand the circumstances of his son's death in a police incident to rake through the gravel of Chinese society, as the father seeks out his son's friends, girlfriend and others involved in the incident. The film has lovely cinematography centering on blues through greys to dense, black shadow and the acting is minimalist and excellent, of the 'less is more' school of acting. Only once does the father show emotion when, trying alone in his hotel room to perform a simple task using string, he suddenly loses his temper and then breaks down, weeping. For the rest of the film he seeks out people who might know something; and their responses tell us quite a lot about how things are in China.

In the course of the film, as we follow the father along alleyways, streets and through various grungy interiors, we slowly form an idea of how his son was and what were the issues in his life that led to his death, using only some CCTV footage of the incident, and some flashbacks fleshing out the accounts of the various witnesses. All this takes place in a large port city of Chongqing, and there is plenty of urban background detail to feast our eyes on. The narrative and direction are finely-judged and never put a foot wrong.

If this film is released in the UK I hope to see it again.