Here, There (Lu Yulai, 2011): China

Reviewed by Christopher Connor. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Here, There is a movie that focuses on three different places and characters all dealing with their separation from the world, whether through the emotional or physical, and the effects this has on their lives and the ones around them.

We are introduced to the first character of the film, after a beautiful opening shot of the forest he lives in, who is a reindeer herder living in the mountains away from his family. When his wife and son come to live with him for a part of the season, we learn that their physical separation isn’t the only thing keeping them distant from each other. Next we see a man who owns a restaurant and the young man he has employed as a waiter. When a young woman comes into the restaurant, we realize that this waiter and woman have a past, one that seems to be difficult to talk about. Trying night after night to rekindle what once was, something seems to be preventing the two from really getting close to each other. Lastly, we see another young man who lives in Paris. After being mugged, he is helped by his old landlord to get his passport back which sparks a father son like relationship between the two. As the story cuts back and forth between the three stories, we find out that all the characters are somehow connected and what they do in the face of feeling alone.

The beautiful shots in this film are often times more compelling than the actual story itself. We are often showed vast wide shots of lonely terrain or city streets which seem to depict the loneliness and separation that these characters are experiencing. One shot that stood out in particular is an extreme long shot of the Paris man and his landlord walking to a cemetery among three large trees silhouetted against a grey, foggy sky. The shot is reminiscent of parts of the opening sequence of Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers with the trees among the fog. With this shot, and others that give off the same feel, we realize what the director is trying to accomplish with the visuals and subject matter. We’ve seen with many Bergman films that the ideas of loneliness and isolation coupled with beautiful cinematography, notably by his cinematographer Sven Nykvist, can be done and turned into masterpieces. Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t seem to say much or leave you with a tremendous impact like the Bergman films do.

We are shown a glimpse of these people’s lives, a glimpse that seems to only scratch the surface. Maybe that’s what the movie is going for, not intending to give many details about the characters, thrown into the here and now of their reality. But with this movie, it doesn’t seem to leave a lasting impression, leaving the viewers slightly unaffected. Aesthetically, it’s well done, but the story isn’t extremely gripping. It seems just to be.  Although Here, There is not a dud, it’s nothing to write home about, either.