More often than not the average cinema punter is drawn to a film because of wall-to-wall publicity, attraction to a particular star, or decent reviews. Very rarely does one come across an unheralded film and going further, take a punt and find it rewarding. Recently, during the course of some research I was undertaking on contemporary Chinese cinema, I came across a film called Strangers (2017), written and directed by Bing Xu (not to be confused with acclaimed Chinese artist Xu Bing). The trailer piqued my curiosity and I decided to explore further. Much to my chagrin, I failed to find any English-language reviews. A minute examination of the film’s poster revealed that it had won a Gold Remi for best first feature at the Worldfest Houston, 2017.
The next step was to order the DVD, but a scan of my usual Asian sites did not immediately reveal the title, and I eventually found the film on a streaming service. The film follows the wife of a gunrunner and a penniless deliveryman whose lives collide after an accident. The concept of an accident triggering events in disparate lives is not new, seen in several films earlier including Amores Perros (2000) and Crash (2004), to name just two. Strangers goes beyond this concept and develops into a tense action thriller that en route is also a portrait of crowded contemporary China with its dizzying aerial highways and high-speed trains. A search for Bing Xu only threw up many mentions of Xu Bing. The only other information I could unearth about the filmmaker is a writing credit for television series The Red , a 1937 drama about the Sino-Japan conflict.
Speaking of China, veteran French filmmaker Patrice Leconte was one of the international directors invited to promote the 2008 Beijing Olympics, resulting in the enchanting short Beijing - A Film Impressionistic . Leconte’s career highlights include The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990), Ridicule (1996), The Girl on the Bridge (1999) and My Best Friend (2006). In 2014, I completely missed his Do Not Disturb and only recently caught up with it.
Based on a French play by Florian Zeller, which in turn is based on Simon Gray’s classic 1975 bleak comedy Otherwise Engaged that I had the great fortune of watching a revival of starring Richard E Grant, a decade or so ago. In the hands of Zeller and Leconte, the classic British comedy becomes a classic French farce. Christian Clavier — who you will remember from Les Visiteurs (1993) and Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1999) — plays a bumptious man who chances upon a rare American jazz record. All he wants is a free hour to listen to it. Of course he doesn’t get that. From stunning revelations from his wife, best friend, through to a large family of illegal immigrants, there is never a dull moment that afternoon. For a farce, the film has a surprisingly emotional ending. Leconte’s next is The Art of Compromise , starring the peerless Juliette Binoche. I, for one, can’t wait.
