Resurrection

Humanity has realised that giving up dreaming leads to immortality: unlit candles last forever. Some still want to burn themselves out, living short but dazzling lives. The delusions of one such creature shake the foundations of reality, until a character who sees through the illusion steps inside to uncover the truth.

Chinese experimental film prodigy Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey into Night, 2018) was still shooting his film a month before and returned the finished cut only days before it won the Prix Spécial at Cannes. The more than two-hour spectacle takes the viewer through the five human senses, with each section told in a different cinematic language. The French electronic duo M83 provides a hypnotic soundtrack.

Film theorists noted the similarities between dreaming and watching movies a long time ago. Hardly ever has a film come this close to combining the two: Resurrection follows the logic of a fever dream, feeling both absurd and coherent at the same time. Motifs rising from the depths of film history disappear as quickly as they appear; German expressionism meets Chinese symbolism and Tarkovsky-esque poetry.

Resurrection is an ode to the seventh art, but also makes it clear there is no going back. Like the Zeitgeist, it reaches from the present all the way to Lumière, reminding us that cinema is not meant to be explained but experienced. Both the touchingly beautiful opening sequence and the director’s bravura nearly 40 minute single-take finale are among the most impressive of recent years.

Elias Jurvanen