Arts, Faculty of
Theatre and Film, Department of
DSpace
UBCV
Liu, Siwei
Master of Arts - MA
University of British Columbia
Noir is an elusive discourse, a genre filled with smoking bars, deception, dark alleyways, and disillusioned outlooks of life. So is flânerie, a drifting, aimless mode of being in a fast-changing world. What happens if these two forms converge, when one engages in delayed drifting in a world foreclosed by noir fatalism? Such aesthetic of noir flânerie is the central concern of this thesis. Through close analysis of Diao Yinanâs The Wild Goose Lake (2019) and Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey Into Night (2018), I argue that noir flânerie functions as a critical strategy of framing ambivalent movement within narratives of disillusionment, creating an alternative time-space that problematizes the mainland socialist teleology. This thesis draws on Linda Chiu-han Laiâs articulation of the flâneur as a critical method for probing the cinematic postsocialist Chinese cities as an embodied cinematic experience of discovery. I further invoke Gilles Deleuzeâs concept of the any-space-whatever and David H. Flemingâs any-now(here)-space to complement Laiâs method, in reinforcing the affective potential of the flâneurâs movement in mapping noir fragmentation, which mirrors postsocialist disorientation. Drawing on these theoretical frameworks, this thesis interprets the cinematic Chinese city as an anonymous noir-coded any-space-whatever, embodied through the flâneurâs exploration, which emerges as critical representational strategies in a time of heightened ideological control and accelerated film market development. Besides textual analysis, I also relate to directorsâ own account as well as the cultural policies of mainland China and France, to account for the transnational conditions underpinning the filmsâ circulation. This thesis thus situates itself in the intersection of global noir, mainland postsocialist cinema, and transnational Chinese cinema. Addressing these two films from this intersection is important because they emerge in a new industrial and sociopolitical context of the Chinese mainland. Through the case studies of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, this thesis seeks to foreground how postsocialist Chinese cinema, mainland noir, and transnational Chinese cinema intersect as discursive frameworks, with flânerie serving as the mediating strategy through which a mainland Chinese-ness is performed and negotiated both in the domestic market and in festivals abroad.
Noir Flâneur As Method: Mapping Postsocialist Affect In The Wild Goose Lake (2019) And Long Dayâs Journey Into Night (2018) by Siwei Liu B.A., McGill University, 2023 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Cinema and Media Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2025 © Siwei Liu, 2025 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Noir Flâneur As Method: Mapping Postsocialist Affect In The Wild Goose Lake (2019) And Long Dayâs Journey Into Night (2018) submitted by Siwei Liu in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in Cinema and Media Studies (Cinema Studies) Examining Committee: Dr. William Brown, Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, UBC Supervisor Dr. Yang Renren, Assistant Professor, Asian Studies, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract Noir is an elusive discourse, a genre filled with smoking bars, deception, dark alleyways, and disillusioned outlooks of life. So is flânerie, a drifting, aimless mode of being in a fast-changing world. What happens if these two forms converge, when one engages in delayed drifting in a world foreclosed by noir fatalism? Such aesthetic of noir flânerie is the central concern of this thesis. Through close analysis of Diao Yinanâs The Wild Goose Lake (2019) and Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey Into Night (2018), I argue that noir flânerie functions as a critical strategy of framing ambivalent movement within narratives of disillusionment, creating an alternative time-space that problematizes the mainland socialist teleology. This thesis draws on Linda Chiu-han Laiâs articulation of the flâneur as a critical method for probing the cinematic postsocialist Chinese cities as an embodied cinematic experience of discovery. I further invoke Gilles Deleuzeâs concept of the any-space-whatever and David H. Flemingâs any-now(here)-space to complement Laiâs method, in reinforcing the affective potential of the flâneurâs movement in mapping noir fragmentation, which mirrors postsocialist disorientation. Drawing on these theoretical frameworks, this thesis interprets the cinematic Chinese city as an anonymous noir-coded any-space-whatever, embodied through the flâneurâs exploration, which emerges as critical representational strategies in a time of heightened ideological control and accelerated film market development. Besides textual analysis, I also relate to directorsâ own account as well as the cultural policies of mainland China and France, to account for the transnational conditions underpinning the filmsâ circulation. This thesis thus situates itself in the intersection of global noir, mainland postsocialist cinema, and transnational Chinese cinema. Addressing these two films from this intersection is important because they emerge in a new industrial and sociopolitical context of iv the Chinese mainland. Through the case studies of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, this thesis seeks to foreground how postsocialist Chinese cinema, mainland noir, and transnational Chinese cinema intersect as discursive frameworks, with flânerie serving as the mediating strategy through which a mainland Chinese-ness is performed and negotiated both in the domestic market and in festivals abroad. v Lay Summary This project investigates flânerie in contemporary film noir in The Wild Goose Lake (2019) and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night (2018). Bringing together the discourse of film noir, flânerie and postsocialist mainland Chinese cinema, it develops the figure of the flâneur not only as a narrative troupe but as a cinematic interpretive method, a spatial and embodied way of seeing, informed by Linda Chiu-han Laiâs use of flâneur as interpreative method and Gilles Deleuzeâs theory of the any-space-whatever. The flâneur becomes a mode of perception, narrative, and filmmaking that drifts through postsocialist uncertainty and dislocation. By using flânerie as both method and metaphor, this thesis contributes to the growing field of Chinese film noir studies as well as postsocialist mainland Chinese cinema studies and offers a new way to interpret how these films reflect the affective and spatial tensions of postsocialist life, particularly the disorienting coexistence of commercial pressure and social disillusionment. vi Preface This thesis is the original, unpublished, and independent work of the author, Siwei (Jonathan) Liu. An early draft of Chapter 1 was presented at UBCâs Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference in March 2025. Generative AI ChatGPT was consulted for copyediting purpose only. No generated text was pasted into the thesis and all AI suggestions were carefully reviewed to decide if they should be implemented. All literature review, case analysis and conclusion are individual and original works by the author. All film stills reproduced in this thesis are used under the fair dealing provisions of the Canadian Copyright Act for purposes of scholarly research. vii Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Lay Summary ................................................................................................................................ v Preface ........................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... xi Dedication .................................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1 âFilmmaking with Chinese Characteristicsâ: Noir Flânerie and New Mainland Film Industry Trend ....................................................................................................................... 10 1.2 Detour: the âTransnationalâ of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night ...................................................................................................................................... 14 1.3 Noir Flânerie in the Chinese Any-now(here)-spaces of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night ...................................................................................................... 24 Chapter 2: The Wild Goose Lake and the cartographic fugitive ............................................. 31 2.1 Diao Yinanâs Industrial Noir and Noir as Disciplinary Pedagogy ................................. 31 2.2 Mapping the Wild Goose Lake: Cartographic Fugitive and Pastiche Construction ....... 40 2.3 Arrival without departure: the Train Station and the Cabin as threshold spaces ............ 51 viii 2.4 Romantic Flânerie: Making Time in the Other Spaces of The Wild Goose Lake ......... 58 2.5 Chapter Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 3: Long Day's Journey Into Night and the Sleepwalker of Nostalgic any-now(here)-spaces ............................................................................................................................................ 68 3.1 Bi Gan and The Industrial Context of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night .......................... 68 3.2 Noir Fatalism: Luoâs Failed Attempts at Self-narrativization in the Present.................. 72 3.3 Mapping Bi Ganâs Kaili and Dangmai: Chinese Any-space-whatever and Reflective Nostalgia ............................................................................................................................... 77 3.4 Deferred Mourning and Imagined Romance: Drift between Memory and Present ........ 83 3.5 The Super Sleepwalker: Reclamation of the Real through Dream ................................. 87 3.6 Chapter Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 98 Chapter 4: Conclusion and Reflection .................................................................................... 102 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................... 117 ix List of Figures Figure 1.Captain Liu points to the uncartographed Wild Goose Lake area on the official city map. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 00:28:34. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing............................................................................................. 41 Figure 2. Captain Liu shows an unofficial cartography of the Wild Goose Lake. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019. 00:28:59. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ......................................................................................................................... 41 Figure 3. Map of Berlin. M, dir. Fritz Lang, Nero-Film AG, 1931, 00:19:04. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing............................................................................................. 42 Figure 4. The map of Algerian Casbah. Pépé le Moko, dir. Julien Duvivier, Paris Film, 1937, 00:03:17. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ................................................. 43 Figure 5. Liu walks past the real estate advertisement. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:09:20. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. .......... 48 Figure 6. Liu first appears as silhouettes at the station. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 00:03:10. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. .......... 53 Figure 7. Zhou points his gun at the newspaper and starts to hallucinate. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:04:22. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. .......................................................................................................................................... 57 Figure 8. Liu watches the singing head show. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:11:40. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ............................ 62 Figure 9. Zhou and Liu shares cigarettes on the boat. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019,01:15:33. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ........... 64 x Figure 10. Zhou and Liu watch the "lightshow" of the search team. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:18:01. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. .......................................................................................................................................... 65 Figure 11. Luo Hongwu walks out of Xiaofeng Restaurant. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 00:10:31. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ................................................................................................................................... 85 Figure 12. Luo follows Wan into a tunnel. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 00:19:24. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ........ 86 Figure 13. The boy takes Luo to the prison on a scooter. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 01:23:33. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. .......................................................................................................................................... 92 Figure 14. Luo and Kaizhen spectate the town from above. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 01:43:33. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. ................................................................................................................................... 93 xi Acknowledgements To start with, Iâd like to express my immense gratitude to the time I spent at the masterâs program in cinema studies at the University of British Columbia. The past two years have not been easy, but it was a meaningful, fulfilling and enriching experience to connect with some of the most enlightening minds in this field we call cinema studies, but which far exceed the sole focus of cinema and well into the realm of some of humanityâs most unresolvable inquiries. Iâd like to thank my supervisor, Dr. William Brown, who guided me through this rigorous process, bouncing ideas back and forth with me, and pushing me to accomplish the best work of my capacity. Thank you for your patient proofreading and thorough feedback, and for your encouragement for me to explore this thesis in the way I want to. Iâd also like to thank my second reader, Dr. Yang Renren. I am grateful to have been able to discuss with you early in this projectâs conception at the UBC Asian Department Graduate Student Conference. Iâd also like to express my gratitude to Professor Mila Zuo, who has always been a positive and supportive figure during my time at UBC, and Professor Ernest Mathijs as well as Dr. Keren Zaiontz for your inspiring enthusiasm in media culture and pedagogy. Iâd also like to thank my peers, especially the Riley Brothers (Will Riley and Liam Riley), Kong Chuiwen, and Donnie Lee. Thank you for engaging in attentive discussion about my thesis and for your support and care. Lastly, Iâd like to thank my family: my mom, my dad, my grandma, my grandpa, my grandmaâs sister (my auntie), for the many sudden night-time video phone calls asking what I am up to. Iâd also like to thank my friends back home in China, whom I occasionally overload with text messages to update about my latest troubles. Finally, Iâd like to thank myself, for persisting through all and constantly trying to be better than yesterday. Failure is not scary, but fear is. xii Dedication âIt is not a very fragrant world, but it is the world you live in, and certain writers with tough cool spirit of detachment can make very interesting patterns out of itâ --Raymond Chandler å¤©çææå¿ æç¨ï¼åéæ£å°½è¿å¤æ¥ã --æç½ãå°è¿é ã1 Chapter 1: Introduction âEver thought of running away?â Liu Aiai asks Zhou Zenong, as the two fugitives from the law circle idly on the banks of the Wild Goose Lake. Having just shared a moment of romantic intimacy on a boat, Zhou stares out into the distance -- and into the car lights streaking through the darkness of the night. He replies: âIâm going nowhere. Youâre here to help me get the reward paid to my wife.â Having accidentally killed a police officer in a turf conflict with a rival gang, Zhouâs time is numbered as the police slowly closes in. Convinced the law will catch up in no time, Zhou plans to stage a turn-in with Liu, a streetwalker sent by Zhouâs old connection Huahua, and claim the bounty to send to Zhouâs estranged wife. The mundane yet spectacular image of the police headlights, which supposedly are after the wanted Zhou, becomes a kind of nocturnal lightshow. This glimmer, brief and strange, echoes another light, a firework, at the end of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night (2018). As the camera rotates around the town in Luo Hongwuâs dream, he and Kaizhen sit together in a room that âspinsâ when a spell is cast. Having returned home to mourn his fatherâs death, Luo embarks on a journey to investigate the whereabouts of his estranged ex-lover Wan Qiwen in his hometown Kaili. Trying to piece together the past of Wan by visiting different people in Wanâs life, Luo realizes that Wan is not who she claims to be. Traversing between his own memory and his investigation, his reality slowly dissolves into a dream populated by doppelgängers, including his dead childhood friend, his estranged mother, and Wan Qiwen, now with the dream alias of Kaizhen and a different background story. Realizing that he never did find Wan in reality, Luo sobs and kisses Kaizhen, while the room starts to spin like a carousel. The camera detaches, returning quietly, to the sparkler Luo had 2 gifted Kaizhen. It burns yet its spark does not dim. It burns on until the credits roll, perhaps even after it rolls. The two sequences, surreal and fatalistic in their characterâs outlook , are taken from two mainland Chinese films, the first, Diao Yinanâs The Wild Goose Lake (2019), the second, Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey into Night. The Wild Goose Lake tells the story of Zhou Zenong, a fugitive gang leader who accidentally kills a police officer and decides to turn himself in so that his estranged wife and child can claim the bounty. Along the way, he meets Liu Aiai, a âfemale swimming companionâ, a euphemism for streetwalker operating in the area, mobilized by the gang to facilitate Zhouâs arrest, aiming to claim the reward themselves. Together, the two flee from both the police and the gang, seeking the perfect moment to orchestrate the arrest, and thus his own demise. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, meanwhile, follows a middle-aged Luo Hongwu who goes home following the death of his father, and who, while there, searches for his vanished lover, Wan Qiwen. His search, however, proves fruitless, as instead he ends up wandering into his own dream, where he confronts his traumatic past. The sequence of the fireworks is the last shot of Luoâs dream, where he reunites with the double of Qiwen, Kaizhen, only in the fantastic fabric of dream, where sparkler burns on forever. A.O. Scott, in his review of The Wild Goose Lake, highlights the filmâs stylized descent into noir-inflected violence and âchilly, lurid, (and) existentialist attitudeâ. Meanwhile, Justin Chang points out the dreamlike âunrealityâ of Long Dayâs Journey into Night, noting the filmâs focus on the noir heroâs encounter with the âfemme fataleâ and its noir atmospheres (âLong Dayâs Journey Into Nightâ). Both films thus fall under what David Desser terms the âStranger and Femme Fataleâ neo-noir sub-genre (633): with Zhou Zenong as the âstrangerâ on the run that wanders into the Wild Goose Lake and Liu Aiai as the lethal luring âFemme Fataleâ in The Wild Goose Lake; and Luo 3 Hongwu as the estranged homecoming stranger in search of the lethal woman Wan Qiwen in Long Dayâs Journey Into Night. While both films are considered as Chinese neo-noir (Chang; Scott), âneo-noirâ itself is a contested concept. Mark T. Conrad argues that any film released after the classic noir period can be considered neo-noir, particularly when the director exhibits an awareness of noir conventions. He includes Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Chinatown (1974), and Taxi Driver (1976) as early examples (Conrad, âIntroductionâ 2). R. Barton Palmer similarly sees neo-noir as emerging in the New Hollywood era, emphasizing genre reflexivity in films like Body Heat (1980) and The Man Who Wasnât There (2001) (195). However, as James Naremore points out, the timeline of classic noir itself is contested: Paul Schraderâs framing (from The Maltese Falcon [1941] to Touch of Evil [1958]) is often the most widely accepted, though also sometimes contested (35). Writing on noirâs dissemination from Hollywood into world cinema, Desser traces this narrative premise, where âmen who wander into situations where they come across a woman to whom they are immediately and fatally attractedâ, to the western noir classics Double Indemnity (1944) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) (633). In separate interviews, Bi Gan and Diao Yinan have both acknowledged the deliberate use of this particular noir trope: Bi Gan specifically quotes Double Indemnity as the narrative paradigm for his film, where the story of a doomed love affair with Wan echoes the fatal pull of Luoâs nostalgia (Bi, âShijian yu kongjianâ). Diao Yinan, on the other hand, also stages Zhou Zenongâs quest for redemption as inseparable from his entanglement with the femme fatale figure Liu Aiai (Li Li 63). Both films also somewhat exemplify Desserâs âthe couple on the runâ noir narrative (633),1 1 According to Desser, the cinematic precursor of the âcouple on the runâ noir stream may be traced to Bonnie and Clyde and even Breathless from the French New wave. See Desser, âGlobal Noir: Genre Film in the Age of Transnationalismâ. Film Genre Reader IV, edited by Barry Keith Grant, New York, USA: University of Texas Press, 2012, pp. 628-648. 