All Tomorrow's Parties Movie Review:


This surreal futuristic drama from China is so dreamlike that it both fascinates and alienates in equal measure. Set in 2050 after some sort of apocalyptic revolution, there's a fanatical religious sect running the continent with the same ruthless control as the Maoists. The story centres on brothers Zhuai and Mian (Diao and Zhao) and single mother Xuelan (Cho), who are all sent to Camp Prosperity for "reeducation" so they will think like everyone else. When the sect is suddenly toppled these three people, along with Xuelan's young son, are thrown out into the wasteland of what's left of Asia. As they migrate to a deserted city, they try to rediscover freedom to the point where Zhuai and Xuelan find a vacant flat to live in as a normal couple. If only.

Writer-director Yu captures the desolated Chinese landscape beautifully--the film's washed-out/shadowy look is reminiscent of 1970s sci-fi classics like Mad Max, THX-1138 and A Boy and His Dog. He also cleverly builds the eerie atmosphere with a real sense of disorientation and longing for both order and compassion. But this muted, low-key approach also makes it hard for us to go along with it, as do otherworldly sequences and a maddeningly loose approach to narrative and characterisation. Who people are or what's going on is anyone's guess! Sure, the long takes, underwritten script and subtle approach are elegant and clever, but there's so little for us to grasp that we just drift along bewildered by what's on-screen. It only springs to life during brief moments of humour or romance, such as when Zhuai and Xuelan playfully sniff each others' perfume in a sweet and sexy mating dance, or a fantasy sequence involving a room full of screaming girls. And ultimately it's well worth seeing for its glimpse of hope in the hearts of the very last dregs of human society.

Rich Cline

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