In the cryptic ‘The Shadowless Tower,’ connection is stymied by a murky past
Robert Abele March 30, 2024
Chinese director Zhang Lus contemporary drama The Shadowless Tower is a gently enigmatic character piece that resists telling you too much about its characters. Zhangs preference is to present them to you in small moments and simple exchanges, with the idea that th
ee extended-release,
oblique approach
to information
will eventually lead to whats insightful in this case,
about
a brooding,
apathetic
middle-aged Beijing mans acceptance of his unresolved past
,
and possible future.
Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing) is a divorced former poet and current restaurant critic with an endearing six-year-old daughter everyone calls Smiley, who lives with Gus sister and brother-in-law. The reasoning behind that custody arrangement isnt made clear. Theres
clear
love between
the
kid and
her
dad, and the split with
his Gu’s
wife wasnt acrimonious
, but instead so much as
due to a passion-depleting excess of mutual politeness.
But what
s clear is apparent
after just a few unhurried scenes with the melancholic, chain-smoking Gu whose mother has recently died, to boot is that hes hardly in a space to look after anyone,
possibly
including himself. Gus Beijing neighborhood is known for the 13th
–
century Buddhist temple of the title, whose tall white pagoda is visible far and wide.
,and The structure is
famous for
being curiously impervious to never
creating shade. Gu, meanwhile, seems to only exist in shadow
s
.
Why, for instance, is he so hesitant to respond to the almost comically flirtatious advances of his younger, attractive, headstrong photographer colleague Ouyang (a winningly spirited Huang Yao)? Its not a crazy-sounding match
up
:
t T
hey enjoy talking, long walks
,
and what a couple of drinks will do for talking and long walks. Maybe romance with an extrovert is too much for an introvert to contemplate.
whenwhats Also
pressing on Gu
: He hasis having
recently learned that the disgraced father he hasnt seen since childhood since his mother kicked him out of the house is living nearby,
still
in the seaside town of his youth.
As Gu explores that re-connection, which Ouyang becomes a part of (for reasons to do with her own emotionally fraught background), The Shadowless Tower settles into an easygoing grace about lives moving forward while looking back: heartfelt, but never sentimental. Just dont expect any
similarly easygoing
answers as to why people are who they are. Aided by the soft pull of Piao Songris cinematography, Zhang would rather you feel the ripple effect of any given moments moods and signals.
My favorite example: starts with Gu, having tracked his father down, waits until he knows hes out before sneaking into his modest bedsit apartment to case the old mans solitary life .; but l Later, Gus father (Tian Zhuangzhuang) buys a pack of cigarettes, which we learn is to leave for the mysterious visitor who turned down his family photos and used his ashtray. One What emerges is an
unwitting communication,
answered with a touching gesture, both
signs of a separation needing to be bridged.
It speaks to There’s
a rich quietude at work
in “The Shadowless Tower,”
which makes one realize
how that virtue varies fromquality is different across the
filmmaker
to filmmakers who care about it
. In an Ingmar Bergman film, it felt imposing, heavy with portent. Chantal Akermans silences were like vulnerable room tones. Zhang uses quiet to suggest an active calmness, so when a particular sound punctures the air gurgling water,
someone pacing,
the music on a videotape, a childs questions it feels like the notes of life, the stuff thats supposed to spark us.
Zhang
is playful about sound, too,
occasionally toss
esing
in a distant whirr like the kind you hear in sci-fi films denoting an approaching UFO. Is this a comment on the everyday strangeness of existence? Maybe. It could also just be something to keep us on our toes, alive to the rhythms around us our own shadowless towers that may seem ordinary, always there, unmissable
,
and permanent,
but also might just keep keeping
us from life in the darkness.
