Art house: Crosscurrent – Yang Chao’s ode to the Yangtze River is a filmic objet d’art
A 10-year labour of love, the film’s atmospheric beauty more than makes up for the lack of organised narrative
Although director Yang Chao’s Crosscurrent (2016), whose Chinese title simply translates as Yangtze River Painting, lacks an organised narrative, the lush and painterly images act as visual mantras for thought and reflection. The film was shot by cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing, renowned for his work with Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien. Lee won the Silver Bear at the 2016 Berlin Film Festival for his cinematography here.
A potpourri of road movie, gangster drama, mystery romance and social commentary, with Buddhism and Taoism thrown into the cinematic mix, the movie falls short of its lofty philosophical ambitions but succeeds marvellously as a kind of filmic objet d’art.
Yang, who also wrote the script, says the film was conceived as a reverential appreciation of the glory of the Yangtze, the 6,300km river that has long inspired Chinese poets and artists. The multifaceted story focuses on Gao Chun (Qin Hao), the young captain of an ageing cargo ship that’s making its way upriver with a mysterious cargo.
