Lou Ye: Cannes Film ‘An Unfinished Film’ Still Needs Completion

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Chinese auteur director Lou Ye kept his visit to Xining and the First International Film Festival short, returning to Beijing immediately after completing his mentorship duties. But his name still sparked cheers from festival audiences.

Lou remains a hero to many young and aspiring filmmakers, particularly those involved with the First International Film Festival. He has earned respect for his films like “Suzhou River,” “Spring Fever,” and “Saturday Fiction,” which have graced international festival circuits. His five-year ban from filmmaking, a result of his decision to defy China’s censors with the romantic drama “Summer Palace,” further solidified his reputation. Lou is also known for his daring and relentless focus on social dynamics.

His latest work, “An Unfinished Film,” premiered at Cannes and might provoke another reprimand from officials. It fits Lou’s mold of exploring social themes, although its origin is quite different. Initially conceived in 2019, the film aimed to repurpose unused footage from Lou’s previous works starring Qin Hao. However, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Lou to reconfigure the entire project. The new version tells the story of a group of filmmakers in lockdown, trying to stay in touch with their separated families.

The film features many scenes of video phone calls between the characters and their families, which posed a unique challenge. Lou explained, “The film screen is horizontally wide, while the phone’s screen is the opposite. You could say that the phone screen’s format is ‘anti-film.’ But the phone screen is the [dominant] modern screen. How can we exclude today’s screen from our movies? It’s unthinkable.”

Instead of taking a “screenlife” approach, where an entire film is created within a computer, Lou opted to reconstruct real dialogue and had actors voice the lines. He acknowledged the difficulty of this approach but believed it worked for this particular project.

“[The phone screen] doesn’t make for a free and relaxing environment, but rather a restrained and tense one. The quarantines and lockdowns that took place during the pandemic, they all speak a very restrained language,” Lou noted.

Lou also confirmed that “An Unfinished Film” is indeed not completed. Whether this means a recut or a sequel is yet to be determined. He only mentioned that it is a “very personal project” that he will continue to work on.

Lou is also far along on another movie, tentatively titled “Three Words” or “Re-TROS After the Applause Nan Jing Documentary.”
Source: Variety