CANNES – If you haven’t yet become familiar with his work, there’s one thing you need to know about filmmaker Bi Gan right out of the gate: he is one of the most exciting new voices in cinema. Having burst onto the scene in 2016 with the mesmerizing and melancholic feature debut “Kaili Blues,” which he then followed with the equally magnificent “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 2018, he is an artist in the most thrilling sense of the word who has never been lacking in ambition. With all this in mind, he is doing something new with his stunning latest feature, “Resurrection.”
A film that is both about the wonder of dreams and cinema itself, with a great score by M83, it sees the director pushing himself into yet more exciting new places, just as he brings the same commitment to his craft. Running at two hours and forty minutes with a signature long take that practically had me levitating out of my seat when I immediately sensed it was coming, it’s a film with the power to fundamentally rewire your brain as it puts itself in conversation with the ghosts of cinema’s past. 
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Beginning with an audience in a theater looking back on us as if we are sitting in the room with them before becoming something closer to a silent film then hurtling both through time and genre, “Resurrection” splits itself into six parts spanning a hundred years that all are grounded in a different chapter of cinema history just as they represent what Bi has said is a distinct sense (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). If this sounds like it could be unwieldy, it very much is, proving to be dense in a way that will undoubtedly require additional watches you’ll gladly want to do just to take it all in. 
At the same time, it’s also surprisingly emotionally delicate in a way that sneaks up on you before laying you flat. As some opening text establishes, in order to prolong their life, humanity has lost its ability to dream. That is, except for a creature known as the Fantasmer, a “movie monster” that will then take us through dreams of history along with a woman who still can perceive them. With each “Resurrection” chapter, the film cuts to a candle rapidly, beginning to melt more and more until there is nothing left. Rather than solely being a love letter to cinema without engaging with what is being lost, “Resurrection” is also a gentle mourning for the form.
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Yet this only makes the beauty of what Bi has created all the more precious. From the way he moves the camera to the gentle editing rhythm he settles into in key sequences, everything is just bursting with a love for the details of film and sees him challenging himself in how he expresses this. There is violence and tragedy, but there is also beauty and connection. It plays with familiar genre beats, but also uses them as a way to create more poetic visuals. There is everything from an investigation into a brutal murder in a part that resembles a noir thriller, complete with a classic shootout in a room of mirrors that transcends any cliché in the confident hands of cinematographer Jingsong Dong, to a meeting with a Spirit of bitterness that takes on a more somber tone when you least expect it to. There are references to F. W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” in terms of how it plays with shadows, just as Bi then makes them into something all his own in the standout extended single-take sequence. 
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How long “Resurrection” actually runs for is not something that I was keeping track of, as this matters little considering the director has shown he is more than capable of going as long as best serves the film. The important thing is how it is constructed, where every camera move and shift in lighting is continually inspired, drawing you into each new escalation within this sequence so fully that you realize you’re holding your breath. It’s clear that, having planned out impressive extended shots like this for three films now, Bi has only gotten better at the staging and presentation of it all. This one is an action sequence in many regards, with a fight that you feel every blow of, but it’s guided by a steady hand that helps it again feel like you’re just floating along with it all as it unfolds.

While it doesn’t shift into 3D as “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” did, this one has plenty of its own unique technical elements and a moment where you realize that you’re no longer viewing things as a passive observer, but an active participant. It’s another way Bi doesn’t just recreate what he’s done before, but instead upends what we may have expected from him. It all ensures that a crushing closing conversation on a boat that it builds to hits home perfectly. That this is also the moment Bi proceeds to take his biggest leaps before drawing everything back to where we began makes it a flooring finale. It proves not just exhilarating and emotional as an expression of pure cinema, but a reflection of an artist who shows he’s still expanding what is possible for him going forward and cinema itself. If only we could also have a hundred years of his films. [A-]
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