This film about cinema as a dream machine and its century-long history by Chinese visionary Bi Gan premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, where it won a special prize.
In a world where humans have lost the ability to dream, there is a creature (Jackson Yee) still able to experience dreams and a woman (Shu Qi) who can perceive its illusions. They move through different incarnations and eras, with each chapter transporting us to a new film style and genre, and each corresponding to a sense: sight, hearing, taste. Rather than having a common plot, the stories within the film are connected by the experience of sensory perception shared by all people.
Bi Gan’s work focuses on film as a space for memory and imagination, where time is non-linear. His previous films, Kaili Blues (2015) and Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018) were also built on a dreamlike blurring of boundaries between reality and inner experiences.
In Resurrection, this device provides the structure for the film: dream is not only a theme but also a perception model in which the viewer is involved. But enjoying it requires no knowledge of cinema history, as the film deliberately evades any interpretation. In his interviews, Bi Gan insists that the most important things for him are the emotional reactions that film can create for the viewer.
The film will be screened in Chinese with Russian subtitles.
Resurrection
Director: Bi Gan
China, France, 2025. 159 min.
18+