Context:
British-Japanese-Dutch-German-Italian coproduction...
The Film:
- "My favorite Chen film of the decade, closer to the quiet, tragic beauty of Yellow Earth than the excesses of the later films. This, like Temptress Moon, is hard to follow at first, and assumes some knowledge of Chinese tradition and folklore. There’s also an odd restaurant surrounded by waterfalls that may or not be some metaphysical waystation between this world and the next. The plot follows an old blind musician who wanders around rural northern China, regarded as a holy man by the locals. According to some custom, if a blind musician breaks 1000 strings during his lifetime, he will be able to regain his sight. The old man has a young protégée, who occasionally rages at his blindness and wants to see. The young man falls in love with a local girl, but trouble arises with her parents. Gradually, it’s revealed that while the old man has tried to put love and the desire to see behind him, he still feels tormented by lost love and the promise that his eyesight may return, causing conflict with the young man. Throughout a mysterious figure, who resembles a statue of a God of Death in the temple where the two live, appears in crowds watching the players perform, grinning mysteriously. While the colors don’t pop as much as in Yellow Earth, there are still lots of lovely landscape shots. Appreciation of this film may depend a lot on what you make of the two big sequences where the old man sings (to stop a fight between two villages, and at the end), and your ability to accept its many ellipses that are never quite filled." [CriterionForum, 1990s list thread, Feb 2015]
References:
http://nasharit.ru/video?name=idi_i_poi_/_zhizn_na_strune_/_Life_on_a_String_/_Bian_Zou_Bian_Chang&site=vk&oid=22687267&id=159509512&hash=77673485938ddeb4
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTQ0MzY2NzY=.html
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