Director: Miu-suet Lai.
AKA: The Floating Landscape.
Language: Cantonese.
Release Year: 2003
Rating: * * * *
“Lian Zhi Feng Jing” is a strikingly beautiful film, with a straightforward subject of love, treated in an equally placid and refreshing manner. A hushed tone permeating the whole movie, the experience felt like a walk through a cloudy promenade, drowned in a serenading vista.
Maan (Kar Yan Lam) recently lost her love to a terminal disease. Originally from Hong Kong, she flies to China to visit a somewhat cloistered town of Qingdao, where her boyfriend had spent his childhood years. But the prime reason for her journey is to visit the landscape her boyfriend had sketched, which he said lingered on his mind in his last days. The boyfriend, Sam (Ekin Cheng), wasn’t quite certain if it was one of the places he frequented back in his childhood days, or just an ornate exaggeration of his imagination, to compose him in the final, dark hours of his life. Maan hasn’t quite climbed out of the shock and the immediate depression brought on by the loss, and seems unable or, at least, unwilling to get over that pain. She seems to revel in the melancholy she’s surrounded herself with. Steadfast in her intent and regardless of the verity of that landscape, Maan moves forward with her resolution and moves in with Sam’s cousin Wu (Jue Huang) for the duration of her stay in Qingdao.
She begins her search every morning, weaving through the unknown narrow alleys, up and down the slopes flanked by tenements and modest edifices, with only her boyfriend’s sketch as her guiding compass. A chance encounter with Lit (Ye Liu), the local postman, on her first day, marks as the initiating point for a close-knit relationship they’d follow it with. Lit is undoubtedly mesmerized by the lady, and her brooding and wistful demeanor. Despite not being on the same page with Maan, and her obstinance at finding that particular place, the reserved and amicable Lit gradually starts to take keen interest in scouring the land, just to calm the distressed soul of Maan.
Along their search for the landscape, both of them are drawn closer to each other. Maan, however, inhibits herself from letting these sprouting feelings materialise into something noteworthy. She’s afraid that by succumbing to her new-sprung feelings for Lit, she may be betraying and dishonoring her past love. Lit, on the other hand, is a little tired of Maan’s irrational hold on to her past, but can’t stop himself from liking her. In spite of the feelings that reciprocate, and yet, forced to contradict one another, both of them seem to find each other in a deadlock, with not enough room for a fresh start. This invisible friction tethers them to a glum reality with no repose from either’s loveless life. Such events and some foreseeable developments pave the way for a predictable, albeit, an apt climax.
Watching this silent and lovely drama uncurl itself into a beautiful slice-of-life affair, all of my senses were infused with a rare pleasure. The idyllic milieu in a perpetual overcast, and the verisimilitude of being by yourself despite being surrounded by the whole town, left me speechless and wanting for more. The minimalist use of music, coupled with celestial photography and tinges of love blossoming sporadically, lent a magical tone to this movie. The cinematography made sure that even the most crowded lanes and other establishments, didn’t clutter the space given to the two protagonists. And with ample of shots of breathtaking landscapes, and even the urban jungle so neatly and cohesively composed, it all seemed to come together to paint the final sensuous picture.
Of the two leads, Ye Liu as the pithy Lit was a treat to watch, mainly because of the wonderfully sketched part he’d got, and he didn’t let it down. Almost aware and in control of his devices, even when confronted with as debilitating situation of recognizing the love he pined for, he managed to not submit to the spur of the moment, and fall in the trappings of a corny loverboy. I reiterate, the credit goes to the script and the execution, but a fair share of that praise should be directed toward Ye Liu, for rendering these traits so faithfully. Kar Yan Lam as the despondent Maan, hopelessly clinging on to the loss, and refusing to move on and get over the traumatic past, was able to evoke admiration for her staunch intent at finding the place her lover left as a memento, and at the same time, we also find ourselves letting out a couple of smirks at her ludicrous attempts of living her life in the past, and neglecting, probably, a bright and a warm future. The scenes between these two echoed with whispers of an endearing chemistry and unuttered feelings.
The director played along well without disrupting the still flow of the movie. He handled emotionally-charged moments with delicate touch, never utilizing such sensitive moments to manipulate the viewing experience, or by using one of many corny gambits to reduce the movie into yet another silly, whimsical tearjerker. An exemplary scene would be where both the protagonists are in solitary, and it’s clearly one of the knee-weakening moments of the movie. Any other director would’ve taken the bait and used that scene to have its two characters break down into each other’s arms, and do the needful; but not this director. I was admiring the way he handled such situations, and how he just let the story take its own turn and throw up its own twists, without forcing its hand. Another scene that left its mark on me was when Wu asks Maan why she’s been copying Sam’s diary one page a day, when she could get it over with in a couple of days just as easily. Maan replies that it won’t be right, because Sam wrote one page a day when he was alive. It might sound like a bland answer to many, but to a shrewd observer, the pain and longing is palpable in that scene and in those ordinary words. It’s scenes like these and the extremely satisfying feeling of having watched something so simple yet, so incredibly moving, is why I love movies, and why I ended up liking this one, too.
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