4 especially The Wild Goose Lake, in which Zhou and Liu become not only entangled for survival but also romantically, fleeing from the gang and the police alike. Meanwhile, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night involves Luo and Wanâs planning to run away, even if they do not succeed in doing so. Both stories exude what Paul Schrader situates as the noir sensibility: âa passion for the past and the present, but also a fear of the futureâ, emphasizing âloss, nostalgia, lack of clear priorities, insecuritiesâ (11) caught in a world that is beyond any one individualâs cognitive capacity. The emergence of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night can thus be explained through Desserâs global noir paradigm, which frames the rise of international noir as part of the dissemination of Hollywoodâs influence in global media culture, as well as the advance of mass media communications (632). Similarly, Caleb Kelso-Marsh notes that noir has become a marketing label used to promote East Asian films to Western audiences to provide certain genre predictability and their recognizance in the international film market (45). Aside from this practical consideration, the noir narrative troupes, including the hard-boiled stranger detective, the seductive femme fatale, and the decaying urban cityscape, in their âeasternâ noir renditions, signify the new East Asian experience of modernity (Fay and Nieland 2; Kelso-Marsh 47; Teo 144). Therefore, the noir-ness of both The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night lies in the conscious use of Western noir paradigms for transnational legibility and to express the local experience of modernity, both issues which I will return to in the chapters that follow. While both directors acknowledge the noir influence upon their work, what emerges in these films is not a simple localization of genre conventions, but a different depiction of a deferred movement altogether. Instead of mobility in the sense of action or chase, both films emphasize on protracted, reflective drift: movements that are less about advancing the plot than about 5 characters lingering, delaying, and reminiscing within space. A fugitive on the run, Zhou, while seeking to avoid being arrested, delays his capture, wandering with Liu through the humid, flickering liminality of the Wild Goose Lake. Luo, meanwhile, drifts between the present and past of Kaili, his investigation taking the form of a journey across real and remembered sites, until he finally dissolves into the filmâs famous long take that lasts an hour as he meanders through a reanimated prison deserted a long time ago in his dream. Indeed, both films are deeply entangled with the problem of (im)mobility, a paradoxical mode of movements where one moves but not actively so, movements entangled with loitering, of drifting across fragmented spaces. Both films present excess of time and space (longer takes and deep focus) to unfold, showing momentary detachment from the narrative of a heated chase. The diegetic world unfolds as time passes, warping the characters as well as the audience in an embodied experience. Reading these films as simply Chinese noir export (Chang, âAt Cannesâ; Scott) risks overlooking how noir sensibility is mapped through these acts of drifting, through a mode of creating bodily relation to the image of an urban landscape that is culturally and affectively specific. I argue the overlap of noir sensibility and this detached mode of movement in The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey into Night constitutes a distinct aesthetics that reflects postsocialist disorientation, disillusionment, and temporal suspension through constructing virtual images of postsocialist Chinese cities. Such movement where one actively moves but never arrives to his destination could be described using the term flânerie, its agent the flâneur.I adopt Linda Chiu-han Laiâs reinterpretation of the flâneur as a critical method to uncover how these films stage flânerie in a noir narrative that embodies the affective mood of living in the postsocialist present, without overt political reference to any real Chinese city. The flâneur, the 6 idle aimless stroller, first explained by Charles Baudelaire as the âpassionate spectatorâ of modern life, embodies a paradoxical position of a detached, intellectual witness of modernityâs contradictions (Baudelaire 5; Frisby 87; Tester 12). The prototypical flâneur observes to understand, and in doing so, displaces himself âaway from home and yet feel(s) oneself everywhere at homeâ (Baudelaire 5). This act of walking-observing, otherwise known as flânerie, constitutes a series of ârational actionsâ including âinvestigating, knowing, reflecting and interpretingâ that unfold a âpoetics of discoveryâ through the cameraâs movement across public space (Lai 216). Lai argues that the ground-level drift in films like Xiaowu (1997) and Suzhou River (2000), where the camera moves alongside its flâneur-characters, immerses the viewer in a fragmented, continuous present that requires their active interpretive participation (219, 225). In Laiâs analysis, many of the filmsâ protagonists are not actually idle intellectuals making informed observations, but rather what Isabel Carrera Suárez calls counter-flâneurs, whose experience of space is predicated not on vision or intellectual knowledge but on the bodily experience itself. As Suárez argues, the counter-flâneur is a subaltern sensor-body, often gendered, racialized, and economically constrained, a participant navigating spatial violence, visibility, and exclusion (Suárez 854-856, 864). Xiaowu, the unemployed pickpocket from Fengyang in Xiaowu, and Mada, the street-smart delivery driver entangled with Shanghaiâs crime underworld in Suzhou River, exemplify this position. Both are marginal social agents whose mobility is tied not to leisurely observation but to survival. The ground-level camera that tracks their pedestrian movement creates a perceptual mode inseparable from their embodied negotiation with the city space and the various encounters in it. Rather than providing an aerial view or panoramic shot to establish spatial control, the films immerse the spectator in fragmented perspectives, where space is disclosed only as it is traversed. This walking becomes, 7 as Lai puts it, a form of discourse-making in generating spatial knowledge: an alternative mapping of urban knowledge that resists the abstract mastery promised by top-down cartographies (206). While Suarezâs counter-flâneur is a strong counterpoint to the Baudelaireâs intellectual flaneur, this thesis still uses flâneur and flânerie to designate the figures and actions they carry out but implicating and acknowledging Suarezâs paradigm. In doing so I hope to conjoin Suarezâs decentered reinterpretation with Baudelaireâs metaphorical use to emphasize both the bodily and mental disorientation of the characters. The significance, or the need to conjoin noir and flâneur in investigating the two films at hand is thus to not only account for how they perform a certain noir-ness in the mainland Chinese context, and how their performance of the deferred flâneur-esque movement contributes to its noir-ness (and vice versa), and how the conjoined theoretical lens of noir flâneur enlightens our understanding of their performance of mainland Chinese cities on the screen. As both manifestations of the crisis of modernity, my bridging between noir and flânerie helps to shed light on the affective state that they seek to represent. Flânerie in the contemporary Chinese context thus becomes not a utopian concept of free mobility, but an embodied way of knowing through the unfolding of cinematic duration and traversing in the space of the postsocialist city, as opposed to Baudelaireâs nineteenth-century flâneur who is navigating urban space with and at ease. Lai links flânerie to Michel de Certeauâs pedestrian speech-act, which sees walking as an enunciative act that creates spatial rhetoric (97), and argues that the characters found in Suzhou River and Xiaowu are walking to enunciate postsocialist alienation (Lai 207). She further aligns this drift with Michel Foucaultâs concept of heterotopia, depicting the postsocialist Fengyang and Shanghai, respectively the settings for Jia 8 and Louâs films, as layered, disjunctive, and unstable, and as spaces composed of overlapping historicities (Lai 207). Heterotopia thus becomes an interpretive lens to read Chinese postsocialist cities, foregrounding their spatial and temporal contradictions as sites where unresolved historical trauma and an uncertain future collapse into a present in standstill (210). Within this framework, Lai rethinks the flâneur not only as a narrative figure driven by social alienation, but also as a cinematic mode of representation, where the camera becomes an embodied flâneur, drifting alongside its characters while enabling viewers to encounter the fractured landscapes in an embodied way (211). In light of Laiâs method, both the Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night center on marginal characters who are suspended in movement, figures who drift not toward resolution but entrapped in delay, reminiscence and deferral. Their meandering delays narrative progress and opens a space of encounter with the heterogenic postsocialist landscape. What emerges here is not just a thematic interest in stasis or transience, but a logic of dwelling both in time and space. It is this affective encounter with space through movement, I argue, that constitutes the filmsâ strategy of embodying the lived psychological experience of postsocialist uncertainty, fragmentation and disillusionment. Such noir-inflected flânerie is not unprecedented. As both a counterpoint and contextual precursor for the noir flânerie found in the Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey into Night, I identify an earlier stream of noir flânerie from the sixth-generation cinema: Jia Zhangkeâs Xiaowu (1997), Lou Yeâs Suzhou River (2000), and Li Yangâs Blind Shaft (2003). The âsixth-generationâ of Chinese cinema refers to a loosely defined group of directors who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy around the same time in the 1990s. Though not a coherent film movement with a specific thematic concern, their works are often concerned with depicting the 9 transformations brought about by mainland urbanization, with low-budget and on-location shooting style (Zhang 6). These films align noir sensibility as contingent to the mainland Chinese postsocialist condition, embodied through the wandering of marginal social agents: pickpocket, street-smart, conmen, who navigate the fractured social and emotional terrain of the postsocialist city characterized by the unresolved historicity of Chinaâs abrupt transition from socialism to state-controlled capitalism (McGrath 20). In terms of the noir sensibility of this earlier representation of flânerie, Phillippa Lovatt reads Xiaowu and Blind Shaft as marked by docu-realist aesthetics, staging disillusionment with both socialist and capitalist promises (182). Suzhou River, by contrast, mobilizes noir through its Hitchcockian reference, creating a dystopic Shanghai populated by doubles and absences (Silbergeld 15-16; Yeung 189). Often working semi-underground with low budgets and banned from domestic release for their explicit political reference or lack of approval to enter international film festivals, these films are considered to embody the sixth-generation style of social relevancy, where they actively confront urban transformation by documenting it (Braester 22; Nie 380; Zhang 6). The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey into Night, however, emerge under different conditions. While both films retain the motif of the drifter in a gloomy postsocialist landscape, neither expresses overt political overtones: Zhouâs flânerie is framed as a momentary detachment from his fleeing from the police, and the narrative centers on his self-sacrifice to deliver the bounty for his family; Luoâs flânerie is rendered introspective and nostalgic, traversing between a fragmented present in search of a lost past before descending into a dream away from the real. Neither film poses itself as concerned with representing the ârealâ Chinese postsocialist city: 10 while Long Dayâs Journey Into Night is indeed set in Kaili, Guizhou province, a primarily Miao2 ethnic settlement, the film avoids direct ethnographic depiction of any cultural landmarks. On the other hand, The Wild Goose Lake sets itself in a Chinese âSouthern cityâ constructed through a pastiche of different locations within Hunan province, using Wuhan dialect, offering not the image of a real city, but a stylized collage that is the Wild Goose Lake area. Here, cinematic urban spaces function less as an indexical representation of any specific Chinese city and more as a symbolic mise-en-scène constituted by noir iconographic staples like run-down factories, decaying buildings, and dark alleyways. They become not spaces of social investigation but stylized cities of the noir genre. âFilmmaking with Chinese Characteristicsâ: Noir Flânerie and New Mainland Film Industry Trend Although this aesthetic departure from representing the real to an imagined pastiched reality could be traced to the changing Chinese urban landscape itself, whose postmodern fragmentation seemed to demand stylized representation, I argue this shift from the sixth-generationâs neorealist approach to a stylized noir city could be explained by a broader institutional restructuring of state control over media and cinema, in an attempt to cater to every sideâs need. Directors like Lou Ye, Jia Zhangke and Li Yang, were penalized under what was then SARFT, the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television.3 In 2013, SARFT merged with 2 The Miao are a diverse, mountain-dwelling ethnolinguistic group residing primarily in China, and also in Vietnam, Laos, Burma, and Thailand. Officially classified under the umbrella term âMiaoâ in China, the category encompasses four distinct subgroups: the Hmu people of southeast Guizhou, the Qo Xiong people of west Hunan, the A-Hmao people of Yunnan, and the Hmong people of GuiZhou, Sichuan, Guanxi, and Yunnan, whose languages, customs, and histories are mutually divergent. For further detail, see âMiao.â Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Miao. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. 3 Lou Ye received a 2-year ban from filmmaking in the mainland while Suzhou River was banned to release in the 11 the General Administration of Press and Publication to become SAPPRFT (the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television), signaling a growing fusion of propaganda and media oversight (Lin 40). By 2018, SAPPRFT was restructured into the NRTA (National Radio and Television Administration) (âOrganizational History of Broadcasting and Television Institutionsâ) under the CCPâs Central Propaganda Department, with an assigned duty of acting as the formerly dismantled National Film Bureau in film-related regulation and policymaking (âCentral Propaganda Departmentâ; Lin 40). As a point of reference, both prior organs SARFT and SAPPRFT were affiliated directly to the State Council of the PRC, while its âpublicityâ duties were led by the Central Propaganda Department (âOrganizational Historyâ; Wang Yong). This Central Propaganda Department takeover signifies an intensification of the Partyâs direct management over mediaâs, including cinemaâs, representational function as an ideological tool (Lin 41). Such a move is not surprising given that the CCPâs developmental mandate4 noted the need to further boost the national âsoft powerâ, a term adopted by former president Hu Jingtao to frame Chinaâs need to develop its cultural industry as an essential step in mainland due to its lack of approval from the SARFT to enter overseas film festival. Jia Zhangkeâs Xiaowu was banned for the same reason. Jia received a 5-year ban from filmmaking in the mainland. Li Yangâs Blind Shaft was shot without going through script censorship and he received a 3-year ban from filmmaking. See Wang Lin æ±ªç³, âJia Zhangke: Mingyun benshen nandao shi tian zhuding?â è´¾æ¨æ¯ï¼å½è¿æ¬èº«é¾éæ¯å¤©æ³¨å®ï¼ [Jia Zhangke: Is Fate Itself Predetermined?], The New York Times Chinese, 30 Oct. 2013; Liu Hui åæ, âLi Yang fangtan: dianying de yiyiâ ææ¨è®¿è°: çµå½±çæä¹ [Interview with Li Yang: The Meaning of Film], Jintian wang; and âLou Ye, bu que qian leâ å¨ç¨ï¼ä¸ç¼ºé±äº [Lou Ye No Longer Lacks Money], The Paper, 9 Nov. 2021. 4 The Five-Year Plan is central to Chinaâs national economic planning system. It outlines objectives and directions for national development by coordinating major construction projects, the distribution of productive forces, and key structural ratios within the national economy. With the exception of the post-war recovery period (1949â1952) and the economic readjustment phase (1963â1965), China has issued successive Five-Year Plans beginning in 1953. See more about the history of The Fiver-Year Plan in See âThe First Five-Year Plan (1953â1957).â The Central Peopleâs Government of the Peopleâs Republic of China, 28 Oct. 2005, www.gov.cn/test/2005-10/28/content_88648.htm. 12 âthe great revival of the Chinese peopleâ (Hu).5 The thirteenth five-year plan, spanning from 2016-2020, called for boosting soft power by âenhancing the influence of Chinese cultureâ, as well as âthe cultivation of competitive cultural enterprises and brands as pillars of the national economyâ (âCultural Development and Reform Planâ). Such ideological tightening also coincides with the need to meet the demand of an expanding film market. The number of screens in China rose from 1,581 in 2002 to 31,627 in 2015, with domestic box office growing from 0.13 billion USD in 2001 to 6.76 billion USD by 2015, and annual feature production increasing from 100 to 686 (Yang 3). To meet the demands of this expanding market, censorship procedures were streamlined to encourage more production. As Diao Jinuo observes, the Chinese Film Industry Promotion Law mandated in 2017, which simplified the production approval process and permitting resubmission after initial rejection, is an attempt by the CCP to transition from a government-led film industry to a âmarket-led industry under the governmentâs macro-supervisionâ (89).6 Meanwhile, to boost Chinese soft power, the Chinese Film Industry Promotion Law promoted transnational and international co-productions, by granting tax incentives, state funding, or even national cinema status depending on individual cases (Diao Jinuo 80). 5 See more history of the PRCâs soft power discourse in Yanling Yangâs âFilm Policy, the Chinese Government and Soft Powerâ. New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, vol. 14, no. 1, Mar. 2016, pp. 71â91. https://doi.org/10.1386/ncin.14.1.71_1. 6 However, the leniency of the Chinese Film Promotion Law is only conditional: all public screenings still require final approval; foreign co-productions are restricted to sanctioned modes; and participation in international festivals without approval can lead to severe sanctions, including full production bans. See more in Diao Jinuoâs The Chinese Film Industry: Features and Trends, 2010-2016. 13 Thus, the ideal mainland film of this time carries a dual mandate: to be ideologically aligned with the State, best if exportable as a testament of the national soft power, but also not risk its domestic market-facing potentials. This new âduty-heavyâ cinema is encapsulated by Film Industry Aesthetics, a film ontology coined by Peking University Professor Chen Xuguang to call for future Chinese filmmakers towards a more âmodernizedâ, economically sustainable way of filmmaking that cultivates cultural strength (Chen Xuguang 33). This concept emphasizes finding the balance between the âartisticâ and the âcommercialâ, between the auteur and the market, and prioritizes the producerâs role as a mediating force (Chen Xuguang 36). Inheriting the socialist construct of art as an educational tool, this type of film must direct masses to the correct mode of thinking and behaving under socialist value (Chen Xuguang 40). In this sense, Film Industry Aesthetics is less a specific mode of representational aesthetic like neorealism or surrealism, and more a set of general guidelines that echoes the teleological mandate of the PRCâs soft power agenda. Li Li has critiqued âfilm industry aestheticsâ as functioning more as a descriptive framework aligned with the stateâs cultural agenda, summarizing policy discourse such as the Film Industry Promotion Law and directives on cultural development. According to Li, the term looks more like a âtext-to-textâ paraphrasing without any imaginative or critical theoretical position (97). However imaginative or not, Chen Xuguangâs Film Industry Aesthetics nevertheless serves for this thesis as a useful framework that summarizes the new context and characteristics in which Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey Into Night and Diao Yinanâs The Wild Goose Lake were being made: as films which are auteur-driven and market-conscious, but which are subject to the regulatory gaze (ideologically and legally) of the mainland authorities. 