Technician Xue Ming has told too many times why he is in prison to be sure of his own memory. The only constant is that his memory continues to torment him with the past. “Every day is the same in prison,” he murmurs over the audio track, “even the nightmares don’t change.” One night car accident, one dead, hit and run. Shortly after the impact, he is certain that he killed the man and drags him off the road into the bushes.
In his debut film, Chinese filmmaker Shipei Wen reflects on how memory works, on the tricks it can pull off, on the importance it attaches to details that are actually insignificant. A cow stood on the road that evening, forcing Xue Ming to take a detour. She keeps looking at him in his dreams. What if she hadn’t stood in his way?
The perpetrator becomes a detective on his own behalf and tracks down his victim’s wife
Eddie Peng, an action star and heartthrob in China, plays Xue Ming as a laconic loner, consumed by his guilt. His attempt to turn himself in to the police fails because he cannot say who he hit. He returns to the embankment to understand what happened. When he finds a key, he becomes a detective in his own right. His need for forgiveness makes him go after the dead man’s wife, Ms. Liang. He sabotages her air conditioner in order to gain access to her apartment and her life as a technician. The two become friends, he tries to find out why she is being harassed by her husband’s dubious creditors.
Ms. Liang, meanwhile, sinks into her own memories of her husband, whom she holds responsible for the death of her son and therefore finds it difficult to mourn. On the boy’s mothballed jukebox, she plays the tearjerker “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” over and over again. The song gradually seeps into Xue Ming’s story, accompanying him on his restless and aimless quest for salvation.
At this point at the latest, Xue Ming’s unreliable memories become blurred with the police investigation. His accident is just a minor disruptive factor in a much larger plot, his personal drama just one piece of the puzzle in a thriller. Based on the dream logic of Hong Kong’s flagship auteur filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, Shipei Wen only lets this allegorical noir thriller unfold slowly: on the nocturnal streets of Guangzhou, in the light of flashing red billboards, in the constant dripping of the persistent muggy, in the labyrinthine shadows of apartment buildings and shops. Conscience and morality are relative here, and Xue Ming must choose between becoming part of this world or believing his own story.
Are You Lonesome Tonight?, China 2021 – Director: Shipei Wen, Script: Noé Dodson, Yinuo Wang, Shipei Wen, Binghao Zhao. Camera: Cedric Cheung-Lau, Xiaosu Han, Zhang Heng, Andreas Thalhammer. Starring: Eddie Peng, Peiyao Jiang, Sylvia Chang, Zhang Yu. Rapid Eye Movies, 95 minutes.