Black Coal, Thin Ice

Grids and neon fill the frame in Black Coal, Thin Ice

Diao Yinan's Black Coal, Thin Ice is a masterful mystery that doesn't kowtow to audience expectations for a tidy narrative. Mr. Diao purposefully obfuscates the story to heighten his poetic reveries of lust and control. The cinematographer Dong Jingsong, a frequent Diao collaborator who also shot Long Day's Journey Into Night, alternates between illustrating the industrial grid of downtown Xi'an and projecting a dream like atmosphere lit by gauzy neon. This works to somewhat mask the seamy nature of the plot, a noir in the tradition of James M. Cain. Fan Liao plays a police detective, Zili, in the Northern Chinese province of Shaanxi. The opening sequence, which has little to do with the plot and where he beats a woman who has dumped him, establishes him as a brute. An investigation into a mysterious killing in which body parts have ended up in coal bins miles apart ends badly with suspects and cops killed and Zili suspended from the force because of his PTSD.

Five years later, Zili begins to suspect the coal bin killer is still on the loose and starts shadowing the widow of an alleged victim. Further spoilers will be avoided because the impact of the film depends on the viewer perceiving things to be as much of a tangled web as the protagonist does. Lu-Mei Kwei gives a great, moody performance as the "widow" who Zili becomes smitten with. She is portrayed as a pawn passed between louts. The neon and constant snow provide a patina of romance to Xi'an, but the reality is tragic and coarse. The police are brutal forces of repression, none more so than Zili who rapes his lady love in a Ferris wheel.

Black Coal, Thin Ice is a bracing combination of beauty and Kino Fist. Production design, costumes and, particularly, sound design are all first rate. The film lingers in the nether regions of the mind. The images accumulate as if in a dream or, more aptly, a nightmare. The film sparkles and flickers such that the Chinese title might have been more apropos: Daylight Fireworks.