14 Detour: the âTransnationalâ of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night As both films showcase a transnational trajectory in their making and distribution, it is perhaps worth taking a brief detour to invoke the critical discourse on transnational Chinese cinema and transnational noir to illuminate my discussion. Drawing from both discourses, I situate both The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night as supported by the transnational festival circuit in circulating mainland stories, which are narratives set within the mainland and shaped by the mainlandâs industrial and legal frameworks, including censorship and domestic market expectations mentioned above, even as they circulate through international festival circuits. Meanwhile, the recourse to transnational noir also illuminates the transnational appeal of the noir genreâs adaptability across borders, as a recognizable cinematic grammar responding to the manifestations of global modernity, and in this case, responding to Chinese postsocialist modernity. Transnational Chinese cinema or rather, approaching Chinese cinema from a transnational perspective, was first introduced by Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu in 1997, who in his seminal Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender argues cinema that are usually deemed âChineseâ must be reconsidered âas transnationalâ in a new framework of cultural exchange, production, and distribution in the new century (3). Luâs transnational turn in Chinese film studies calls for examination of how the two films concerned in this thesis are made under the new globalizing order of transnational capitalism (âNotes on four major paradigms in Chinese-language film studiesâ 18). Whatâs more, he argues the sole consideration of âChinese cinemaâ from a single national perspective to be obsolete as it fails to capture the cross-border flow of capital, talent and media in shaping the Chinese filmmaking industry (Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender 3). With his transnational approach, Lu also 15 begs a careful consideration of the specific Chinese-ness that a film performs, emphasizing on the regional cultural differences between the mainland China, the Taiwan straits, Hong Kong (SAR) and the Chinese diaspora (Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender 3). On Luâs foundation, Will Higbee and Song Hwee Lim developed the term âcritical transnationalismâ to further account for the interplay of regional culture and transnational capitalism in a filmâs production and reception. As Higbee and Lim argue, Luâs transnational turn, though illuminating, still veers the âtransnationalâ towards a celebration of the âsupranational flow or transnational exchange of peoples, images and cultures at the expense of specific cultural, historical or ideological context in which these exchanges take placeâ (Higbee and Lim 12). As Chris Berry further demonstrates, the transnational is not necessarily an equal exchange between corporations within nation-states, but a manifestation of a pre-existing international order where private companies rely on uneven international treaties or state military might to implement new configurationâs division of labor globally (463). In the filmmaking industry, this transnationalization of film thus manifests in how a project might be a co-production between two nationally bounded entities, or an international production where one company employs production and post-production crew from different countries, assigning the division of labor across borders. For Desser, one of the most important elements of neo-noir is its transnational qualities, in its âtransnational (mode of) filmmaking, cross-cultural influences, and the idea of global cultureâ (628). Desser argues that in the 1990s, there is no debate of noirâs existence as a genre because noir has already entered global filmmakers and critics consciousness, through the circulation of classical Hollywood movies and new Hollywood movement (629). Desser identifies in neo-noir like Pulp Fiction (1994) and the Usual Suspects (1995) a âmixing and recycling of new and old 16 and low art and high artâ that characterizes the âneoâ quality of noir as well as the New Hollywood movement in general (Naremore qtd. in Desser 633). Indeed, as Kelso-marsh notes, Hollywood film noir has circulated in South Korea and Japan post-World War II and shaped their media cultures in hybridized ways (48). Film noir in Asia thus should be understood like its classical Hollywood precursor: that as classical Hollywood Film noir was a transnational result of German émigré directors, American pulp fiction and French poetic realism, Asian noir likewise bears the transnational fusion between classical Hollywood noir and regional cinematic traditions (48). Kelso-marsh attributes the rise of noir in Asian cinema to a common need for a cinematic lexicon to respond to the rise of âcommon experiences of modernization, urbanization, and globalizationâ as well as âAmericanizationâ in the Asian contexts (47). James Naremore (77), Andrew Spicer (136) and Edward Dimendberg (18) likewise attributes the depiction of a dystopian urban landscape, the inclusion of the femme fatale, and noir paranoia to the problematics of modernity, which results in fast changing socioeconomic transformation as well as gender role changes and spatial transformation. Writing on Hong Kong noir, Stephen Teo also identifies an intraregional flow between Hollywood noir and Hong Kong jinfei pian (cops and robbersâ films) in John Woo and Johnnie Toâs cinema (137). In terms of mainland noir, Stefano Locati argued for a âquasi-noirâ Chinese cinematic tradition in the socialist cinema of the 1960s, in fante pian (the anti-spy genre) which uses expressive noir lightings and depicts paranoia (99). However, it is only quasi-noir because these movies often end in an unequivocally morally righteous ending, depicting the socialist good defeating the capitalist evil, due to the filmsâ propagandist nature (103). Later in the genealogy is the sixth-generation directors, whose noir-tinged works have become the point of discussion for many theorizing on noir from the mainland, especially against the backdrop of rapid socioeconomic transformation after the 17 mainlandâs turn to market economy from the socialist system, which Jason McGrath describes as âpostsocialist modernityâ. McGrathâs âpostsocialist modernityâ provides an account for how modernization emerges in the mainland after the failed socialist revolutions of the 1960s. The sudden turn to capitalism from socialism resulted, according to McGrath, not only in the rise of consumerism but also in a cultural rupture and ideological disorientation, as the Chinese Communist Party frames the capitalist turn not as defeat but as part of a broader strategy of modernization and ethnic revival (6). Li Zeng has argued that Lu Chuanâs The Missing Gun (2002) and Wang Xiaoshuaiâs So Close to Paradise (1998) exemplify the mainland Chinese localization of noir, in response to the fragmentation and capitalist orientation of postsocialist modernity, while showcasing a degree of postmodern self-awareness of genre mixing (âHollywood Models and the Production of Film Noir in Chinese Cinema at the Turn of the Twenty-first Centuryâ). This postmodern pastiche is likewise observed by Harry Kuoshu, who observes the carnivalesque energy in Ning Haoâs noir-comedy Crazy Stones (2006) as a response to the boom of capitalist consumerism and the money fetishism of the mainland (23). Yunda Eddie Feng and Jerome Silbergeld have examined Lou Yeâs Suzhou River vis-Ã -vis Hitchcockâs disorienting structure and psychoanalytic constructions of doubles in a quickly changing Shanghai (Feng 193; Silbergeld 16). Phillippa Lovatt has positioned Jia Zhangkeâs Xiaowu and Li Yangâs Blind Shaft in the same realm of Jules Dassinâs The Naked City (1948), as docu-fiction noir, which constitutes an âaesthetic of disenchantmentâ of both socialist and capitalist ideals on both the thematic and visual level (180). But it was not until 2014 that film noir entered mainland audience conscious and the official consciousness, with the massive success of Diao Yinanâs Black Coal, Thin Ice. The then Film Bureau of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television praised Black Coal, Thin Iceâs festival and market success in a 18 special seminar, calling it a âmilestone eventâ in the âmany years of Chinese film industry reformâ (Yao 40). Other scholars who attended the same seminar also considered the filmâs use of noir to be especially enlightening for Chinese filmmakers moving forward, noting that noir seems to be the quintessential genre to both appeal to the market with its inclusion of violence and romantic tension and to explore meaningful moral dilemmas (Yao 41). The general conclusion of this high-profile seminar was that noir seems to be the definitive genre that mainland filmmakers could appropriate and localize to explore mainland transformations, while garnering festival and market appeals. Both The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night need to be considered under this transnational lens because they are both officially recognized as Sino-French co-productions, with major investments from mainland entities and minor funding from Franceâs Center National du Cinéma et de lâimage animée âs Aide aux Cinémas du Monde program (âAide aux cinémas du monde : résultats des comités de chiffrage--Résultats des commissionsâ). A deeper dive into the eligibility to receive this funding reveals that the Aide aux Cinémas du Monde is an attempt by the French Cultural Ministry to fashion itself as the leading figure in discovering and supporting auteurs from the so-called âworld cinemaâ (Centre national du cinéma et de lâimage animée, âAide aux cinémas du monde.â). As Chris Berry argues elsewhere, the term âworld cinemaâ, unlike the more politically radical âthird cinemaâ, has come to represent a marketing label used in global film festivals for films from outside of the global north (âWhat Is Transnational Cinema? Thinking from the Chinese Situationâ 112). In the following chapters on the two films respectively, I will consider their specific transnational co-production status in detail. What the two films share is that they seek to be simultaneously market-facing and festival-certified, attempting to ensure both festival prestige and domestic box office profit. Following the 19 transnational approach, both filmsâ âChinese-nessâ need also be considered. I argue both films are mainland Chinese stories, namely of postsocialist experience, directed by mainland writer-filmmakers, but produced and distributed transnationally in the global art-house festival film circuit: while they circulate domestically as star-filled crime romances (Ge Yiting; Fan and You 47), they are visible transnationally as mainland Chinese noir exports in their Cannes appearance (Scott; Chang). Both films exemplify the contemporary trend of transnational cinema as an alignment between the auteur, the capital which supports it, the mainland Chinese ideological apparatus and market which greenlit its release, and the festival circuit. In other words, both films produce an image of mainland Chinese-ness, encoded through noir genre, that seeks to align with all the above mentioned. If the sixth-generation directors were caught between the increasing demand of the market, the strong ideological regulation from the states, then this newer strand of noir flânerie exemplified by Diao and Bi actively engages to fit every sideâs expectation, while preserving their auteurist touch. In this new configuration, both noir genre and flânerie, and in their combined form noir flânerie, become a mode of transnational legibility, bridging state-authorized art cinema and global festival markets, backed by major domestic funding while securing domestic market allure. This attempt to bridge the commercial and the festival shows in their packaging: both featured major stars (Hu Ge and Gwei Lun-mei in The Wild Goose Lake, Tang Wei in Long Dayâs Journey Into Night), and both were marketed through recognizable genre appeals (gangster noir in the former, romantic mystery in the latter) (Li Li, ââDiqiu zuihou de yewanâ: Dianying gongyeâ 46; Shen Yang). Social media campaigns amplified this positioning, with Long Dayâs Journey Into Night promoted as a New Yearâs Eve âdate movieâ (Chen Hongyu 66) and The Wild Goose Lake pushed through action-heavy trailers, promoted as 20 a film whose violent spectacles reportedly âattracted Quentin Tarantino in its Cannes screeningâ (Chang, âAt Cannesâ). Unlike their sixth-generation precursors, The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night had large budget and strong box office performance (âDiqiu zuihou de yewan Box Office Dataâ; âNan fang chezhan de juhui Box Office Dataâ). Both garnered international festival attention while also released in domestic theatres backed by social media campaigns using livestream platform Douyin (Tiktokâs Chinese version) (Chen Hongyu 66; Shen Yang). In contrast, earlier noir flânerie films were banned domestically for skipping or failing script censorship, even as they garnered international acclaim (Jaffee; Li Yang). They largely circulate online and on DVD, rendering them underground films that relied on overseas distribution rights for income (Nie 381). In terms of fulfilling the duty to enhance the PRCâs soft power, both films continue a tradition of Sino-foreign co-productions, a factor that likely facilitated their festival competitiveness. The Wild Goose Lake was co-produced with Michel Merkt, and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night with Charles Gillibert, both famous for their producing credits in European art house cinema.7 It is no news that Chinese cinema partakes in crossborder co-production: Xiaowu was produced with Hong Kong production company Hutong (âHui zuo shengyi de Jia Zhangkeâ), and Suzhou River co-produced by Philippe Bober, the founder of Coproduction Office, a Paris-based company known for supporting radical European auteurs such as Lars von Trier, Roy Andersson, and Jessica Hausner (Coproduction Office). The 7 Michel Merkt is a Swiss producer whose producing credits include Elle and Bacurau. He also served on the Caméra dâOr jury at Cannes in 2017 and was named an honorary citizen of Cannes in 2023 for his patronage of numerous films. Charles Gillibert is a French producer, whose production company CG cinema which produced Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey into Night, is also known producing Leos Caraxâs Annette and Abbas Kiarostamiâs 24 Frames. Both producers are considered avid supporters of global auteur cinema. See more about Merkt at âMichel Merkt.â Festival de Cannes, www.festival-cannes.com/p/michel-merkt/.; see more about Gillibert at âà propos.â CG Cinéma, www.cgcinema.eu/a-propos. 21 director of Xiaowu, Jia Zhangke, for example, is no stranger to crossborder co-production, as his later works attracted international investment including the Sino-French-Japanese produced Unknown Pleasures (2004) and the Sino-Japanese produced A Touch of Sin (2013). However, neither Unknown Pleasures nor A Touch of Sin were permitted to release in China due to their political undertones, despite critical acclaims in international film festivals (âHui zuo shengyi de Jia Zhangkeâ). His later work, the Sino-Japanese-French produced Mountains May Depart (2015), while permitted to release in Chinese mainland, only grossed a total of 32 million RMB in domestically on a 40 million RMB budget, with the overseas distribution sale covering most of the cost (âHui zuo shengyi de Jia Zhangkeâ; Shan he gu ren Box Office Data). Similarly, Lou Yeâs Sino-French production Purple Butterfly (2003) grossed an abysmal domestic number of 3 million RMB on a 20 million investment despite being a nominee for the Cannes Palme dâOr, relying heavily on foreign distribution sales to make ends meet (âLou Ye wenyi wangshiâ; âLou daoâ). Though this Sino-foreign co-production is not exclusive to Diao and Bi but also to Lou and Jia from a prior era, it is with Diao and Biâs films that such co-produced festival-stamped âart houseâ films managed to garner not only critical high-art recognition but enormous domestic box office revenue. This alignment, however, as Sheldon Lu argues, does not necessarily negate their artistic expression and render the film as simply another instance of a circulating commodified image of mainland China, or as a passive reinforcement of the global transnational film market logic that conceives it (âNotes on four major paradigms in Chinese-language film studiesâ 19). Chris Berry deepens this claim by considering transnational cinema not as a system that produces a single unified outcome every time it is invoked, but as what Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari terms âassemblageâ, a âcontingent ensemble of diverse practicesâ between technology and 22 politics, which ânot only create their own spaces, but also give diverse values to the practices and actors thus connected to each otherâ(Aihwa Ong, qtd. in Berry 468). Invoking Deleuze and Guattariâs assemblage theory, Chris Berry argues that the transnational cinema, despite being enabled and working within the global configuration of capitalism (as well as that of cultural capital like film festival exposure and distribution), is in itself âa continuous self-vibrating plateauâ that is internally heterogenous and contingent (468). Transnational cinema in its cross-border circulation then, as Berry notes, will inevitably entail different reception, therefore âradically open to connecting with that which is differentâ (468). With this in mind, after situating The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night within both the mainland socio-political apparatus and the global festival circuit, I turn now to how these films negotiate and perform the image of mainland China at this intersection. Under the new conditions of ideological compliance, international festival circulation, and market appeal, the earlier sixth-generation neorealist approach, which directly confronts urban transformation through a low-budget, documentary style, has largely receded. Instead, The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey into Night see the emergence of stylized noir cities: a pastiche Southern city in the former, and a fictionalized ruined version of Kaili in the latter. These films operate not by referencing the cityâs profilmic reality but by crafting an affective noir landscape that vaguely overlap with postsocialist experience, without directly referencing it. These cities can be argued to be formed through Gilles Deleuzeâs any-spaces-whatever, and furthermore through David H. Flemingâs any-now(here)-spaces, as I will demonstrate in the chapter to follow. According to Deleuze, the any-space-whatever is a space without clear time-space coordinates, one that cannot be properly situated within any rationally mapped territories but appears as a fragment of itself (Bogue 77; Deleuze 109). In his focus on postwar cinema, 23 certain recurring spaces become evident: urban ruins, fragmented interiors, anonymous buildings, or indifferent zones of passage (Deleuze 120; Rodowick 74). The Wild Goose Lake area and Kaili are not presented as real Chinese cities but rather noir-coded iconographies of âany-Chinese-city-whateverâ. What anchors these films is not geographical precision in the real China but an assemblage of recurring signifiers recognizable both from postsocialist landscapes and from noir traditions on a space of disillusionment that points to a Chinese reality that is not locatable in the real. In The Wild Goose Lake, run-down factories, overcrowded residential slums, and half-finished construction sites evoke both the postsocialist urban decay and noirâs fascination with ruins and marginal zones. In Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, the proliferation of anonymous sites like the tunnel, the deserted restaurant, the Tarkovsky-esque flooded room, the ruined cabaret, structures Kaili into a network of unnamed ruins. Though all of these any-spaces-whatever do exist in a narrative of regional dialect (Hubei dialect in The Wild Goose Lake and Guizhou dialect in Long Dayâs Journey into Night), therefore granting them some degree of spatial determination, the omission of any ethnographically representative landmark nonetheless renders such cognitive determination always in tension with their vaguely defined Southern Chinese-ness.8 In both films, space is not tied to the specificity of Wuhan or Kaili but recoded as a generic noir landscape that is recognizably mainland Chinese yet fundamentally unlocatable. 8 Notably, Liu Siqi identifies this emerging cinematic trend as the âChinese Southern New Waveâ, featuring films that portray family and social issues set in the subtropical southern China. The films create what IFFR (International Film Festival Rotterdam) describes as a âhypnotic and clammy atmosphere,â drawing on misty weather, mountainous terrain, and the disoriented inner worlds of their characters (International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019 qtd. in Liu 43). Liu names Bi Gan as a key figure for his focus on memory and personal experience. While Diaoâs the Wild Goose Lake is not autobiographical, it does also create a misty humid ambiance using incessant rain and sweat. See more in Liu, Siqi. âThe South China New Wave: Cinema as Xinxiang (Affective-Ideational Imagery).â Chinese Film in the Twenty-First Century: Movements, Genres, Intermedia, edited by Corey Schultz and Charlotte Mello, Routledge, 2024, pp. 43â58. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003371694-5. 