Jia Zhang Ke is a very interesting director of a kind I haven’t seen since Antonioni. The story and characters are molded to a certain mood the filmmaker creates. Where the sounds and vistas of the location are as important as the people who inhabit them. The story of two people searching for their spouses is a good one and it’s told in a placid way I felt rewarded to have taken in. The use of naturally lit HD in this movie is something to see. It’s so crisp and absorbing. It gives the movie a transcendental quality.

What the aliens in the movie were meant to signify is beyond me. I’ll have to see it again to figure this out.