Based on Yu Hua's short novel Mistakes by the River, Wei Shujun's the film is a neo-noir set in provincial, changing Chinese town in Jiangdong in the lower reaches of Yangtze river in 1995. It tells a story of a police detective being obsessed with an unsolved murder case that pushes him into madness. Only the River Flows is a gritty, police procedural gone wrong, with the look of bygone era cinema, shot on film with soft edges and noticeable film grains.
Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong), a seasoned detective who is up for promotion with a pregnant wife, is tasked to solve a murder of an old woman by the river. The perpetrator used a blunt instrument to kill her. Everything points toward the murderer to be a vagrant with a mental problem. The old woman took him in and took care of him - this is a village idiot well known to the villagers. But the man remains elusive. In the meantime, Ma follows the clues in a woman's hand bag that was left at the murder scene - a music cassette tape with a message; a forlorn love letter recorded in a woman's voice. At this point, Only the River Flows plays out like a good police procedural, as Ma and his young lieutenant steadfastly follow the clues. The recording leads to young lovers who attend poetry readings. Their illicit affair turns up nothing, but only more clues- there was a long wavy-haired woman when the murder took place as witnessed by the poetry reading man. Then suddenly, the poetry reader turns up dead and the village idiot is caught with a bloody cleaver in his hand. Like that, the case is solved. But in Detective Ma's head, it is too obvious of a conclusion to the case. What about the lovers? what about the mystery woman with the wavy hair? What about the factory hairstylist with a rap sheet? For Ma, the case is an unending rabbit hole.
The complications with his wife's pregnancy and following arguments, unable to locate the old certificate of his merits as a policeman from another town (was he ever a decorated officer as he says he was, or is he misremembering it?), and a lot of unanswered questions in his mind, Ma hesitates to turn in his final report on the case, much to the annoyance of his superior. After the death of hairdresser who jumped to his death in front of him, Ma has a mental breakdown. He keeps seeing the village idiot, smiling, taunting him.
Only the River Flows makes the connection between the film medium as a truth telling, seeing is believing device in the age of information technology, fake news and the AI. In the beginning of the film, we are presented with the police station moving into an old, abandoned movie theater. No one is going to the theater anymore, the police chief says. Ma is seen setting up his office in the projection booth. There is constant shots of Ma playing out his fever dreams on the big screen in front of him. Shot on 35mm in constant rain, it is a gorgeous film to look at, reminiscent of the good old days of 90s Wong Kar-Wai and Zhang Yimou's cinema.
The film questions what is considered truth in our complicated modern society. Should we take the obvious answer that is dangling right in front of us and take it as an acceptable truth? Or do we dig deeper into the murky depth and devote our life to find the real truth where there might be no bottom? Only the River Flows ponders these hefty ideas on its celluloid illusion.
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