24 Such decentering from the mandarin-dubbed media signifies a creative relocation to the outskirt, the cultural âotherâ of dominant Chinese cultural production and socio-economic center, a symbolic move to establish an alternative creative discourse (Zhang Bin and Luo Hanxiao 69-70). While evoking a sense of loss and suspension, these spaces, are traversed not by narrative intention but rather through flânerie, whose contingent encounter with the âany-Chinese-city-whateverâ constitute not a coherent critique but a series of singular situations in an unrecognizable singular city that could only be taken virtually and symbolically. The postsocialist critique of the sixth-generation thus makes way for a safer noir flânerie, as it predicates its invocation as purely a genre stylization, distancing itself from directly confronting the sociopolitical real, but rather evoking it on an ambivalently symbolic level. Noir Flânerie in the Chinese Any-now(here)-spaces of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night This representational shift from the real Chinese city to the virtual requires a methodological update. If Laiâs flâneur as method foregrounds how cinematic representation of movement could expose the complex political fabric of the postsocialist city, the flânerie in The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey into Night renders the city as a mise-en-scène of postsocialist affect, detaching from explicit historical and political reference. Retaining Laiâs concept of flânerie as an enunciative act and cinematic postsocialist cities as heterotopia, I further draw on Gilles Deleuzeâs any-space-whatever and David H. Flemingâs any-now(here)-spaces to account for the affective-spatial qualities specific to The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night. Deleuze himself relates the emergence of the any-space-whatever to the act of wandering. He writes that any-spaces-whatever have ceased to fulfill their expected roles and now simply exist to be perceived âin a state of strolling, rambling or wandering aimlessly which derived pure 25 optical and sound situationâ. (Deleuze qtd. in Rodowick 75) The any-spaces-whatever are spaces where previous identities or functions have collapsed, and where the film world, in this case the hopeless noir city, no longer responds to human intentions or narrative causality (Fleming 525). This is for Deleuze a new âmodern voyageâ in a âlabyrinthine path of loosely connected situationsâ (76). While the classic Deleuzian any-space-whatever provides a mode of investigation into how both films transform fragmented encounters of spaces of transience into sites of amorphous affects, Flemingâs any-now(here)-spaces situates the same interpretive qualities of the any-space-whatever within the uneven temporalities and spatial logics of the postsocialist Chinese city, perhaps an any-space-whatever with Chinese characteristics. Instead of being born of the European postwar disillusionment, Chinese any-(now)here-spaces are not ruins but rather spaces-in-development, gesturing to what Lin Xiaoping describes as being in the âintense presentâ of teleological narrative of development and future-making (qtd. in Fleming 529). The any-(now)here-spaces is for Fleming a manifestation of any-space-whatever in modern Chinese context, where the individual experience of time and space becomes less motivated through their actions but through spectating the various âdevelopmentâ that the state has achieved. The ânowâ and âhereâ in Flemingâs reorientation of the Deleuzian term is to describe the emergence of homogenous non-places that follows with Chinese development, which share with the traditional any-space-whatever the effect of leaving its spectator in a breakdown of perceptual causality (Fleming 528). These spaces are indeed ruins or demolitions, but contrary to the distraught post-war sites Deleuze writes about, they are sites in service of a better future, thus creating an experience between the past (now ruined) and a vision of the future, a never-ending present (Fleming 530). In this way, the flâneurs in these films do not inscribe onto real urban spaces, but in cinematic constructs that are legibly postsocialist yet 26 detached from their socio-political coordinates. These films do not renounce the postsocialist condition but instead refigure it affectively in the noir-coded city of the Wild Goose Lake and Kaili. Flânerie thus becomes, in Laiâs framing, a kind of spatial act to chart the affective postsocialist space rather than representing the ontological real of Chinese society. Through the filmsâ noir coding, the postsocialist affect of disillusionment and disorientation then become safely contained in the noir sensibility, becoming the Chinese manifestations of global modernity (Caleb Kelso-Marsh 42; Stephen Teo 139; Jennifer Fay and Justus Nieland 68). While Lai frames flânerie as a spatial practice that enunciates and maps affect in the heterotopic fabric of the postsocialist city, the interventions of Deleuze and Fleming allow me to foreground the singularity of spatial encounters that resist simple totalization: Zhouâs walk in the noir city is one for individual survival, not investigative; and Luoâs walk is more suffused with his traumatic obsession with his personal past, not towards the social fabric. In this way, flânerie is not only a traversal or mapping of space but a generative act that transforms space into something affectively and intellectually open. These any-nowhere-spaces invite the viewerâs own drifting gaze, rendering the film itself a vehicle for cinematic flânerie. Moving on from our contextual and methodological framework, we arrive at our close analysis of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, respectively in chapter 2 and chapter 3. Both chapters provide two kinds of analysis drawing on our synthesis between noir negation, postsocialist thematic, and the figure of flânerie: I will firstly map the flâneur narrative of each film. For this I ask: what is the cause of their flânerie? How does this flânerie intersect with the postsocialist fabric of contemporary Chinese society, and how is it encoded through noir fatalism? After this, each chapter then delves into detailed investigation into the sequences that foreground the flânerie in specific any-now(here)-spaces. For The Wild Goose 27 Lake, the noir drift stems from Zhouâs fatalistic recognition of being a desired postsocialist criminal, who internalizes the idea that there is no escape in the context of a heavily surveilled China. This fatalism is not only personal but structurally reinforced: the presentation of police manhunt surveillance procedure as highly efficient does not villainize the law enforcement but rather reinforces its idealized effective image, and Luoâs fatal death reinforces the ideological mandate that no crimes go unpunished.9 His running-not-running around the Wild Goose Lake is thus a kind of intentional delay of his planned demise. Forging a brief intimacy with Liu Aiai, Zhouâs flânerie becomes not only an act of self-redemption to make amends to his family, but also a final emotional lingering before surrendering to his fatal demise. Described as a village-within-the-city area, a spatial mutation in the conceived landscape of Chinese urbanization (Li Peilin 169), the Lake area becomes an alternative space mapped through sites of any-now(here)-spaces. By tracing Zhou and Liuâs movements through the peripheries of the Lake, the film turns transient and transactional spaces into any-spaces-whatever, where narrative urgency gives way to the quiet prolongation of oneâs life in the here and now. Their flânerie starts at the train station, where they first meet and cautiously retell the incident from different perspectives to see what steps to take. From there, Zhou retreats into a nameless cabin, an interim threshold that links the prior flashbacks to his actual project of staging a believable turn-in to secure bounty for 9 No essays have been written explicitly about this ideological alignment of mainland crime drama ending. But in recent years, many mainland crime dramas end with a note that all the criminals featured are ultimately trialed, despite not necessarily showing their whereabouts in the diegesis. Notable examples are Caught In Tide (2020), Endless Journey (2021), the Wrath of Silence (2018). It could be inferred from the Chinese Film Promotion Law that this is part of the ideological mandate to depict the âsocialist realityâ where no crimes go unpunished, to educate the masses. A similar case occurred when Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) was released in China in 2022 via streaming with an altered ending, with the anarchist finale replaced with a text slide stating that the police successfully stopped the plan and sent Tyler (Brad Pitt) to an asylum. See Nectar Ganâs â'Fight Club' Has a New Ending in China.â 28 his wife. Once back outside, the pair traverse the Lakeâs environment: they pass a looming development advertisement billboard projecting a modernity absent from the decaying surroundings; they witness a heated factory meeting about relocation, inserted but never resolved; they stumble into a fun fair, where a singing head and mirror maze externalize their psychological fragmentation; and they drift by boat into the misty lake, where intimacy takes place in the dark. This itinerary is less a linear progression than a sequence of contingent encounters, each suspending Zhouâs eventual capture. I argue that these spaces, initially appearing as any-spaces-whatever, detach from narrative progression and instead foreground affective qualities. In their accumulation, they are transformed into any-now(here)-spaces in the fabric of the postsocialist village-within-the-city: fragmented, transitory, transactional sites where time dilates and becomes protracted. For Zhou, these flâneries prolong his life against the fatalistic momentum of noir, putting him in an intense present of the here-and-now, since the present is all he has left. My analysis of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night centers on the spatial logic of any-now(here)-spaces across three key sites: Xiaofeng Restaurant, the tunnel, and the dreamscape of a deserted prison reanimated by doppelgängers. Mourning his late father at Xiaofeng Restaurant named after his mother who was gone a long time ago, Luo embarks on a journey into a nostalgic past when he discovers a photo of his long lost lover Wan. The tunnel recalls the moment when Luo and Wan first bonded, a romantic stroll replayed as memory. Arriving at Wanâs last known location, the reanimated prison, Luo falls into a dream environment beginning in a repopulated prison, encountering doppelgangers of his past. For its protagonist Luo Hongwu, the noir tale similarly presents flânerie as a path towards redemption, except not in the real world. Drawing from Yang Yuâs âProjection of Multiple Fantasies: De-subjectivity of Images in 29 Long Dayâs Journey into Nightâ, I understand Luoâs flânerie as an entrapped back and forth within the crystal circuit of the actual (recollection-present) and the virtual (dream) (Yang Yu 66). Luoâs return to his late motherâs restaurant initiates a state of affective paralysis, where both camera and character linger in suspended motion. In the tunnel, where Luo recalls his first meeting with his former lover Wan, the film destabilizes perspective, shifting between subjective memory and externalized re-enactment, rendering recollection spatially fractured and disorienting. Both the restaurant and the tunnel are heterotopic any-now(here)-spaces, where multiple temporalities collide on a singular space that occupies, crystallizing affects rather than progressing action. Finally, in the hour-long one-take dream through a reanimated deserted prison, Luo drifts across a terrain populated by doubles and déjà vus. By invoking Birdman as a comparison, I argue that this astonishing long take showcases a preference for the ontological real where the profilmic time unfolds rather than digital illusion of continuity. Drawing on William Brownâs concept of supercinema, which describes digital cinemaâs ability to move through space like a superhuman force (46), I argue that Bi Ganâs ârealâ long-take represents an alternative mode of cinematic movement that grounds perception in the profilmic journey of Luo. The camera does not pass through walls but detours around them to maintain an embodied traversal. In this way, Biâs cinema complicates the cameraâs posthuman fluidity but stages flânerie as an embodied exploration of the dream world, whose spatial-temporal clarity contrasts the fragmented first half of the film. I argue that this long-take exemplifies flânerieâs ability to reframe the experience of time from being a measurement for movement into a lived presence, constituting Deleuzeâs time-image where Luoâs flânerie unfolds as an affective experience rather narrative progression. 30 In constructing his fictional Kaili with a network of popular Chinese songs from the 90s, Bi creates a loose network of signifiers of what Svetlana Boym terms âreflective nostalgiaâ, where the film does not seek to replicate a utopian vision of the cityâs past, but rather one that is self-reflexive of its constructed-ness (Boym 49). This dream space does not resolve but refracts, posting itself as a heterotopia of Luoâs memory and reality to be (re)encountered. Traversing the pure nowhere land of his dream, Luoâs flânerie forms a poetics of discovery through the real and the unreal: in the first half of the film, fragmented recollections blur the boundary between memory and reality; in the second, the hour-long long take grounds perspective in embodied, ground-level drift through the ambivalent encounters with dream doubles. In this floating narrative, the actual can only be grasped through the fabulation of the virtual, by means of dream construction. 31 Chapter 2: The Wild Goose Lake and the cartographic fugitive Diao Yinanâs Industrial Noir and Noir as Disciplinary Pedagogy Diao Yinan, though not a prolific filmmaker, has established himself as a central figure in contemporary Chinese cinema, blending noir narrative with a distinct urban consciousness (Mu 25). With only four directorial credits to his name, his oeuvre reflects a coherent preference for noir. His debut feature, Uniform (2003), focuses on the son of a laid-off factory worker who stumbles upon a police uniform and begins impersonating an officer to gain social leverage. His 2007 Night Train, follows a female prison guard who becomes romantically entangled with a man whose wife she executed. Both circulated primarily in the international festival circuit and were not released in mainland theatres: Uniform won the Dragons and Tigers Award at the 22nd Vancouver International Film Festival (âChinese film wins Vancouver festival prizeâ), while Night Train entered the âUn Certain Regardâ category of the 60th Cannes International Film Festival (Festival de Cannes, Ye Che). It was not until 2014 that Diao garnered both international and domestic acclaim, with Black Coal, Thin Ice, a film that won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, while also domestically grossing 104.3 million RMB on a 15 million budget (Wang Lin; Shu). Often hailed as a precursor to Chinese neo-noir (Wang Lin), Black Coal, Thin Ice follows a disillusioned detective investigating a murder case that destroyed his career and marriage, while becoming involved with a mysterious laundry owner connected to the crime. With the filmâs dark atmospheric style, many have considered it as a rare Chinese attempt at neo-noir (Felperin; Wang Lin). To date, Black Coal, Thin Ice is still one of the most profitable Chinese films to have won a major award at an international Film Festival and hailed as a paradigm for bridging art house and commercial filmmaking in mainland Chinese cinema (Shu). 32 The Wild Goose Lake marks a continuation of this art house-commercial hybridity but on a much bigger scale in terms of budget and production. Indeed, the budget of The Wild Goose Lake surged from the 15 million RMB of Black Coal, Thin Ice to a speculated 100 million RMB, while also grossing 203 million at the box office (Ge).10 The Wild Goose Lake has 12 production company credits, as opposed to Black Coal, Thin Iceâs two (Ge). The film was shot over 155 days, at 82 different on-site locations, involving over 370 crew members, 3200 actors (due to use of non-actors for authenticity), âthe scale of which exceeded some major Chinese blockbustersâ, says producer Shen Yang (Yeguang 00:14:17). Director Diao and star Hu Ge actively promoted the film on Douyin (æé³), TikTokâs Chinese version, which helped facilitate a presale of over 2.5 million tickets (Du). As a Sino-French co-production, backed by Tencent Pictures, Maisong Pictures from the Chinese side, ArteFrance Cinéma, and Memento Films on the French side, the Wild Goose Lake received â¬150,000 from the French National Centre of Cinemaâs Aide aux Cinémas du Monde (ACM), a fund supporting international independent films directed by non-French nationals (Vena). The ACM requires co-production with a French company sharing both 10 The exact budget remains undisclosed. But multiple media surmised that the budget for the Wild Goose Lake was around 100 million RMB. See Ge, Yiting èæ¡å©·. âNanfang chezhan piaofang jin 2 yi, kan duli zhizuo yingpian ruhe maixiang gongyehuaâ âåæ¹è½¦ç«âç¥¨æ¿è¿ 2 äº¿ï¼çç¬ç«å¶ä½å½±çå¦ä½è¿åå·¥ä¸å [The Wild Goose Lake nears 200 million at the box office: how an independent film moves toward industrialization]. Diyi caijing ç¬¬ä¸è´¢ç» [Yicai Global], 16 Dec. 2019, https://m.yicai.com/news/100436499.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Web. as well as Xuexi.cn å­¦ä¹ å¼ºå½. âHu Ge xin pian âNanfang chezhan de juhuiâ piaofang po yi! Ni zhidao zhexie muhoutaimi ma?â è¡æ­æ°çãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãç¥¨æ¿ç ´äº¿ï¼ä½ ç¥éè¿äºå¹åç§å¯åï¼ [Hu Geâs new film The Wild Goose Lake breaks 100 million at the box office! Do you know these behind-the-scenes secrets?]. Xuexi.cn å­¦ä¹ å¼ºå½, article.xuexi.cn/articles/index.html?art_id=5676300215146763559&study_style_id=feeds_default&pid=&ptype=-1&share_to=weibo&from=singlemessage&source=share. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Web. 33 distribution and screenplay rights, allowing for potential creative input (Centre national du cinéma et de lâimage animée, âAide aux cinémas du monde.â). While Tencent and Maisong are known domestically for their focus on commercial Chinese cinema, including âmain melodyâ films (zhuxuanlü dianying ä¸»æå¾çµå½±) that adheres to PRCâs socialist propaganda agendas11, genre films, and childrenâs animation (Davis), ArteFrance and Memento are committed to global arthouse cinema, in line with ACMâs mission in cultivating French industry through supporting global cinema (Unifrance, âArte France Cinémaâ; âMemento Productionâ). Swiss producer and Cannes regular Michel Merkt, whose credits include Paul Verhoevenâs Elle (2016) and Kleber Mendoça Filho/Juliano Dornellesâ co-directed Bacurau (2019), also joined the production, reinforcing the filmâs position within an international arthouse network (Festival de Cannes, âMichel Merktâ).12 Though not as impressive as Black Coal, Thin Ice in terms of its festival performances, The Wild Goose Lake was still entered to compete in the main category of the 72nd Cannes Film Festival (Festival de Cannes, Nanfang chezhang de juhui). What emerges from Diaoâs trajectory, is a conscious collaboration with market force while retaining the filmâs festival âart-houseâ appeal. Indeed, as Diaoâs producer Shen Yang 11 âMain Melodyâ films are a specific genre of Chinese films that cater to the CCPâs mandate to âpromote patriotism, socialism and collectivismâ and other socialist, sometimes nationalist, values as part of the teleology of Chinese national revival. This descriptive use of âmain melodyâ to refer to Chinese socialist values first appeared in a talk by Head of Chinese National Film Bureau Teng Jinxian in 1987. See Chu, Yiu-Wai. âIntroduction: Main(Land) Melody Films and Hong Kong Directors.â Main Melody Films: Hong Kong Directors in Mainland China. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2022. 1â28. Print. (Edinburgh Studies in East Asian Film). 12 Both Elle and Bacurau garnered critical international festival attention: while Elle competed in the Cannes Official Selection in 2016, Bacurau won the Cannes Jury Prize in 2019. See in: Festival de Cannes, âBacurau,â Festival de Cannes, https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/, and âElle,â Festival de Cannes, https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/elle/, both accessed 6 August 2025. 34 notes, The Wild Goose Lake was a hybrid product that seeks to cater to both the market and festival, and that the project does not ârepel against being a commercial filmâ (Shen Yang). Diao explains that âas a film made in the industrial way, it is important to make it good, so that more audience can see itâ (Shen Yang). This view coincides with the principle of Film Industry Aesthetics which seeks to produce âart-house filmâ that the general market favors (Chen Xuaguang 33). As a writer-director who has consistently worked on crime dramas, Diao considers ânoirâ as a genre strategy to negotiate artistic ambition with the investors: âafter Night Train and Uniform, I realized that even art-house films will be ârepackagedâ by capital, making it into a productâ¦after I noticed this, I decided to do it (the âpackagingâ) myself. I think the sublime could also be vulgar and gaudyâ (Diao, âHuosiren de langmanâ). Diao describes his fascination with crime to be stemming from a fundamental belief that the world is in itself âsinnedâ, and that it is important to reveal it (âHuosiren de langmanâ). This seeming pessimism in his view coincides with Schraderâs fatalistic noir sensibility (8), but Diaoâs acknowledgment of the responsibility of the artist to reveal the worldâs truth the way he sees it situates him closer to Mark T. Conradâs Nietzschean reading of noir pessimism. For Conrad, the appeal of noir lies not in its nihilism or alienation, but in its confrontation with a post-Nietzschean condition where no universal truth remains, requiring man to create value for himself (âNietzsche and the Meaning and Definition of Noirâ 19). This âpositive pessimismâ, the will to make oneâs own fate, is embodied in Zhouâs trajectory. As Diao states in an interview, âThe only way to overcome death and these confusions is through action... The Wild Goose Lake is a story about a man battling with his own heart, and with death. The protagonist provides an answer within 36 hours: he redeems his perhaps miserable life within timeâ (Renmin wang Hubei). 