Gan Bi's acclaimed second feature is a part film noir, part dreamscape love mystery that features an hour-long, single-take 3D...
Gan Bi's acclaimed second feature is a part film noir, part dreamscape love mystery that features an hour-long, single-take 3D sequence.
"The film chronicles the return of Luo Hongwu (Jue Huang) to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years before. Back for his father's funeral, Luo recalls the death of an old friend, Wild Cat, and searches for lost love Wan Qiwen (Wei Tang), who continues to haunt him. Sculpting in time and space through virtuosic technical feats, Bi's film yields successive visual and aural delights. With talismanic cues and motifs of uncanny doubling, the film is bisected — its first half recast through a vertiginous, trance-inducing, hour-long single take in 3D. A hushed, hypnotic study of hazy memory, lost time, and flight — and featuring the formidable Sylvia Chang as Wild Cat's mother — Long Day's Journey Into Night leads the viewer on a nocturnal, labyrinthine voyage, one that both reveals and conceals a world of passion and intrigue." (Toronto International Film Festival)
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Where to watch Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018)
95 %91 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
67 %166 reviewsAudience score rating
"Comes up short in substance."
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Variety
Variety"Very often, and particularly in its second half, watching it feels like dreaming with your eyes open."
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The New York Times
The New York Times"There are certain dreams that don't make much sense at the time, but leave a great sense of yearning when they're over. That's true of young Chinese director Bi Gan's remarkable second feature in more ways than one."
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Screen Daily
Screen Daily"What matters is what has already happened, even if it can't be precisely recalled, not what transpires in front of the camera. The wisp of a story is really just the occasion for impressionistic musing and evocative picturing."
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NPR
NPR"In one sublime feat of cinematic prestidigitation, Bi forges new possibilities by which movies can defy the constraints of logic and represent the unrepresentable."
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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times"A densely layered and slowly mesmerising cinematic feat."
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Hollywood Reporter
Hollywood ReporterLong Day's Journey Into Night (2018) | Details
- Rating
- 12, infrequent strong language, moderate threat, bloody images
- Runtime
- 138
- Genre
- Drama
- Country of origin
- China, France
