"Suzhou River" (2000)

It’s impossible to think of Suzhou River without thinking of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Writer-Director Lou Ye is clearly loosely borrowing the basic narrative and thematic predilections of Vertigo, as well as a handful from Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Low-level gangster Mardar (Jia Hongsheng) falls for Moudan (Zhou Xun), a woman he’s assigned to watch over but ends up falling in love with in the process.  However, things go sour in their relationship and Moudan jumps off a bridge, presumably to her death. But when her body is never found, Mardar presumes that Moudan is still alive and searches for her. When he meets MeiMei, a woman who looks uncannily like his former lover, Mardar assumes that she must be the same woman, or, at least, that he can convince her to adopt the same image. The story is told by MeiMei’s lover, a videographer who seems more infatuated by the images and idea of his girlfriend than the real thing. While Hitchcock’s interest was more in desire and obsession, which is still present here, Ye is more concerned with love. Why do we ask, demand even, so much from our relationships?  Why do we ask people to be something they aren’t?  Ye, like Hitchcock, is interested in surfaces: the ways images manipulate us and how we use appearances to mask our true selves and influence other.  In Suzhou River, love and obsession are a blur, feeding into volatility and passion. Ye forgoes the calculated exterior narrative of Hitchcock to focus on the untapped, raw emotional core interior. It’s ultimately messier but it glimmers with a the riveting force of its character's passions and cinematographer Wang Yu's alluring imagery. 

Grade: B