‘My Friend An Delie’: Tokyo Review

Dir: Dong Zijian. China. 2024. 111mins

The loss of life of a father opens a door to the previous on this brooding drama from actor-turned-director Dong Zijian, who appeared in Jia Zhang-ke’s Mountains Might Depart and Ash Is Purest White, and likewise takes the title position right here. Travelling again to his hometown in northeastern China, Li Mo (Liu Haoran) spots a childhood good friend, An Delie (Dong) – however An Delie claims to not recognise him. As the 2 males journey collectively via the snowbound wilderness, recollections of their childhood friendship begin to coalesce. Tailored from a novel by Shuang Xuetao, that is an completed first characteristic which, whereas it may deal with tightening up in locations, potently evokes the uncanny no man’s land of grief.

 A top quality manufacturing throughout the board

My Buddy An Delie shares a story system, if not the lightness of contact and humour, with Joanna Hogg’s The Everlasting Daughter. However in contrast to Hogg’s single-location exploration of the painful processing of a loss of life, Zijian’s image depends closely on flashbacks to the shared college days that hyperlink the 2 travellers. It’s a mixture that feels just a little unwieldy, with the college sequences a extra standard aspect that undermines the uneasy oddness of the present-day sequences, which unfold in an icily purgatorial backwater.

Nonetheless, it is a high quality manufacturing throughout the board – the good-looking cinematography, by Pema Tseden collaborator Lu Songye, is a specific stand out. The movie must be an attention-grabbing proposition going ahead, each domestically and at additional festivals.

There’s a way of disquiet to the movie even earlier than Li Mo embarks on his journey to reconnect together with his previous. A sinuous monitoring shot reveals him working within the night, an eerie pink mild within the evening sky and the sensation of absolute stillness that comes earlier than a storm. The rating – one other high quality aspect – combines a couple of questioning woodwind notes with one thing inexorable, virtually mechanical, offering a rhythm as Li Mo jogs. Little or no occurs within the scene, and but there’s a transparent skin-prickling sensation of one thing amiss.

The darkness seeps into one other key sequence, the evening flight again to Shenyang. The cabin lights are dimmed and the faces of the 2 characters are framed in velvety shadows. Li Mo approaches An Delie, however not solely does his former good friend not recognise him, he begins to cry. They lastly set up that they’re travelling to the identical funeral, that of Li Mo’s father. “I’ve a good friend known as Li Mo,” says An Delie, “However you aren’t him.” When a snowstorm closes their vacation spot airport and they’re diverted to another, the 2 males determine to journey collectively in a overwhelmed up rental automobile into the smooth, unhappy blue mild of the winter.

The flashbacks are a placing tonal distinction, with a glance that feels virtually nostalgic in tone. There’s a honeyed heat to the color palette and – because the friendship between the 2 schoolboys is cast over a shared love of soccer – a weak spot for generic childhood idyll signifiers like pictures of frolicking children in fields of swishing grasses. There are, nevertheless, additionally hints of shared struggling that unites the 2 youngsters. Li Mo’s browbeaten and dissatisfied mom leaves her husband and son to begin a brand new life. And An Delie lives with a father he despises, and has a mottled accumulation of bruises to indicate for it.

The extra that we see of the previous, the extra we start to grasp how a lot Li Mo has blocked from his reminiscence. And seeds of doubt concerning the current day scenes begin to take root. 

A late evening meal in abandoned resort restaurant is framed with shrine-like symmetry. For a quick second, plainly An Delie remembers his good friend in any case, in addition to different particulars from their childhood. “You keep in mind a lot from again then. I’ve forgotten most of them,” says Li Mo over pictures of spirits. “That’s good,” says An Delie, his face as soon as once more framed in darkness.”Forgetting is nice. Overlook every thing.”