Critics reviews

The approach gives class, culture and identity—and lives left behind by a nation's forward movement—an intriguing dimension, even if the overall effect does feel rather one-note. The title points toward a future beyond the present life; but for some, like Mingchung and his family, the present is all they have.

This strange and disarming film is the best I've seen from China in years. It was produced by Jia Zhangke, and, like Jia's best films, it has a rigorously austere style that aims to say, or suggest, something about China's past and present by concentrating on the largely neglected, economically undeveloped margins of the world's largest country, so noted for its rapid rate of change.

The film's flattened high-def images resemble delicately rendered ink illustrations, even in wide shots of the landscape under China's ubiquitous industrial reconstruction. It's as if we're absorbing something soulful about the setting that (much like Leilei's mother) refuses to depart entirely despite impending modern upheaval.

The storyline is a simple 'what if...?', but it finds the forlorn spiritual dimension in very precise, concrete images of Shaanxi villages and landscapes. The undemonstrative performances are almost Bressonian, and so is Zhang's heartrending refusal to resort to melodrama.

A graceful ghost story that suggests death and progress go hand in hand. Zhang's austere, auspicious debut feature shares a common lineage with producer Jia Zhang-ke's own dramas about socioeconomic transition, even as its glacial, hypnotic pace, pervasive sense of hush, and unruffled approach to the supernatural are entirely its own.

It is a ghost story of waypoints both vivid and, for me, inscrutable... The film is hindered by the dour and impassive performances by the father and son, who each tread through the film eyes down, bodies stiff, pitiable, miserable souls the both. Nevertheless, Life After Life's for such a sparse production communicates a phantasmagorical sensation and ambitious visual expanse which makes me excited to see what its filmmaker has next in store for us.