Suzhou River

Director: Ye Lou

2000 / 83min / DCP

Taking its name from the polluted river that flows through Shanghai, director Lou’s hometown, the brooding Suzhou River uses the singular first-person perspective of its unseen videographer-narrator to explore the grubby underbelly of the city, observing the story of an unsuspecting motorcycle courier who finds himself snared in a kidnapping plot and murder rap. A seductive, intricately structured stylistic coup from the sixth generation filmmaker, drawing on influences from film noir to Vertigo while developing its own idiosyncratic and haunting visual vocabulary