This movie is excellent! Director Zero Chou takes a gentle, impressionistic approach to both visuals and narrative, and her wonderful feeling for color and texture is complemented by her story's non-dramatic treatment. That approach may make some viewers antsy, but if you let Chou tell it her way, you'll see the real depth in SPLENDID FLOAT. The tragic love story -- nighttime drag artiste Rose loves Sunny, daytime Taoist priest Roy buries Sunny -- would be the whole narrative arc with most Western filmmakers, but Chou covers all that in the first 20 minutes or so; the rest of the film is Roy/Rose gradually learning how to let go of what's gone. That essential Taoist concept is expressed by Chou with an appropriately Taoist simplicity and grace. And, oh yes, James Chen as Miss Rose is a knockout, a true beauty! |
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