Chinese Director Bi Gan Breaks Down His Film ‘Resurrection’

Some filmmakers speak with great ease about the intentions behind their work. Others find it torturous, believing that the expression on the screen is their fullest and truest form of communication. It’s no surprise that Chinese auteur Bi Gan is very much in the latter category.

Since his debut with Kaili Blues (2015), which announced him as one of the most distinctive voices in global art cinema, the 35-year-old director has carved out a reputation for mesmerizing visual innovation and narrative ambiguity. With his acclaimed sophomore feature, Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018), he deepened his exploration of memory, longing and cinematic form, employing a show-stopping hour-long, single-take shot in 3D that astonished audiences worldwide — a sequence so allusively hypnotic that attempting to describe the experience of it was like trying to convey the enveloping essence of a dream.

At the recent Cannes Film Festival, Bi returned to the Croisette with Resurrection, his most conceptually ambitious film to date. Structured around six chapters, each dedicated to one of the senses — vision, sound, taste, smell, touch and mind — the film is at once a sensory odyssey and a meditation on cinema itself. Starring transmogrifying Jackson Yee and a radiant Shu Qi, Resurrection tells the story of a spectral entity known as the Phantasm, journeying across time through various cinematic styles, from silent film to film noir to the recent present, towards an inevitable existential effervescence. Poignant visual metaphors for mortality and the transitory power of the cinematic image abound.

As THR‘s critic put it in Cannes in a rave: “Reflecting on the seventh art’s past, present and possible future at a moment when many believe it to be in its death throes, Bi Gan has crafted a time-tripping, genre-jumping paean to the big screen in which he revives the films he loves and then buries them a second time over — hoping, perhaps, to resurrect cinema in the process.”

Bi was awarded a “special prize” by Juliette Binoche’s jury in Cannes. Janus Films then snapped up North American rights and plans to release Ressurection in U.S. theaters later this year. The film is also expected to hit screens at home in China sometime in the months ahead. The Hollywood Reporter recently connected with Bi over Zoom to torture him with direct questions about his artistic intentions.

What were the creative origins of this project?

The inspiration came to me after I finished Long Day’s Journey Into Night. I’ve always been interested in the notion of human destiny, and that curiosity evolved into the creation of the Phantasm, the monster in this new movie.

How does your development process proceed? The ideas behind your films are so closely intertwined with their cinematic expression. Do you write in images? Do you end up improvising a lot throughout the filmmaking process? 

I write everywhere. I spend time in different cities, but mainly Beijing and Guangzhou. As for how I write — yes, I do write in images. When I came up with the structure for this movie, I divided it into six chapters, each representing one of the senses. The six chapters span from the early 20th century to today, and each reflects a cinematic style from its time. For example, when I wrote the first chapter, I envisioned a silent movie in my mind. The core of the film is about a cinema monster, a Phantasm, that journeys through time. Each chapter is centered on a different sense — vision, sound, taste, smell, touch, and mind — and each is filmed in a style that matches a cinematic era. The second is film noir; the third shows the monster’s transformation; the fourth tells a specific story, and the fifth is about the end of the world. The first chapter is silent and about sight, the second is about sound, and so on. As the Phantasm loses each sense, it moves closer to disappearing from the world. In the beginning, I didn’t think of the Phantasm as a cinema monster. But as I developed the story, I realized it had to be one. Its journey through different film styles made that inevitable. That’s some of how it developed. 

Your use of long takes and hypnotic camera movement has become a signature. There’s a proliferation of cinematic technique in this one, but we have to wait a while before your unique, Tarkovsky-esque vibe fully sets in.

At first, I didn’t plan to use long takes again. But in the chapter about touch, I returned to them — it felt more natural, and the filming process went smoother as soon as I went back to it. But like I said, each chapter uses a different visual style suited to the cinematic era it reflects, so there are many formal styles in this one. 

Your cinema often resists clear interpretation. Do you think of your movies as puzzles to be solved or more like experiences to be felt?

I don’t think there’s a specific interpretation for my films. That’s why I find interviews so difficult. I don’t know what more I can add to make the film clearer. When Kaili Blues came out in 2015, I used to make jokes about my films during interviews — but I realized I was just misleading people. Ten years later, I feel the movie should speak for itself. What I want is to give audiences a pathway — hopefully one they enjoy.

Okay, I’ll tell you some things I felt while watching Resurrection… The world is broken, life is short. An aching sense of mortality, but also wonder in fleeting sensory experience and the mystery of existence — and that these hard-to-articulate feelings are the essence of cinema. I can understand your plight though. It does feel so much less luminous when you try to put it in words.

[Laughs.] Well, that’s a fine interpretation. I’ll be very happy if other viewers feel something similar when they watch it.

Do you have a favorite chapter of the film?

I like all of them because they have to exist in sequence — they’re interconnected. In the last chapter, the actress performs a ritual for the Phantasm. It’s similar to a traditional funeral rite in China. That chapter is about the mind, and by that point, the Phantasm has lost all its other senses. As I was filming, I kept wondering what the Phantasm would become. Ultimately, I realized it had to return to its original form — as a monster.

How did you arrive at the decision to set the closing chapter — mind — inside a melting cinema?

The theater is built from wax. Wax is an important motif in the film. Even in the silent film chapter, the boards were made of wax. I originally wanted the last chapter to be sci-fi, but that didn’t feel right. I chose a simpler, purer form. It’s closer to how I write poetry — intuitively. For me, the Phantasm is like a burning candle, so wax felt like the right material. I didn’t want to construct a logical universe. I wanted the audience, especially after five chapters, to just feel the last one.

I was curious where each segment was shot — how much was built and how much was found location.

The film was shot in Chongqing. It resembles my hometown of Kaili to some extent, but it offers more options, looks and shooting possibilities. Many of the locations were found. 

This year at Cannes, there was a do***entary about David Lynch, and the film contained a lot of footage of him talking about how Philadelphia in the late 1960s and 1970s inspired Eraserhead and his entire sensibility — that city’s shattered, decaying industrial textures. Your films seem to have a similar appreciation for the material richness, decay and crumble of modern China. 

Yes, I agree. Resurrection spans from the early 20th century to today. The chapter about touch — the fifth one — was shot at a port. I chose that location specifically because it was shattered and chaotic, and the nearby train station added to the atmosphere. It was ideal for a long take.

It’s been seven years since Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Was there a reason this follow-up took so long to come to fruition? 

After Long Day’s Journey, I took a break. I started writing Resurrection pretty quickly, and initially, it was going to be a realistic story. But it evolved over time. My creative process hasn’t changed much, but the world has. And that made me feel like I had to finally make this film now. I hoped it could bring some comfort to the audience.

Offering comfort — is that the main way you hope this film speaks to the world?

Yes. It’s a simple desire. I want to offer comfort.