35 The film follows Zhou Zenong, a scooter thief gang leader who, during a turf conflict with a rival gang, mistakenly kills a police officer. Wounded in the process, he flees to the Wild Goose Lake area and turns to an old connection, local crime boss Huahua, in hopes of meeting Zhouâs estranged wife, Yang Shujun. Convinced that the law will eventually catch up in 36 hours, Zhou devises a plan for Shujun to turn him in at the train station so that his family can claim the bounty on his head. Unbeknownst to Zhou, however, Huahua has already been working with the rival gang and plots to deliver Zhou to them instead. He enlists Liu Aiai, a âfemale swimming companionâ (streetwalker in reality) forced into the role of Zhouâs contact by Huahua, acting under orders without any real agency or knowledge of Huahuaâs broader scheme. The original plan for Shujun to meet Zhou falls through when her brother, Zhouâs right-hand man, is killed in a police raid, leaving her in a mental breakdown. Huahua instructs Liu to take her place to evade police patrol and lead Zhou to a designated room where the turn-in will be staged in nighttime. In deep cover, the two then cautiously walk together in the Wild Goose Lake, through shops, the living quarters, entering a deserted fun fair, going on cruise in the lake and simply wander around, all the while trying to avoid early capture by the police. It is in this shared flânerie of passing time together that they start to develop a bond. Zhou pays Liu with blood-stained money, saying that this would make the turn-in seem more real given Liu's identity as a streetwalker. Yet double-crosser Huahua himself has been double-crossed and murdered by the rival gang, who attempt to seize the bounty for themselves. Barely surviving the ambush and police patrol, Zhou believes Liu is complicit and follows her vengefully. In panic, Liu stumbles upon a meeting of factory owners arguing over who should relocate. Zhou arrives and saves her from being harassed by one of the factory owners. Discovering that she has been forced into being complicit, Zhou forgives her and stays in the restaurant to catch a breath. But the respite is 36 short-lived: as Zhou eats, Liu slips away, and the police close in. Shot as he staggers toward the water, Zhou dies as Liu is recognized as the informant. In the final scene, she is seen to share the reward with Shujun, instead of claiming it herself. Zhouâs recognition of his inevitable demise could be seen as an internalization of postsocialist Chinaâs strong disciplinary response to individuals of exception. As Steven M. Sanders suggests, film noir constructs a world of institutional entrapment and irredeemable guilt, where agency often manifests in the form of surrender (91). Zhouâs trajectory aligns with this fatalism in institutional entrapment by the contemporary Chinese law enforcement: he is not resisting so much as recognizing himself as doomed under Chinese surveillance. Killing a police officer places him beyond the threshold of leniency in a system increasingly governed by Chinaâs maturing mass surveillance project in the 2010s. The tianwang ï¼å¤©ç½ï¼ surveillance system, first piloted in Chengdu in 2005, had by 2012 reached a phase of operational stability, and by 2019 reportedly comprised over 200 million surveillance cameras across the country (Hua; âZhongguo Tianwangâ). This went hand in hand with the establishment of real-name registration policy for mobile phones users launched in 2010, which further tightened control over telecommunications (Chen Shixian and Li Zhen). The year 2012, announced by the radio weather forecast early in The Wild Goose Lake, also positions the film within a significant political conjuncture in contemporary mainland Chinese history. This was the year China saw a new phase of leadership commencing with Xi Jinpingâs election as the new president of the Peopleâs Republic of China, and a major anti-corruption operation that had another prominent Party official, former member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Bo Xilai arrested (Xinhua She). Bo had previously served as the Party Secretary of Chongqing from 2007 to 2012, during which he launched the âChongqing Sweeping Black and Evil campaignâ (37 éåºæé»é¤æ¶ä¸é¡¹è¡å¨) in 2009 and 2010, targeting organized gang crime and governmental corruption (Shen Yi). The campaign resulted in 65 death or life sentences, along with over 4800 Arrests and the seizure of over 3.1 billion yuan in assets (âChongqing dahei chuâeâ). While some credited the operation with restoring social stability (Qi), others viewed it as an excuse for Bo to consolidate personal authority for its tightened civilian surveillance and questionable instances of interrogation by torture (Ran Jin and Zhao Lei).13 The Wild Goose Lakeâs noir paranoia thus coincides with this context of intensifying surveillance. Zhou is no longer evaluated as a moral subject but as a symbolic threat to public order, one that must be eliminated to preserve systemic coherence for both sides. For the law enforcement distinguishing him would mean justice, and for the gangsters it would garner them the bounty and eliminate a potential informant in Zhou. However, I argue the presentation of surveillance in The Wild Goose Lake is not a resistance on Chinese surveillance practice, but rather enables, not asserts, an affirmative reading of state surveillance, especially through what Aeon J. Skoble refers to as noirâs pedagogical value. Skoble argues that noirâs pessimistic outlook lies in its âamoralâ noir charactersâ ability to make bad decisions, which leads them to their inevitable doom (42). These flawed âbadâ characters therefore do not represent an inversion of the filmâs values since these actions usually lead to the âundesiredâ outcomes, therefore presenting âpoorâ examples of practical reasoning (44). Though not claiming that all noir 13 In a 2015 speech given at Central Political Committee, President Xi criticized Boâs Chongqing operation as a vehicle for âself-aggrandizing political ambitionâ, calling him a âdangerous schemerâï¼âéå¿å®¶âï¼yexinjiaï¼. See in: Xi Jinping ä¹ è¿å¹³. Zhongyang zhengzhi ju âsan yan san shiâ zhuanti minzhu shenghuo hui shang de jianghua ä¸­å¤®æ¿æ²»å±âä¸ä¸¥ä¸å®âä¸é¢æ°ä¸»çæ´»ä¼ä¸çè®²è¯ [Speech at the Central Political Committee âs Special Democratic Life Meeting on the âThree Stricts and Three Earnestsâ]. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe ä¸­å¤®æç®åºçç¤¾, 2016. 38 reinforces the dominant institutionâs societal control, Skoble believes noir could enable such disciplinary reception. This is the case of Zhou, that as a criminal who committed manslaughter, must at the end answer to the law or be shot down for socialist order to be restored in the diegesis. The film depicts the manhunt in a rational and proficiently neutral stance. On one hand, The Wild Goose Lake presents the manhunt in a similar cross-cutting montage like the one from Fritz Langâs M (1931), where the film shows both the police and the underground using their different networks in tailing the murderer, Hans Beckett. As Martin Blumenthal-Barby argues, the Berlin policeâs surveillance efforts can be characterized as âscientifically orientedâ, involving an extended sequence showing the use of personal profile tracking and dactyloscopy cross-referencing, reflecting an emerging âsystemic mode of identification and trackingâ (71-72). An effective and strong Chinese police surveillance network is similarly constructed in The Wild Goose Lake in a quick montage, transitioning from Liuâs gazes into the news report of Zhouâs incident on the TV in the train station lounge. The news narrates and outlines the police procedure and plans on how to catch Zhou, detailing what has been learned of Zhouâs motive, the surveillance camera footage of Zhou fleeing, and showing that special troops have been deployed to help search the lake area. Not only this, important transportation hubs have also been mandated for heavy check-up, and the montage even includes a crack-down of an underground gambling joint that is non-diegetic in the story, as a collateral result of Zhouâs manhunt. This montage grants the viewer the official account of the investigation, now moving in steady progress. It is worth noting that the broadcasting presents not only the self-contained broadcast footage but also spliced sequences of diegetic events that exceed the purview of a realistic news agency. The broadcast voice continues over images that are not plausibly captured 39 by a camera crew, but instead unfold in a seemingly omniscient, disembodied perspective, one that hovers across urban rooftops in the form of surveillance camera footage, or which intrudes into private domestic spaces, including civiliansâ reaction to check-ups and the bounty announcement. This tension between the authoritative news voice and the impossible vantage of its accompanying image already foregrounds the tension between representation and the real. The news, in this case, is not an object within the film but a framing device that absorbs cinematic space into a regime of informational control. The use of TV reportage to anchor the two perspectives render the manhunt in a montage that condenses space-time, progressing it in a highly mechanical and effective fashion. The filmâs depiction of police operations as efficient, coordinated, and highly professional, can be read as aligned with the visual and ideological expectations of contemporary Chinese censorship, as opposed to critiquing it. Article 16 of the Chinese Film Promotion Law prohibits films that âdisrupt social order,â âundermine social stability,â or ârender violence and terror,â including those that depict crime or criminal methods (qtd. in Jinuo Diao 74). The filmâs neutral stance toward law enforcement then enables a positive reading of the authority in this framework: it neither romanticizes nor vilifies the system. Zhou never speaks of the police in derogatory terms, but only repeatedly reinforces to himself that âthere is nowhere left to run toâ (The Wild Goose Lake 01:19:28). In this fatal recognition is a tacit acknowledgement of the law enforcementâs all-seeing power, that their presence is less of a matter of morality but of instrumentality. In intercutting the police operation with Zhouâs story, the film stages the police and Zhou as opposing forces in a societal procedure: the institution versus the rogue individual, where one proceeds mechanically and precisely in its chases, and the other locked in a choreography of survival. 40 Under this light, a film noir about a fugitive on the run must not thus glorify him but instead must grant him a bad ending where he perishes to testify to the effectiveness of law enforcement apparatus. In other words, Zhouâs fatalistic realization is precisely the outcomes desired, if not designed, by the very logic of contemporary mainland Chinese film censorship. He embodies the idealized postsocialist criminal: one who is not opportunistic about escape, but one who has internalized the ideological socialist imperative that no crime goes unpunished. It is in this way that noir narrative constitutes a disciplinary pedagogy for its audience (Skoble 44), aligning with the ideological imperatives of censorship. The noir protagonist, who submits to inevitable destruction, becomes a cinematic figure who coherently fulfills the demands of state-sanctioned narrative closure which renders noir not oppositional, but formally useful to the ideological apparatus for its pedagogical disciplinary value. Mapping the Wild Goose Lake: Cartographic Fugitive and Pastiche Construction When preparing the manhunt on Zhou Zenong, Captain Liu provided the following description of the lake area: CAPTAIN LIU (to his unit). âéé¹ å¡æ¹ååå å ¬éï¼ å°å¾ä¸æ¯æ²¡ææ æ³¨çï¼å°±æ¯è¿çç½è²å°å¸¦...åºè¯¥æ¯æè¿å å¹´å½¢æçåä¸­æï¼ æç¹åä¸åé£å°...éé¹ å¡æ¹åºçæ åµæ¯è®å¤æçï¼ æ¯ä¸ä¸ªä¸ä¸ç®¡çå°å¸¦ãåªä¸ªé½æ³ç®¡ä½æ¯åªä¸ªé½ç®¡ä¸å¥½ é£éå¹²ä»ä¹çé½æï¼ äººåç»æå¤æï¼é±¼é¾æ··æ...â (The Wild Goose Lake ranges around tens of kilometers in radius. The area is not marked on the maps. Should be this blank here (on the official map). Itâs probably a village-within-city formed in recent years. The geographies are highly complex, itâs a san-bu-guan region. Everyone wants to regulate it but no one can actually do it. 41 There were all sorts of people there, good or badâ¦) (The Wild Goose lake 00:28:34; see fig 1 and fig 2) Figure 1.Captain Liu points to the uncartographed Wild Goose Lake area on the official city map. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 00:28:34. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. Figure 2. Captain Liu shows an unofficial cartography of the Wild Goose Lake. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019. 00:28:59. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. 42 Figure 3. Map of Berlin. M, dir. Fritz Lang, Nero-Film AG, 1931, 00:19:04. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. 43 Figure 4. The map of Algerian Casbah. Pépé le Moko, dir. Julien Duvivier, Paris Film, 1937, 00:03:17. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. There are two important things to be noted from Captain Liuâs description: firstly, the Wild Goose Lake is an unmarked space on the official map of the city in the film. Such a space that eluded official cartography is described as a space of sangbuguan (ä¸ä¸ç®¡), meaning âlack of regulation from all sidesâ. Captain Liu referred to this phenomenon as chengzhongcun(åä¸­æ), or village-within-the-city, a result of the tension between rapid urban outgrowth and Chinaâs dual land ownership system (Li Peilin 171).14 Since Chinese urbanization is highly regulated and 14 The formation of âvillages within citiesâ (chengzhongcun) stems from deep-rooted institutional differences between urban and rural systems in China. Key factors include: (1) a dual land ownership system in which rural land 44 state-directed, the emergence of the village-within-the-city may be read as a spontaneous dialectical response to the top-down logic of urban planning and spatial control (Li Peilin 171). On one hand, the urban village is a byproduct of massive land reorganization for modernization projects, residues of rural collectivity lodged within the expanding urban grid (Li Peilin 169). Yet on the other hand, they resist full assimilation into the urban order, remaining spaces of hybridity, ambiguity, and non-conformity. They are neither fully urban nor rural, formal nor informal, but something in-between: what might be understood as a kind of urban heterotopia, a contradictory, layered, and liminal space that defies singular definition, but also reflects both the rural and the urban. In this sense, the urban village becomes not just an anomaly in the process of modernization, but a space that reflects the unresolved contradictions of postsocialist spatial transformation. The map on the police briefing confirms this marginal status of the Wild Goose Lake, as it is not a space that was planned but formed over time and could only be approached through the hand drawn map of the police in the local precinct, through their personal knowledge. As noted earlier, the Lake area does not exist in real life and is a pastiche cinematic city that represents a generic Southern Chinese city commanded under Wuhan dialect. The reason to set the story in Wuhan was only because Diao wanted to find a region where a lake plays a remains under collective rural ownership, making it difficult for the state to fully appropriate village residential land during urban expansion; (2) differing governance structures, with villages managed by self-funded village committees (cunweihui) rather than state-funded urban subdistrict offices(jiedaoban); and (3) the persistence of âvillage registrationâ (cunji), which grants former villagers economic privileges and collective dividends, often making them prefer their old village status over full urban integration. See Li Peilin, Jubian: Cunluo de Zhongjie â Dushi li de Cunzhuang Yanjiu [Upheaval: The End of Villages â Research on Villages within Cities], Social Sciences Academic Press, 2004. 45 prominent role, and he asks his actors to adapt to the local accents. Diao got the inspiration for the story of Zhou Zenong not based on a Southern story, but rather on a Northerner from the Dongbei (ä¸å) region who committed murder and hid out in the mountains for 3 days before sneaking back home for a final dinner with his family to turn himself in (Yeguang 00:01:00). Whatâs more, Liu Aiaiâs occupation as a streetwalker disguised as a peiyongnü (éªæ³³å¥³) [female swimming companion] is not a Wuhan phenomenon, but rather one from Guangxi, another southern Province (Li Yan).15 The insistence on keeping the swimming lady as a narrative element is simply because Diao was âimpressedâ by a photo he accidentally came across of a swimming lady sitting on a boat while writing the script (Li Yan). This reflects Diaoâs pastiche approach in which he does not strive to replicate reality but rather as an inventive re-constitution of the affective real. He notes in an interview that he strives for more than a replication of reality. For Diao, âreality today is fragmented and disorderedâ so he draws from real events, reselecting and reassembling them through subjective imagination to generate new meaning (âDiao Yinan zhuanfangâ), thus giving rise to the fictional Wild Goose Lake that stands as a pastiche of a Southern Chinese city that evokes ambivalently the postsocialist Chinese lived reality. Even as the Wild Goose Lake area resists cartographic fixity, the authoritiesâ deployment of a police map reveals a persistent cartographic impulse, an impulse echoed in two manhunt 15 The term peiyongnü (éªæ³³å¥³), or âfemale swimming companion,â is a term for masked illicit sex work in Guangxi province. See in: Zhongguo xinwen wang ä¸­å½æ°é»ç½. âNÃ¼ peiyong: zhen de shi peiyong haishi changji?â å¥³éªæ³³ï¼ççæ¯éªæ³³è¿æ¯å¨¼å¦ï¼[Female swimming companions: Are they really companions or disguised prostitutes?]. Zhongguo xinwen wang ä¸­å½æ°é»ç½ [China News Service], 15 Oct. 2008, https://www.chinanews.com/shipin/2008-10-15/news5052.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. 46 classics, Fritz Langâs M and Julien Duvivierâs Pépé le Moko (1937), where mastery of space becomes a central concern. Like The Wild Goose Lake, both films promise a totalizing grip on the city (Berlin in M, and the Algiers Casbah in Pepe Le Moko) through official maps in their openings. These cinematic maps represent the state's desire for spatial regulation, presented to the viewer as a top-down, rationalized and totalizing perspective. As Charles OâBrien writes of Pépé le Moko, the cinematic map offers the viewer a position of spatial mastery, projecting a stable distance between the beholder and the spectacle (208). But as Maria Flood writes, such a stable totalizing gaze slowly dissolves as the camera plunges into ground level perspective with its protagonist Pépé to show the winding, labyrinthine Casbah, where the lines of official and empirical knowledge blur (179-180). The Wild Goose Lake echoes this strategy, using Zhou and Liuâs ground-level drift to supplement the abstract top-down vision of official knowledge. Zhou and Liuâs evasive movements remap the lake through embodied flânerie, offering the viewer a spatial knowledge that belongs to cinema rather than to the police. As Lai argues, walking is a kind of âdiscourse-makingâ that establishes relations between the individual and the topographical material feature of a place (215). The flânerie thus provides an alternative mapping, a reorganization between the relationship between individual and space. In this case, such reorganization entails destabilizing the abstract 2-dimensional mapping of the Wild Goose Lake area through oneâs situated movement, observed through the vantage point of cinema. In this case, the act of flânerie, of aimless wandering, reorganizes spaces into Deleuzeâs any-space-whatever, which often manifests as a result of a crisis of the suspended modernity (Deleuze, Cinema 1 120). This perfectly singular space, argues Deleuze, thus gives its instability and spatial indetermination to interpretive possibilities, in this case to the qualitative lived experience of the Wild Goose Lake, which cannot be documented by the 2-dimensional map that renders the 47 area abstract. In this light, The Wild Goose Lake then depicts an alternative imagined space that negates the totalizing and teleological narrative of postsocialist modernity. Liu and Zhouâs ground-level drift in The Wild Goose Lake, their constant movement in and out of shops, streets and living quarters to evade police tailing, becomes what Isabel Carrera Suárez calls counter-flânerie: a form of drift not grounded in deliberate synthesis by optical or intellectual knowledge, but in the bodily negotiation of space that situates them. In this case Zhou and Liu, along their drift, encounter the postsocialist spatial fabric of the Wild Goose Lake village-within-the-city, without fully understanding it. Through their movement as spatial practice, the film thus renders the Lake area as a heterotopia of postsocialist China, constituted through the many any-spaces-whatever, grasped not by official mapping knowledge but through the twoâs counter-flânerie. One such any-spaces-whatver is on the street of the lake area, where Zhou and Liu walk past a big development advertisement billboard depicting modern skyscrapers (see Figure 5). After Zhou attends to his wounds upon arriving at the Lake area, he and Liu officially embark on the operation in the morning. The plan is to avoid police patrols during the day and meet Huahua in a designated room in the residential slum by nightfall. For this reason, they travel slowly and cautiously, while also having to pass the time until the meeting. The two move cautiously through the area, one walking ahead while the other follows at a distance, so as not to draw suspicion by being seen together. One such any-space-whatever emerges on the street of the lake area, where Zhou and Liu walk past a big development advertisement billboard depicting modern skyscrapers (see Figure 5). The camera tracks as both walk swiftly beside it. The poster points to a vision of Chinese modernity absent in the material reality of the Wild Goose Lake area. In stark contrast, the actual environment around them is permeated with crowded apartments, garbage-filled alleyways, and an economy tied to prostitution and urban decay: a region of 48 âsanbuguanâ (lack of regulation) in captain Liuâs words. Neither stops to look at the poster, but instead they pass quickly. The saturated, modern image of a real estate program contrasts with the humid run-down scenes of the Wild Goose Lake, ironically standing out as a spatial anomaly. The promise of development is a distant vision, absent from the reality of the Wild Goose Lake. The advertisement represents a specter of Chinese modernityâs teleological promise, as its pictorial presence here only signifies its absence. Figure 5. Liu walks past the real estate advertisement. