A SHORT STORY: Bi Gan’s Feline Fairy Tale
Few filmmakers understand the strange magic inherent in the cinematic form the way Bi Gan does. From the 41-minute tracking shot of Kaili Blues that carries the protagonist into a strange new world to the hallucinatory final hour of a Long Day’s Journey Into Night—not only shot in one continuous take, but in 3D at that — Bi’s bravura storytelling stretches the capacity of cinema to convey not just reality, but unreality. Watching his films, one is filled with the uncanny sensation of being pulled down the rabbit hole into a world where dream life and real life irrevocably mesh, and where time doesn’t merely roll forward, but also folds back onto itself.
Bi’s new short film, an episodic fairy tale simply titled A Short Story, is no different. (It is worth noting that in Chinese, the film bears the more poetic sobriquet Heart of the Broken Sun.) Commissioned by a cat supply company, A Short Story takes viewers along on the strange, surreal journey of a large black cat seeking something precious in this world, only to discover that the answers may lay startlingly close to home.
A Cat’s Eye View of the World
The opening of A Short Story is one that immediately captures the imagination: an extreme close-up of a black cat opening a large yellow eye dissolves into a moving shot, with the camera rushing across a bleak, bleary field. (A Short Story seems to entirely take place in that watery, blueish-gray half-light at the intersection of day and night, which adds to the dreamlike nature of the narrative.) An unseen narrator (Bi himself) tells us that a long time ago, there lived an odd black cat with no home, friends, or purpose… that is, until one day he met a lonely scarecrow.
After setting the scarecrow on fire at his request, freeing him from the bounds of the earthly world, the cat asks him a question: what is the most precious thing in the world? The scarecrow has no answer himself, but he identifies three “weirdos” who might. So, the cat dresses himself up in the scarecrow’s discarded rags and sets out on a quest to find them.
Nine Lives, Many Memories
What follows is a series of strange, dreamlike encounters between the cat — now shuffling along upright in coat and hat, like a miniature noir detective — and these so-called weirdos. There is a candy-producing robot in an abandoned orphanage, a woman who consumes “memory-losing noodles” in order to forget the tragedy of losing her lover, and a magician who will not answer your question unless you provide a note of your soul. As the cat meets with them, memories of his own past start to rise to the surface, and what started as a quirky fable evolves into something far more emotionally devastating than one might have initially imagined upon hearing “commissioned by a cat supply company.”
A Short Story explores the special relationship that exists between cats and humans, and the strange love that occurs between them — one that neither species is fully capable of understanding, but that is nonetheless perfectly summarized by the narrator when he tells us that “A cat’s eye can heal a mourning soul.” Bi fills his 15 or so minutes of screen time (really, it’s only 12 once you subtract the closing credits) with every visual trick in the book: flipping shots on their head, shooting the reflection of a scene in a broken mirror, using jump cuts to show the passage of time and place, and—in the film’s most mesmerizing sequence—having the woman with short memory turn around to open the back door of her room to reveal that she is in fact on a moving train.
As the woman stands still, watching the scenery change as the train rolls forward, a letter from her lost lover is read out loud by the narrator, rolling back time to when they were together. It’s a beautiful scene that epitomizes Bi’s style in that it is not style for style’s sake, but entirely in service of the film’s emotional journey. One is able to notice and appreciate the extraordinary images he has crafted while also not losing sight of the heart of the story amidst the visual frills: the power of memory, truly the most precious thing of all even when it causes us unbelievable pain.
Conclusion
It’s been four years since A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, but A Short Story should serve as a satisfying appetizer for whatever feature-length treat Bi Gan is cooking up next.
A Short Story begins streaming exclusively on Mubi on December 21, 2022.
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