The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“A ghost story that’s shot as though it were a documentary—and a documentary that feels like a dream.”

J. Hoberman, Village Voice

The so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers surfaced in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre, harnessing cheap equipment and guerrilla techniques to capture state-unapproved aspects of life under government crackdown. Lou Ye, among the most controversial of the cohort, achieved acclaim abroad—and a two-year ban from filmmaking at home—for his sophomore feature Suzhou River, suppressed in China after its unauthorized Rotterdam premiere. A Vertigo-esque tale of romantic obsession and criminality, the film is told largely, perhaps exclusively, from the vantage of an unseen and unnamed Shanghai videographer whose relationship with a nightclub performer (Zhou Xun) unfurls a backstory involving a courier (Jia Hongsheng), a kidnapping, and a disappeared girl (also Zhou). Mermaid myths and doppelgangery add intrigue to the noir-steeped proceedings, but it’s the director’s ingenious camerawork, which vacillates between protagonist POV and third-person observer, that truly elevates the work’s beguiling mysteries. This 2022 restoration, supervised by Lou, retains the film’s integral lo-fi aesthetic.

In Mandarin with English subtitles

“It’s hard not to be swept up by the strong current of Suzhou River: a seductive and atmospheric conundrum that works pleasingly as an exercise in storytelling.”

Lizzie Francke, Sight and Sound

“As much about style as about love, Suzhou River echoes a lot of films, from the Hong Kong style of Wong Kar-Wai to Kieslowski’s The Double Life of Veronique, but the sum total is something with a freshness of its own.”

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times