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:09:20. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. Such gestures toward a critique of postsocialist modernity appear only fleetingly and never become central to the narrative, a strategy Diao uses to defocalize the filmâs political insinuation. When asked about his world-building, he compares his films to sandboxes, where viewers are invited to explore the details on their own (Diao, âFuyuan guaidan xianshiâ 63). The characters and plot are just one part of this world, he says, like âstems connected to the surrounding soilâ (Diao, âFuyuan guaidan xianshiâ 63). This reflects his view of reality as âfundamentally fragmented and looseâ, a texture he seeks to capture (Diao, âFuyuan guaidan 49 xianshiâ 63). Another example is Liuâs brief accidental intrusion into a meeting held by factory owners trying to decide who must relocate for undisclosed reasons. Beforehand, she had led Zhou to her boss Huahuaâs hideout, unaware of Huahuaâs scheme as well as Huahuaâs murder by the rival gang leaders after plotting to double-cross Zhou. Zhou, barely made it out alive from the ambush and the police, follows Liu in vengeful suspicion that she was complicit. Seeking refuge, Liu accidentally runs into a factory, where she finds herself the center of attention for interrupting a meeting of local factory owners. Though Liu quickly excuses herself and leaves the frame, the camera lingers on the meeting attentively to show the factory owners arguing who should make the sacrifice to relocate, before slowly panning back on Liu. Completely irrelevant to the manhunt, this argumentation does not fit anywhere in the overall narrative. The camera that refuses to move on speaks to a deeper consciousness to decenter the character in relation to the space they occupy. Instead of having mastery over the space, Liu only passes through and spectates, which destabilizes the totalizing perception granted by the map in the police briefing room. This seemingly irrelevant sequence, like the developmental advertisement, exemplifies Diaoâs use of flânerie to construct a narrative of defocalization. While the main narrative concerns the fate of Liu and Zhou, the floating narrative opens potential for encounters that could not be entirely narrativized with cognitive clarity. This process constitutes Laiâs âpoetics of discoveryâ where the narrative becomes âprocess-orientedâ rather than âgoal-orientedâ, inserting the viewer in the full presence with the contingent happening of an unfamiliar situation where no narrative meaning is pre-given (224). In other words, the viewers discover the factory meeting as Liu discovers it and there isnât necessarily a causal relationship between the manhunt and this encounter. The experience of the world as he sees it is fragmented, as Diao frames it, and in this 50 case Liuâs contingent meander becomes the spatial practice with which the film opens up room for associative interpretation. This factory meeting might be seen as a subtle reference to Chinaâs industrial restructuring in other instances. The film does not critique it by including it, but rather dilutes its political insinuation through the flâneur, where this meeting is but one of many contingencies Zhou and Liu run into but do not become implicated in. The film, like its viewers, only stumble upon it and does not in itself become opinionated towards this insinuation of Chinaâs industrial restructuring. Framed in a noir-inflected iconography of urban decay and gloomy nighttime, the meeting, with its heated atmosphere is rendered with paranoia and mysteriousness. At the same time, the film never gave more information how what type of industry this meeting involves, and direct reasons for relocation. It was an event already developing as Liu stumbles upon it. We, like her, are never given the full picture, and thus are not granted a vantage point of knowledge to make any informed further judgment regarding its political insinuation. It becomes simply one way of how Diao constructs a sandbox world that feels ârealisticâ in its cognitive fragmentation and populatedness of various events. As Diao notes, the filmâs pastiched depiction of the Chinese South intermittently gestures toward the fragmented condition of postsocialist China, mirroring his belief that âmodern life itself has become fragmentedâ (âDiao Yinan zhuanfangâ). The constructed lake area then is fitting to be described as a heterotopia, a self-reflexive interpretive construct that critically mirrors the real world in a performative way in Laiâs mobilization (207). Its trait as an urban village, a developmental anomaly, characterizes it as a phase in modernization that is yet to be overcome. It becomes a space constituted by many any-now(here)-spaces suspended in an unattended neglected present, stretched between its rural past and a vision of a modern future. 51 The industrial restructuring foreshadowed by the factory meeting thus hints on this developmental suspension. Rather as a political critique, such hints could be seen as part of Diaoâs world-building strategy, of creating a cinematic world that feels vaguely like Chinese postsocialist reality. Drawing on Deleuzeâs and Flemingâs notion of the any-now(here)-space, in the following sections I examine how the filmâs disjointed geography stages not just a postsocialist atmosphere but becomes affectively charged through Zhou and Liuâs embodied traversal. I will first focus on the train station where they meet up for the first time and the cabin where Zhou stays to attend to his wounds. These are the spaces before Zhou and Liu embark on their shared flânerie; I will then focus on the beach where their plan is in action, where Liu begins to take the lead in taking Zhou to Huahuaâs room. Avoiding police patrol, the two unintentionally walk into the tent of a fun fair and spectate the performance. When night falls, the two circle on the river by boat in romantic intimacies. Returning ashore, the two watch in distance the night-cutting searchlights of the police, before finally deciding to turn him in to Huahua. The pairâs ground-level drift defies the totalizing cartographic gaze of the police and instead produces an alternative mapping: tactile, hesitant, and contingent. Arrival without departure: the Train Station and the Cabin as threshold spaces The Wild Goose Lake kickstarts with a promised titular gathering, get-together, or rendezvous at âA Southern Train Stationâ (the Chinese title åæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ literally translates to âThe Gathering at a Southern Train Stationâ). The train station in The Wild Goose Lake functions less as a site of transit than as an any-space-whatever of where the past unfolds: it gathers Zhou and Liuâs fragmented recollections into a recap of why they are here and what they must do next, while also foreshadowing their romantic bond. As an affective device, the station signifies departure even as they dwell and remember, and it is from this dwelling that the film 52 departs, through the memories that constitute the filmâs first half, the characterâs motivations. In this way the station, a space of anonymous transit, becomes the ground for affective dwelling and recollection, which then kickstarts the filmâs narrative. Zhou meets Liu for the first time. To the sound of incessant rain and train noises, Zhou first appears as a small figure in a long shot, from behind the pillar. Observing his surrounding in alertness, he moves slowly away as if giving space to Liu, whose silhouette appears before her actual figure: Liuâs silhouette precedes her, projected on her umbrella. The camera stays on her silhouette and pans down as she closes the umbrella and lights a cigarette (see fig 6.). Itâs not until the next shot that we finally see a medium shot of Liu, walking towards Zhou to introduce herself. Initially reluctant to engage, Zhou turns away, and the camera follows him as he slowly recedes to darkness, turning away but still leaning on the pillar, separating himself from Liu. Tracking his slow movements, the camera turns back and reframes Zhou behind Liu as she gains his trust, and he starts to tell the story of how he got to this situation. The repositioning and reframing signals a change of Zhouâs trust for Liu, which allows for a creation of a safe space where the flashback takes place. After Zhou tells Liu about his accidental mistake of shooting a policer officer, they move to the train lounge, where the news report of the bounty on Zhouâs head. In the lounge, Liu begins her flashback of how she was forced into being a contact. 53 Figure 6. Liu first appears as silhouette at the station. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 00:03:10. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. It is within this station that we engage not in immediate action, but in both Zhou and Liuâs recollection. Through alternating flashbacks, the film stages for the audience the events leading here: Zhouâs escalating gang rivalry to the accidental killing of a police officer, and Liuâs reluctant conscription as Huahuaâs surrogate. These flashback sequences echo and complement one another, reconstructing for both characters, and for the viewer, how each arrived at this desperate situation. This âgatheringâ also becomes a convergence of timelines, a realignment of fragmented memories across different perspectives, rendering the station not a space of urgent mobility but of introspection. In this sense, the train station becomes a multilayered space, nested with connections to other time-spaces, past betrayals, decisions, gazes, rather than serving as one singular, static site of plot progression. Train stations, like airports and hotels, are spaces of transience and ahistorical, contractually promoting anonymity and passage (Augé 75-77). But Zhou and Liu are not here to pass physically, but to pass time and to get to know each other before proceeding with their plan. Between the flashback sequences, the camera lingers on 54 their slow movements among the pillars of the Southern Train Station. Zhou emerges in and out of the shadows cast across the train platform, circling cautiously around one pillar to avoid being seen by cars that drive past. When he first meets Liu, he steps out from the left, only to circle behind her as she begins to tell her story. Shot mostly in medium close-up, the camera tracks his careful circling in an extended movement, preserving the temporal continuity and framing subtle spatial shifts as he gradually begins to place trust in Liu. The sequence contains little direct dialogue: the spoken exchanges are largely displaced into flashbacks, leaving only essential instructions like names and directions for how to move across the station without detection. Their faces remain restrained, neutral as if suppressing expression so as not to attract suspicion. The minimal speeches are set against the incessant sound of rain and the occasional rumble of passing trains, amplifying the sense of suspended action. In staging its first hour as a two-part sequence of slow, ruminative storytelling between Zhou and Liu, the film then gestures to a defiance to the logic of transience that structures the train station. Even though they are fugitives on the run, they conjure up a flashback that is here to stay. Diao Yinanâs own comments affirm this: âA train station is a place where people part and reunite, a site embedded in our most important memories. The memories of our growing up are inseparable from the station...it feels like a place where people come together and drift apart, a place where stories unfoldâ (Diao, âDeath and Beautyâ). This affective framing of the station as both architectural anchor and emotional container underpins Diaoâs evocation of departure, both narratively and thematically. Structurally by staging the opening in the train station, the film appropriates its tendency for departure, but not towards action or plot progression, but towards flashbacks, a kind of departing not outbound but inbound. As Liuâs actress Gwei Lun-mei notes, âthere is a desire to pull close between the two, even though they hardly know each otherâ 55 (Yeguang 00:40:33). The delicate movement and Liuâs entrance as a silhouette accentuates the intimate quality of the image, evoking the displaced romantic ârendezvousâ suggested in the filmâs Chinese title, åæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ (The Gathering at a Train Station in the South). Rather than a festive gathering, this get-together is reframed as a cautious, suspended encounter between two strangers, where intimacy arises from their shared predicament. We later learn that neither is here to take the train but that they rather use the station as a safe location to avoid police surveillance, because âthe safest hideout is the most dangerous placeâ (The Wild Goose Lake 00:31:19). In this sense, they are intentionally defying the conceived transience of the station. This mirrors Zhouâs situation, which he himself repeatedly acknowledges: âthereâs nowhere for me to run toâ (The Wild Goose Lake 01:19:28). The train station of suspended time and space, with its unnamed, unsituated location in a virtual South, then speaks to his inability to regain his footing in the real world. The secular concept of transience and displacement does not apply anymore, and he has become, together with the incessant rain and the shadows, one that awaits his demise. He can only return to memories and flashbacks, for there is, quite literally, nowhere left for him to go, nor any future he can envision himself inhabiting. The train station, as the site of transience in this sense, becomes an any-now(here)-space where Zhou loiters in passive existence, within the shadows, in carefully measured motion, absorbed into the anonymity of the station, where the continuity of time and space slowly erodes him. In this way, Zhouâs flânerie in the train station spatializes a form of deferred perception, where his fatalism and drift generate a negation of linear temporality, which no longer stands by his side. There is no place for him ever in the future of the conceived space of the Chinese society. Zhouâs slow movement and slow reaction in the train station, a space that promotes progression, then embodies a deferral to move 56 forward and a desire to occupy the transient, to resist the future that does not include him anymore. After the train station meet-up, the two split to prepare for their travel in the lake area. Zhou arrives at a deserted cabin to attend to his wounds. The cabin, similarly, is an any-space-whatever filled with retrospection, a desire to form connection to the past in a space stripped of domesticity and meaning. The origin of the cabin was never explained, but it could be glanced that it was once inhabited, with glass jars, broken telephones, potted plants everywhere, and a bedframe with no mattress on it. Zhou temporarily takes a break and loads his gun for whatâs to come. When he sits from fatigue, he points his gun at the wall of posters, and we become subsumed in his mental POV (see figure.7). Waving his gun at the newspapers, we start to hear the sound associated with these specific newspaper reports: among which are bustling traffic and crowds, the stock market, a football match, a possible accident, a pop star, a picture of people laughing, and a jet plane surging into the sky. This montage lingers and solidifies on the jet plane surging, as it turns from black and white into color. 57 Figure 7. Zhou points his gun at the newspaper and starts to hallucinate. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:04:22. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. Wordless but substantial in the soundscape, what this POV toggle of Zhouâs gazesâ reveals is a kind of mental flânerie, while the body is heavily demobilized. Zhou as a fugitive is a social outcast that must engage in self-alienation to survive. Reading this as a sort of reflective moment, even though his goal has always been to give money to his family, the images of family nevertheless never cross his mind. Rather it was the association of a totalizing collage of an eventful vision of life, evoked by the variety of news report here, that evokes, for him, an impeding sense of doom and no return, in contrast to this desperate situation he is caught up in. As a momentary stasis in this narrative of fugitive mobility, this stop on the run represents the paradox of the rational thought of self-sacrifice and the bodily instinct for survival and lays the groundwork for us to understand his somewhat deliberately prolonged flânerie around the lake, as a conflicted struggle between his rational recognition of his inevitable demise, and his 58 instinctual need for survival, which finds its enunciation in his bodiesâ walking and dwelling in the lake area. Romantic Flânerie: Making Time in the Other Spaces of The Wild Goose Lake The filmâs two-part structure uses the cabin as an intermediate threshold, linking the opening double flashbacks to the chronologically linear drift of the second part. Once Zhou and Liu leave the cabin, the flânerie-proper begins, with Liu leading the way under the pretense of guiding a client. Their route unfolds by travelling in a sequence of distinct spaces in the lake area. It begins on a beach by the lake, where the âfemale swimming companionsâ solicit customers, and Liu discreetly picks up a man before abandoning him to deflect suspicion. The two, where Liu leads tacitly walking in the front with Zhou following at a distance, embarks on a synchronous coordinated flânerie, as if double of one another. From there, Liu and Zhou move into the narrow streets of the lakeside settlement, where shops appear sporadically, and roads are shared uneasily by scooters and cars. The wandering carries them into a bizarre rundown fun fair, where they hide from patrolling police who just arrive on site. To further delay their arrival while avoiding capture, they drift onto the lake itself by boat, drifting in the dark water as they begin to develop a romantic bond. Returning ashore, they encounter the sweeping beams of a police searchlight, which streaks across the wilderness like a nocturnal spectacle. At this point, Zhou end the drift and returns to the plan to go to the designated rendezvous point, knowing his capture is inevitable. Instead of an immediate surrender, their walk around the lake region slowly turns into a walk of leisure, through spaces that conventionally promise respite: starting from the beaches, fun fair, boat rides to nighttime spectacle. These sites of leisure become the sites of Zhou and Liuâs careful drift from the police, but also paradoxically cultivate intimacy. These sites paradoxically sustain both alertness and intimacy, shaped by their running-not-running, an 59 urgent type of flânerie. Rather than being psychologically exhausted by these liminal spaces, the two find themselves forging an inexplicable bond in the time they both make from delaying Zhouâs downfall. The beach by the lake is where Liu and Zhou reunite to begin this shared flânerie. The sequence opens with a medium shot of Liu standing alone before the water, her small figure framed against the liminal expanse of sand and sky. The image emphasizes her isolation, suspended between two horizons. Cutting to a side profile, the camera shows Liuâs face neutral and emotionless because her status as a disadvantaged streetwalker leaves her little choice but to stand in as a surrogate for his boss Huahua