Bing Liu, the author/director born in China until his family moved him to the United States when he was five years old, has a best documentary Oscar nomination for his 2018 function “Minding the gap”, about male skateboarders in Rockford, Illinois.
His narrative debut, “Preparation for the next life“Produced by Orion Pictures and Plan B, from Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner-All after a similar road as Oscar-nominated Docare Ramell Ross’ own story debut” Nickel Boys, ” also produced by Orion and Plan B, and also set up at Amazon/MGM Studios, and also A literary adaptation of a acclaimed novel. So why the hell is the studio that buys Liu’s film With a release date on September 5 in the middle of the autumn festival season and without sending it to any festivals?
The bitter-cute immigrant love story in its core-with cutie-pie it-boy in the head Fred Hechinger (“The White Lotus”, “Thelma”, “Gladiator II”) As an army veteran and very promisingly discovered Sebiye Behtiyar as an undocumented Sebiye Uyghur woman, who arrives at New York City in the middle of great danger and pain – is as seemingly convicted as the film’s release strategy. Director Liu follows more than ignorant in Ross’s footsteps, which led to a best picture and adapted script nominations to “Nickel Boys”: LiU also worked as a camera assistant on fiction series and films outside his non -fiction efforts, giving “Nickel Boys”: LiU also worked as a camera assist “Nickel Boys”:Preparation for the next life“Based on Atticus Lish’s novel 2014, A Sophisticated Visual Sense.
It is even if the film is uneven dramatic, is burdened by traumas and divisions and divisions into the latter distances, and with too many pictures of Aishe (Uyghur) jogging against her future. These scenes, long tracking pictures held by Kinematographer Ante Cheng’s camera, do not tell anything about Aishe anything but how her soldier father, back in Chinese province of Xinjiang, escaped where Uyghur -etnic minority is persecuted, accompanied in her a commitment to exert and physical strength for the next preparation for the next. If they tell us something to us, it is literally letters how she runs from her past.
But the film’s sometimes clumsy symbolism and spouted drama is not a reason to write off the film. On the contrary, “Preparation for the next life” is a promising narrative debut that also exploits Lius established Bona Fides as a documentary director. His observant attitude to capturing the sights and sound from New York’s Chinatown and Lower East Side – the streets packed with extra, kitchen where Aishe works steamy and lively – shows what can just be a documentary attention on local detail and color.
Skinner is back in the United States, and in New York City with nothing but a backpack and baggie of anti-anxiety drugs, after another tour in the Middle East, and clearly handled undiagnosed PTSD and self-medication with alcohol. At the same time, even though Aishe speaks Mandarin and English (the latter a small update from Lish’s novel, where her English vocabulary is limited), she is also treated by the landlord who runs the Lower East Side Hovel who she rents the week after week as an outsider because she is a Muslim. We get flashes of her dangerous journey as a refugee from China to the United States, more than is offered by Skinner’s past, which he prefers not to reveal either. He spends much of his time at Benders.
Martyna Majok’s script would not work on the screen but the chemistry between Behtiyar (an actress wise for her years and lack of professional experience) and Hechinger, which quickly falls in love with New York City after a very much only in the files Meeting, in Times Square Hotels and in a McDonald’s or in the narrow apartment Skinner Skinner, but is ultimately for the injured and off for different cultural backgrounds to make it work. A late -breaking confrontation between the actors in the midst of Skinner’s escalating alcohol addiction is played capable by Behtiyar and HECHinger, in a film that has previously avoided exaggeration or sentimentality. A piano -driven point from “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” component Emile Mosseri calls in your head long after the movie is over, a thing of true beauty. The cinematography is also up there with the best of the year.
In a span of entire finished films such as evaporators of Studios lists faster than a Titanic-bound submersible, does Amazon/MGM Studios want to become known as a company that treats artists in a similar way? “Preparations for the next life” begins a quiet edition this weekend, and it doesn’t feel like the studio supports it. There is an audience for this movie, for those who like their romance unsentimental and reserve, politically conscious without surprising messages. It is a wrong but impactful film worth more than being treated as anything but a literal depreciation.
Rating: B-
Amazon/MGM Studios releases “Preparation for the next life” in theaters on Friday, September 5.
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