to lead Zhou his way. When she begins to move, the slowness of her pace conveys an attempt to âact normalâ to avoid police suspicion. The film tracks her as she walks across the populated beach, revealing Zhou for the first time as a static figure with his back facing the camera. Two policemen briefly enter, glance at him, and pass on. This wordless choreography unfolds against a soundscape of background crowd noise and water, without dialogue. The communication between Zhou and Liu is staged through movement rather than speech or gaze: the bodily movement becomes a means of conveying meaning. Liu walks past Zhou slowly, brushing by him without acknowledgment, as if initiating contact through the trajectory of her movement. This wordless gesture is immediately mirrored by a local client, who circles Liu before silently soliciting her service. To avoid suspicion, Liu must accompany this random client before ditching him to return to her original route. The parallel between Zhou and the client who seeks sexual transaction underscores how walking functions as a medium of negotiation of survival and desire: in normal circumstances, Liu walks to display her sexual charm, but in this case her tacit visibility is in coordination with Zhou. Zhou and Liuâs exchange 60 is not only wordless but also almost gaze-less; unlike the police, whose look asserts surveillance, or the client, whose look signals sexual demand, their interaction relies on proximity and pacing rather than visual address. There is an overlap between the sexualized attention being put on Liu, and the attention of survival that Zhou places on Liu. The two will become indistinguishable as their bond grows stronger later into this shared journey. By meticulously tracking their movements, the film foregrounds walking-as-communication, investing it with both sexual charge and emotional volatility. The choreography between Liu and Zhou, mirrored by the cameraâs lingering gaze, is at once sexually charged and emotionally volatile, paving the affective basis for their shared flânerie and emotional bond around the lake. As the pair shakes Liuâs patron and walks onto the streets from the beach, Liu smiles faintly and mysteriously. This moment marks a shift of Liuâs walking into counter-flânerie. Liuâs walk with Zhou subverts the usual function of streetwalking: instead of soliciting clients under the male gaze or carrying out sex work under Huahuaâs control, she is simply walking the street. The flânerie becomes discourse-making, reframing her movement as a form of agency, however limited, that momentarily detaches her from her regular line of work. Here the point is not that she has been liberated but rather that the scheme with Zhou seems to have become a sort of retreat or excitement, a stroll of some sorts, for Liu, where she is not tied to performing her sexual appeals, no longer a capitalist act but a momentary resource to individual freedom. As the heavily armed police forces promptly arrive at the street, the two escape into the nearby tent of a fun fair. In a medium shot, the fabric walls become a background of shadow play: the shadows of the passing patrol stretch across the tent, their silhouettes producing a noir-ish image of light paranoia in broad daylight. Inside, Liu and Zhou keep their distance, navigating the tent cautiously. Their wandering leads to an uncanny spectacle: a womanâs head 61 protruding alone from a vase-like pedestal, seemingly disembodied, who begins to sing Bengawan Solo (see figure 8.). Supposedly a singer of the fun fair who just happen to be resting in her stall when the two walk in, the head sings in a mechanical and emotionless tone. In a reverse shot, Zhou and Liu watch with bewildered expression, wordless, not fully understanding what the show is really about. Bengawan Solo is an Indonesian folk song praising the Bengawan Solo River, popularized in China after World War II (Gao), which imbues the scene with an aura of southern nostalgia to the filmâs fictional southern city, and links it to the symbolism of the lake where Zhou will inevitably be shot dead at the end. Thus, a song about the nurturing grace of a mother river symbolizes the Wild Goose Lakeâs sheltering of Zhou, and a premonition of his fate of eventually dying the âembraceâ of the same lake that had protected him. From the singing head, the couple drifts into the adjoining mirror maze. In shot/reverse-shot, the camera aligns us first with Zhouâs gaze: through the mirrors, Liu appears only once, her figure stable and undoubled, framed in medium shot. When the perspective switches to Liuâs view, however, Zhou appears multiple times, refracted across three different mirrors. Each reflection slightly misaligned, he seems both multiplied and displaced, as if the maze refuses to stabilize his identity. The editing lingers long enough on these alternating shots to draw attention to the disparity: Liuâs singular image versus Zhouâs splintered selves. Inserted in between the coupleâs fleeing from police patrol, the sudden encounter with a site of leisurely pleasure speaks to the sentiment of the traditional flâneur who finds himself spectator of the attraction provided by the streets (Tester 7). Emerging as ambivalent narrative figures, the singing head and the mirror gaze could be considered to externalize the coupleâs desperate situation and psychological fragmentation: with her hands tied and always ready to perform, the singer is forced to sing when demanded; the maze mirror, fracturing the two into countless reflections, gesture to uncertainty 62 of their schemeâs outcome. The singing head and the mirror maze are not directly related to the chase, but only as symbolism of their fate manifesting in front of the pair. The fun fairâs sudden break-away, detour from the police patrol and its spatial segregation from the outside world transforms it into a space of the here-and-now, an any-space-whatever with symbolic interpretative potentials that is open to be linked to the narrative in different ways. Whatever the characters are thinking eludes us because of their silence. But their shared willingness to meander and dwell in this momentary detour from immediate surrender, to spectate together, showcase a slow development of care for each other, where they become not two fugitives on the run, but two people sharing time together.16 Figure 8. Liu watches the singing head show. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:11:40. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. 16 Notable noir precedents that use fun fairs include The Lady from Shanghai, The Third Man, and Strangers on a Train. These noirs typically contrast the supposed joy and spectacle of the fair with psychological unease or violence. In The Wild Goose Lake, however, the fun fair subverts this function: rather than heightening tension, it becomes a space of quiet observation where Zhou and Liu develop an unspoken bond. 63 After their time in the fun fair, the two embark on a boat, supposedly to avoid direct contact with the police patrol on the street. Though not a walk on foot, this trip on water represents a turning point in Zhou and Liuâs relationship, from that of two âbusinessâ partners to something of a romantic implication. In the dusk, Liu is seen in a high angle close-up laying comfortably half in the water from the boat, putting one of her arms in the lake, enjoying the water while looking at Zhou with a faint smile. A reverse over-the-shoulder shot of Zhou is given, but he remains silent. This reverse shot frames the two in direct contact, showing no background to identify how far they are away from the shore or where they are. They are in the water, in a space not identifiable. Drifting along til dusk, Liu goes for a swim as Zhou watches. Liu switches into a colored stripped bathing suit and jumps into the water for an enjoyable swim, the vibrancy of which stands in contrast to the dark and dim, liminal space of the boat and the water, a gesture that symbolizes individuality. They then share cigarettes, with Liu uttering the same line as they firstly met at the train station, âbrother, can I get a light please?â (å¥å­ï¼åä¸ªç«), which has now taken on a completely different undertone: while at the train station she was testing out Zhouâs identity, here she is enjoying momentary freedom on the boat in the lake of nowhere (see figure 9.). 64 Figure 9. Zhou and Liu shares cigarettes on the boat. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019,01:15:33. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. In the dark, Liu caresses Zhouâs wound, the two engage in sexual intercourse. Zhou then asks Liu to take his money for her âserviceâ, with his blood on it so that it âlooks more like a real actâ (that it would appear they do not know each other, that he only met Liu because he needed a prostitute). This act of intimacy, unfolding progressively, transforms the barely visible lake into an any-space-whatever. Here, again, dialogue is kept to a minimum and the pair communicate with their action rather than words. The boat is veiled in mist and darkness, lit only by the moonlight. In close-up, their surroundings disappear as they drift in an isolated space at the lakeâs center. For Zhou it is the last genuine bond before his demise, built not through words but through shared flânerie; for Liu it is a flicker of free agency away from her pimp boss, where she does not sell affect but follows it. The trip around the Lake has become, to Liu, something of a momentary breakaway from her mundane daily of performing her sexual charm for money. The boat space unfolds the flow of desire and affect where Liu asserts control, not according to who pays, but according to what she desires. The lake, rendered as an any-now(here)-space through 65 the drifting boat, joins the train station and fun fair as spaces of delay to create detours in Zhouâs flânerie to stretch time and prolong his downfall. This boat sequence crystallizes the paradox of their bond: it is at once a fleeting intimacy and a tactical deception, a temporary suspension of their imposed roles in which Liu momentarily exercises agency, yet which is tied to the very network of coercion and betrayal that will ultimately ensure Zhouâs demise. Figure 10. Zhou and Liu watch the "lightshow" of the search team. The Wild Goose Lake, dir. Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019, 01:18:01. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. This shared flânerie reaches to its climax after they have gone back ashore, the moment discussed in chapter 1. Later the two get back ashore and stumble upon the car lights, supposedly from those of the patrol, breaking through the darkness from the skyline, and quickly fades away. Liu makes a comment on its beauty, and the two stand to spectate the nocturnal light show (see figure 10.). Liu asks if he ever considered running down south. Zhou replies that there is no place to run and that he must do the right thing of leaving the money to his family. In medium shot, both are surrounded by darkness, with only their figure glimmering under the moonlight. In the 66 any-space-whatever of the dark shore, Zhou, now in the heterotopic transient zone of demise, still lingers and experiences any fleeting moments that are potential to momentary sublimation. The construction of the Wild Goose Lake as the any-now(here)-space which is severed and unmapped from the outside world, opens potentiality for the re-cartography of affect through the flânerie of Zhou and Liu, who through walking, detouring in this space of the âhere and nowâ, charts the mysterious ambivalent and delicate morphing of affect, desire and rational fatalism, reflecting and remapping its relationship from the outside world. Chapter Conclusion In this chapter, I have positioned The Wild Goose Lake within the wider tradition of film noir and explored how it creates a stylized noir underworld through localization, through the construction of a Chinese southern village-within-a-city that echoes the fragmented and uncertain textures of postsocialist urbanization. I have argued that Diao, by structuring The Wild Goose Lake as a series of contingent encounters formed through the flânerie of Zhou and Liu, transforms the postsocialist heterotopic space of the Wild Goose Lake into Deleuzeâs any-spaces-whatever. Zhouâs walk is not simply a movement through space but also a subversion of it. His flânerie becomes a refusal to be captured by the rational logic of pursuit. While in themselves singular sites where Zhou and Liu encounter narrative contingencies, these any-spaces-whatever, constitute the postsocialist any-now(here)-spaces that embody the social fragmentation in what Lai calls a cinematic âpoetics of discoveryâ, where the viewers and the characters alike navigate a loose network of postsocialist signifiers. I have argued The Wild Goose Lake circumvents direct political critique by adopting a neutral stance on surveillance, portraying it not as oppressive but as an effective apparatus activated in exceptional situations like Zhouâs. In doing so, it channels noirâs pedagogical force 67 in showing the effectiveness of socialist law enforcement. At the same time, the film represents the Wild Goose Lake not as a real space, but as a critically pastiched space of postsocialist phenomena. This heterotopic world, suspended between rural decay and urban surveillance, offers the stage for Zhou and Liuâs flânerie, a ground-level navigation that resists the totalizing cartographic gaze from the dominant social apparatus. In this way, flânerie, in constituting the cinematic journey of discovery, engages the Chinese unconscious by remapping the urban peripheries not as zones of neglect, but as spaces of imaginative, affective possibility such as the bond between Liu and Zhou, almost romantic but ultimately fleeting. The Wild Goose Lake resituates the margins of the city into a cinematic terrain of tension and intimacy, one where desire, memory, and fatality all circulate. And it is precisely in this repurposing of peripheral space, through affect and noir atmosphere, that the film finds its most potent intervention, in the prolongation of life for redemption in a fate sealed by past mistakes and postsocialist teleology. 68 Chapter 3: Long Day's Journey Into Night and the Sleepwalker of Nostalgic any-now(here)-spaces Bi Gan and The Industrial Context of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night Bi Gan first attracted critical attention in China and abroad in 2015, when his feature debut, Kaili Blues (è·¯è¾¹éé¤, 2015), won Best New Director at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan, as well as Special Mention for Best First Feature in the âFilmmakers of the Presentâ section at the 68th Locarno International Film Festival (Yang Xiaoxia 20). All four of his films, which include the short films Tiger (èè, 2010) and Jingang jing (éåç», 2012), as well as Kaili Blues and Long Dayâs Journey into Night, are set in or connected to his hometown of Kaili. Bi himself notes the reason for consistently shooting in his hometown is simply due to logistical convenience and geographical familiarity (Xu Yuedong). His films show a consistent thematic exploration of the interplay between dream, reality, and memory, often using character doubles, while displaying a neorealist sensibility, marked by long takes, deep focus, and sustained attention to everyday gestures. On top of this art-house style is the incorporation of his personal poems, especially in Kaili Blues, which appear as intertitles that add a lyrical abstraction to his contemplative images (Xiao and Andrew). As Jiwei Xiao and Dudley Andrew argue, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night is a spiritual successor to Biâs debut Kaili Blues, both structurally and thematically: both include a two-part structure consisting of a fragmented reality and a continuous one-take dream sequence as a coda; and both explore the boundaries of reality, dream and memory using cinematic doubles, mixing the real and the unreal (Xiao and Andrew). The key difference is the creative approach and the scale of production, which in Biâs case might be linked causally the one to the other. The 69 production budget of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, initially estimated by Bi at around 25 million RMB, eventually surged to 50 million, reportedly due to Biâs lack of experience on managing large-scale industrial filmmaking and the unpredictable weather on set (Fan and You 46). This financial backing stands in stark contrast to Kaili Bluesâ 1 million RMB budget, most of which was personal funding from Bi himself (Zhongyuan wang). Marketed as a noir-inflected crime romance, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night carried the tagline âthe last kiss of the yearâ (Fan and You 46). The filmâs Chinese title also translates to âThe Last Night on Earthâ (å°çæåçå¤æ). The film was released in mainland Chinese theatres on December 31st, with a presale box office of 150 million RMB (Fan and You 45). Its release was strategically timed at 21:50 on New Yearâs Eve, so that its ending coincided with the first moments of January 1st, structuring its viewing experience as a romantic ritual not to be missed (Chen Hongyu 67; Fan and You 45). After its theatrical debut, the film, though grossing over 250 million on January 1st, faced significant backlash. Many audiences felt misguided by the filmâs marketing campaign that presented it as a mainstream romantic noir, while withholding its avant-garde nature (Fan and You 46). As a result, the filmâs screening share plummeted from 34% on December 31st to just 7% by January 2nd (Fan and You 46). Domestically nominated in five categories at the Golden Horse Awards, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night won Best Sound Effects, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Music (âJinma jiang di 55 jie ruwu ji dedao mingdanâ). Internationally, the film premiered in the âUn Certain Regardâ section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, though it did not win any awards (Festival du Cannes, âDiqiu zuihou de yewanâ). Despite its mixed reception, the film exemplifies Chen Xuguangâs notion of âfilm industry aestheticsâ in a large-scale, transnationally supported production that attempts to package Chinese auteur cinema as marketable, and using cutting-edge technical practices such as the 3-70 cameraman marathon shooting (37-38). Domestically, the film was backed by a wide network of production companies, including Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, Tencent Pictures, and China Film (Shanghai) Film & Television Culture Investment Management Center, among more than fifteen co-producing entities (Diqiu zuihou de yewan Box Office Data). Like the backers of The Wild Goose Lake, these shareholders are involved in a diverse range of works of different scales and market focus. The French company co-producing Long Dayâs Journey Into Night is CG cinema, whose founder Charles Gillibert obtained producing credit (CG Cinema). Gillibert has also served on the jury for the Cinéfondation & Short Films selection at the Cannes Film Festival (Unifrance, âLong Dayâs Journey Into Nightâ). Notable works under CG Cinémaâs banner include Annette by Leos Carax, 24 Frames by Abbas Kiarostami, and LâAvenir by Mia Hansen-Løve (CG Cinema). In Gillibertâs own words, the mission of his company is to bring âauteur cinema back at the center of the industryâ and to find the right channel to deliver them to the right audience (CG Cinema). Like The Wild Goose Lake, Long Dayâs Journey into Night also gained ACM subsidy at 50,000 euros (Centre national du cinéma et de lâimage animée, âRésultats des commissionsâ). Whatâs more, the productionâs technical sophistication echoes Chenâs call for Chinese filmmakers to use âmodernized innovative industrial practicesâ (38). The significant long take representing Luoâs dream was executed in a complex real-time marathon-style relay involving multiple cameras operators using a mix of handheld cameras, vehicle-mounted rigs, zipline follow-shots, and an aerial drone shot (RED). Though the film indeed faced a backslash for its questionable promotional campaign, which âwrongfully promoted an art-house film as a mainstream romanceâ, the film still achieved considerable box office returns, and its embrace of short-form social media marketing campaigns was notably recognized to be effective (Fan and You 46). Its promotional strategy, on a technical level, reflects a conscious 71 attempt at repackaging auteur cinema for broader consumption. In this sense, both Long Dayâs Journey into Night and The Wild Goose Lake exemplify the new âmodernâ Chinese âfilm industry aestheticâ, as festival-oriented and market-aware cinema, characterized by a sophisticated mode of production and a modern marketing campaign (Chen Xuguang 33). It is plausible that Shen Yang, who produced both The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, contributed to this orientation. Her producing credits include Kaili Blues, Diao Yinanâs trailblazing Black Coal, Thin Ice, Zhang Mingâs The Pluto Moment (å¥çææ¶å», 2018), and Zhang Bingjianâs North by Northeast (ä¸ååå, 2014), all of which have attracted significant international festival attention (Shen Yang). Other than specializing in producing auteur cinema, she is also an active participant in the Chinese festival circuit, having founded several key programs for the Shanghai International Film Festival, including the Asian New Talent Award for emerging directors, project pitching sessions, film forums, and short film competitions (SIFF PROJECT). Commenting on Biâs Cannes presence and box office result, Shen considered it a success for two reasons: first it was recognized by Cannes, bestowing it with âaesthetic valuesâ¦because Cannes is one of the top festivals worldwide. We need to trust Cannesâ judgmentâ. Secondly, Shen says that the filmâs presale number of 100 million RMB and 270 million RMB opening box office are âthe testament of its market appealâ (Shen Yang). Shen Yangâs utilitarian view of art house cinema is no surprise, given her role as a producer and festival organizer whoâs heavily involved in the Chinese festival circuit. Within this framework, Bi Ganâs appropriation of noir in Long Dayâs Journey Into Night aligns with industry and festival expectations for works that merge artistic prestige with genre-inflected market viability. Indeed, as Bi himself notes, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night started as a ânoirâ concept. In an interview with Radio France International (RFI), he explains his scriptwriting often starts with 72 genre: ââ¦I usually start with a genre. Like Kaili Blues I started writing as a road movie. And I gradually âdestroyâ it as I write. The same goes with Long Dayâs Journey Into Night. I write and then I âdestroyâ, turning it into a âdark fairy taleâ(hei se tonghua é»è²ç«¥è¯)â (Bi Gan, âDaoyan Bi Gan tan yingpianâ).17 In an interview with Festival de Cannes, Bi elaborates that the film âstarted out as a film noir, in the style of Billy Wilderâs Double Indemnityâ(âLong Dayâs Journey into Night as Seen by Bi Ganâ), and he later deconstructed the screenplay, âinterchanging partsâ, and âmoving them from one scene to anotherâ (Bi, âShijian yu kongjianâ). Meanwhile, though widely circulating as a work of noir, Bi does not consider Long Dayâs Journey Into Night a film noir: âI think (Long dayâs Journey Into Night) is hard to categorize... I do not wish it to be a film that could be defined in normative terms... Its story is quite simple, like a fairy tale for adults. But it is hard to say what genre it isâ (Bi, âShijian yu kongjianâ). While Bi does not classify the film strictly as noir, his process indicates that the filmâs noir-inflected aesthetics and narrative elements are not accidental but arise from his deliberate engagement with a noir genre framework. Noir Fatalism: Luoâs Failed Attempts at Self-narrativization in the Present âOne final thing I have to do... and then Iâll be free of the past.â --John âScottieâ Ferguson, Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) 17 âæåå§æ¬éå¸¸æ¯å åä¸ä¸ªç±»ååçä¸è¥¿ãæ¯å¦ãè·¯è¾¹éé¤ãæå°±æ¯å åäºä¸ä¸ªå ¬è·¯å¼ççµå½±ï¼ç¶åå¨åä½çè¿ç¨ä¸­å¼å§å¯¹å§æ¬ä¸æ­è¿è¡ç ´ç¯ãè¿æ¬¡ä¹ä¸æ ·ï¼ç¶ååç ´åæï¼æå®åæä¸ä¸ªâé»è²ç«¥è¯âï¼è¿å¯è½æ¯ä¸ä¸ªåä½çä¹ æ¯â(âMy screenplay writing begins a specific genre. Kaili Blues started off as a road movie. I consistently âdestroyâ the structure as I go. Same with Long Day. I turn it into a âdark fairy taleâ. Itâs my habit of writing.â), Bi, Gan æ¯èµ£. âShijian yu kongjian, jiyi yu yingsuâ æ¶é´ä¸ç©ºé´ï¼è®°å¿ä¸ç½ç² [Time and Space, Memory and Opium]. Interview by Muyan. Cinephilia, 5 May 2019, cinephilia.net/70669/. Accessed 27 June 2025. 73 Bi Ganâs turn to noir, even using its basic framework, is thus an important strategy to ensure the filmâs legibility in both transnational festival-market circuit and domestic market. But far from being simply a decorative genre layer, the noir narrative of disorientation and disillusionment actually helps to hinge the filmâs industrial positioning with its spatial-aesthetic strategies. The story of Luoâs investigation and the wandering it enables, becomes the narrative situation that invites flânerie. We learn gradually that Wan was involved with a local crime boss, Zuo Hongyuan. Bai Mao, whose father was killed by Zuo for his gambling debt, finds the gun that Zuo uses to kill his local opponent. Bai Mao disguises his plan for revenge as blackmail, hiding a gun in a cart of apples to kill Zuo and avenge his father. Bai Mao recruits his best friend Luo to help bring the cart of apples, without telling him what the apples are really for or his intentions. Nonchalantly, Luo forgets to deliver the apple cart for Bai Maoâs meeting with Zuo, resulting in Bai Maoâs death. Later, after Luoâs affair with Wan was exposed, Zuo tightens his control of Wan and tortures Luo to teach a lesson. In desperation, Wan tells Luo she was pregnant but has had an abortion, then persuades him to assassinate Zuo during a movie screening. The result of the assassination was never disclosed in the film, and we learn from Luoâs account that Wan has then mysteriously disappeared while Luo drifted away from Kaili. The investigation is rendered a âlongâ pursuit in two ways: formally, through Bi Ganâs extensive use of long takes, and narratively, through the constant interweaving of memory and present sequences without clear formal demarcation. In parallel, past and present both advance chronologically yet indistinguishable in their aesthetics and style. The memory thread begins with Luoâs first meeting with Wan and culminates in his attempted assassination of Zuo, while the present follows his search for Wan through those once closely involved with her: a childhood friend now imprisoned, whose name Luo discovers on the back of a photograph hidden in their 74 old rendezvous spot; her ex-husband, a hotel owner who let her stay in exchange for nightly stories, whom she later married under the alias of Chen Huixian; and Bai Maoâs mother, who recounts how Wan manipulated Zuo to kill for her by borrowing a gun from Bai Maoâs father. Each encounter adds fragments that both supplement and destabilize Luoâs understanding of Wan, propelling him toward Dangmai, the cabaret where she is said to work. There, told the cabaret will not open for another three hours, Luo drifts into a nearby cinema to pass the time and falls asleep, transitioning the narrative into the dream sequence. Through his investigation scenes, the memory thread is framed through Luoâs retrospective voiceover, delivered from an indeterminate space and time. His commentary provides an intermittent anchoring, beginning the film with the declaration âThis all began with a friendâs death and my fascination with dangerous things (00:06:35),â or clarifying that he and Wan âconstantly went to the movies during that time (00:35:07),â as this voiceover is intercut with sequences of their cinema-going. Such interventions mark memory from present and underscore the instability of Luoâs recollection of Wan. In the cinema, as he drifts into sleep while waiting for the cabaret to begin, the film shifts into its celebrated dream sequence, a 62-minute single take representing his descent into a dream scenario, where he travels into a deserted prison and meets doppelgangers of Wan, the deceased Bai Mao and his mother who abandoned him as a kid. To clarify the narrative structure of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, I mobilize David Desserâs framework of the âStranger and Femme Fataleâ subcycle of noir in dialogue with Yang Yuâs Deleuzian reading of the film. Within Desserâs category, Wan Qiwen serves as the femme fatale whose allure draws Luo into a chain of fatal situations for her selfish goals, and whose ultimate narrative function is to anchor Luoâs pursuit of a past that he seems to continually misremember. On the other hand, Yang Yu draws on Deleuzeâs notion of the crystal-image to 75 account for the filmâs bifurcated structure, in which the concluding dream sequence refracts rather than mirrors the earlier investigation and memories. Yang argues that the film stages a crystal structure by staging a circuit between the recollection-image (the sudden insertion of memories between investigation in the first part), the dream-image (the one-take dream sequence), and the actual-image (the present investigation in the first part). This, according to Yang, enables a self-referential structure, where the dream sequence becomes the surface where past and present find their reflection, thus constituting a indiscernible âcoalescence of (Luoâs) past, present and future in eternal returnâ (67). Yet because this reflection is never a perfect replica, it enables a constant callback, a mental oscillation between dream, cinematic memory, and cinematic present, that constantly generates new meanings and connections. For example, in the dream, he does not meet Wan, but rather Kaizhen, played by the same actress Tang Wei, who abandons the Guizhou dialect altogether and now speaks in Mandarin, and is overseeing a billiard business; he also stumbles upon a quarrel between a woman and a faceless man. The woman, played by the same actress who earlier played Bai Maoâs mother, now appears as a different person, pleading to be taken far away from her family but is refused by the other man. This incident is thought to refer to Luoâs motherâs actual departure when he was little. The doubling encapsulates the crystal logic of the dream as not a repetition of what happened but a reconstruction altogether, a refraction, where past memory returns not by itself but a new situation to be dealt with in dream, which renders the dream experience not a re-experience of traumatic past, but a trip of possibilities. In this sense, the dream both reprises and transforms the first partâs fragmented interplay of Luoâs past and present, crystallizing into a structure that is itself constantly on the move, where time folds back upon itself, each layer refracted through 76 another, making Luoâs pursuit of Wan Qiwen less a recovery of the past than a continual encounter with memory distortions. Taken together with Desserâs framework, Wan Qiwen as the femme fatale becomes the narrative anchor of this two-way passage. As Yang notes, the anchor of the filmâs circulation between memory, present, and dream is not the real Wan herself but Luoâs unreliable reconstruction of her through memory and investigation (66). As the investigation deepens, Luo becomes increasingly unsure of who Wan really is. The investigation begins when Luo finds a photograph of Wan with her friendâs contact information on the back, a photograph in which Wanâs face is blurred out. Luoâs romance with Wan also begins because she supposedly resembles his estranged mother, whose face is never shown in the film. A meeting with Wan's childhood friend revealed that her name is perhaps not Wan, but a woman named Chen Huixian. Later, in a meeting with Wanâs husband whom she married after Luo, Luo learns that they just got a divorce and that she was always infertile, despite having told himself she had an abortion for their child. Yang argues that this contradictory interplay of details is an act of deliberate narrative falsification, blurring the real and the fantasized (70). By the filmâs end, he does not find Wan in reality but reunites with Kaizhen, her dream counterpart. Through this two-part narrative, one fragmentary and one hallucinating, Luo traverses between the past, the present and the dream, each reflecting and echoing one another, rendering him a ghost moving aimlessly through this crystal circuit of memory and dream (68). This futile search, coupled with disorientation in his own memory, is, alongside the genre conventions of the Stranger and Femme Fatale, what lends Long Dayâs Journey into Night its noir sensibility, through Luo's failed attempt to narrativize reality, of not being able to make peace between past and present, with resolution arriving only in the fabricated realm of dreams. 77 Mapping Bi Ganâs Kaili and Dangmai: Chinese Any-space-whatever and Reflective Nostalgia As I argued in Chapter 1, much like Diaoâs fictional Southern City, Bi Ganâs Kaili is also one torn between the real and the fictional. The film was indeed shot in Kaili, and much of the film was set in the deserted Danzhai Mercury Factory area, a huge industrial complex fully equipped with living, commercial (shops and cinema) and institutional quarters (daycare, school, postal office) and even a prison (Xiao Hongshi).18 Abandoned in the 1990s when the mercury supplies became depleted, the architecture was Soviet-influenced, reportedly due to the involvement of Soviet experts in its 1956 design (Xiao Hongshi). The celebrated long take sequence was filmed entirely within this factory, yet, as principal cinematographer Dong Jingsong notes, more than 90 percent of what we see in the film was the hybrid result of production design and on-location architecture (Dong Jingsong). In this way, Bi Ganâs representation of Kaili is not concerned with preserving the profilmic materiality of the real space, but rather a reimagined and reconfigured reality based on a pre-existing real location. As Bi notes himself, heâs trying to capture the 18According to government reports, Guizhou is an underdeveloped region with a lagging economy. Historically, its economy has been dominated by mining and agriculture, while transportation infrastructure has been difficult to develop due to its challenging geography. See Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guowuyuan ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½å½å¡é¢. âGuizhou sheng guihua jianyaoâ è´µå·çè§åç®è¦ [Brief plan of Guizhou Province]. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo zhengfu gongbao ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½æ¿åºå ¬æ¥ [Gazette of the State Council of the PRC], 2012, www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2012/content_2049997.htm. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. In the 1960s, however, Guizhou became an important strategic site in mainland Chinaâs industrialization program sanxian jianshe ä¸çº¿å»ºè®¾ [Third Front Construction], aimed at preparing for potential military conflict with Vietnam and the Soviet Union. The program supported and established heavy industries (iron, oil, machinery, railway and etc.) in Chinaâs western inland provinces, including Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou. While later assessments of this project have generally been positive--citing its role in boosting the economy of the Chinese west in the backdrop of the largely eastern-focused Reform and Opening policy--by the mid-1990s, as Chinaâs diplomatic ties with powers such as the United States improved, the declining efficiency of many factories and the difficulty of sustaining production infrastructure led to restructuring, closure of inefficient sites, and staff reductions. Danzhai 丹寨 was among those shut down due to exhausted mining resources and inefficiency. See Marquis, Christopher, and Qiao, Kunyuan. âThe Third Front Construction and Private Entrepreneurship.â Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. Yale University Press, 2022, pp. 176â188. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3006z6k. 78 âshadowâ of Kaili, âparts of the city that are long abandoned and neglectedâ, which form for him the Kaili he remembers rather than the âsleek modern Kaili that people tend to knowâ (Bi, âIn Conversation: Bi Gan with Ethan Spiglandâ). While these spaces align with the preference for depicting urban decay in Sixth Generation cinema, Biâs constructed Kaili is stripped of overt political intent. In describing this focus on the neglected ruins of Kaili, he repeatedly used words such as âattractiveâ and âcharmingâ: âI do think that just like other cities in mainland China, it (Kaili)'s going through transformations... It is something that I find very attractive, very charming, something that I want to be seen by the audienceâ (Bi, âIn Conversationâ). Here his interest in ruins is less about formulating a political critique of the postsocialist urban decay, and more about a nostalgia driven by an affective mediation between memory, time and change themselves. Such nostalgia is reflected through naming his characters after Mando/Canto-pop stars, and the filmâs music soundtrack, together showing a playful homage to the late 20th-century Hongkong/Taiwan pop stars: Luo Hongwu after a Taiwanese music producer, the villain Zuo Hongyuan after a Hong Kong composer with the same name, Chen Huixian after Cantopop singer Priscilla Chan, and Wan Qiwen after Hong Kong actress Monica Wan. The soundtrack further extends this network, weaving in songs like Tai Chao-meiâs Dark Green Night, Miyuki Nakajimaâs Thistle Girlâs Lullaby, and Wu Bai and Karen Mokâs A Reason to Be Strong. These references can be seen as pop culture relics, weaved into the fabric of the story for their affective values rather than as signifiers for their real-life counterparts: for example, Wu Baiâs song plays when Zuo interrogates Luo to signify a sense of defeat because Bi thinks Wuâs voice is âcoarse and powerful, like that of the ruinsâ (Bi, âShijian yu kongjianâ). For Bi Ganâ, the music reference becomes part of a nostalgic collage: an audible memory-map that, like the filmâs visual ruins, 79 refrains from reconstructing a coherent cultural past, but forms a fragmented network of affective nostalgia, reflective in its pastiched nostalgic Chinese-language music network of the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, as Bi notes himself in cryptic fashion: âI am anxious over memory, not over material needsâ (Bi Gan, âZhongguo Dianyingjia Xiehui Shouciâ). His fascination with ruins and the act of remembrance itself aligns his consistent representation of Kaili to Svetlana Boymâs âreflective nostalgiaâ. Boym identifies ârestorativeâ and âreflectiveâ as two dominant modes of how cultural production imagines the past (41). While restorative nostalgia emphasizes the reconstruction of an image of the past through reconstructions of monuments and the revival of traditional practices, reflective nostalgia recognizes the impossibility of replicating the past and that the past is also but a constructed myth (49). Reflective nostalgia âlingers on ruins, the patina of time and history, in the dreams of another place and another time,â and âdoes not pretend to rebuild the mythical place called home; it is âenamored of distance, not of the referent itselfââ (49). For Boym, âthe past is not merely that which doesnât exist anymore, but â¦ might act and will act by inserting itself into a present sensation from which it borrows the vitality,â opening âa multitude of potentialities, nonteleological possibilities of historic developmentâ (50). It then becomes clear why Bi Gan sets Luoâs drift in the neglected, ruined site of the Danzhai Mercury Mine. For, the ruin is the ideal material for reflective nostalgia, the prototypical any-space-whatever in Deleuzeâs account. For Deleuze, ruins are sites where their original roles have been halted, and they emerge as spaces emptied of meaning that could only be grappled through aimless wandering by the characters and perceived in âpure optical and sound situationsâ by the viewers (Deleuze qtd. in Rodowick 75). A similar argument is made by Robert Ginsberg regarding the productive force of ruins. In their material fragmentation, ruins 80 for Ginsberg enable discovery and exploration: âwhat counts in the ruins is what we find, not what we missâ. In other words, Ginsberg believes ruins motivate exploration in making meaning because âexploration follows no plan, it is a free wanderingâ (158). In other words, Bi Gan constructs a Kaili of nostalgia that enables flânerie, as a means for the characters to (re)discover their past and present. While one could read the ruined industrial sites as a tacit commentary on Chinaâs industrial restructuring, the story of Luo focuses more on a personal journey to make amends for his own past. This reflection on the problematic of memory itself is delivered in the film when Luo reunites with Bai Maoâs mother, who says that a âmudslide isnât scary. Being stuck in memory is scaryâ (01:06:46). Memories in the film also echoes this line, becoming a literal physical blockade, hijacking the present and momentarily plunging Luo into recollections. The memory sequences appear seamlessly within the same visual field as his present reality and later referenced in the dream-images. In this way, memory not only punctuates the present but also generates the dream world, extending the investigation into Luoâs dream where past, present, and fantasy coexist. What Luo does then is to drift and jump from one memory to another. Instead of positioning the industrial ruins as a social problem to be addressed in the story of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night, he positions the dystopic vision of Kaili as the affective mise-en-scène fitted for a noir iconography, to explore the problematics between memory, the real, and the dream, perhaps probing the problem of existence itself. Flânerie enters this scene as a bodily movement that does not grant immediate answers, but a process of embodied discovery, into any-spaces-whatever, or any-now(here)-spaces in the context of mainland teleology, divorced from their original function and instant narrative-making. 81 But Bi also rejects a completely pessimistic reading of Kaili. When asked where Wan has gone, her ex-husband says she now performs in a bar in a town called âDangmai (è¡éº¦)â. Luo travels there but falls asleep in a cinema and enters the long dream sequence. Luo does arrive in Dangmai in the diegetic reality of the film, but the film shows no establishing shot of the town. As a result, some critics have conflated Dangmai with the unnamed deserted prison that houses the dream sequence (Bi Gan, âShijian yu kongjianâ; --, âYi wuxian jiejin xieshi de fangshiâ). This conflation renders Biâs spatial construct more hopeful and reconciliatory. As Bi himself notes, Dangmai is not a real town: in the Miao language, Dangmai means âthe place that does not existâ, a place where âdifferent temporalities entangleâ (âZhongguo dianyingjia xiehui shouciâ). In the dream, Luo finds the âdeserted prisonâ not deserted at all, but brimming with life where vendors, residents, and doppelgängers from his memory occupy different quarters of the prison, rendering it a fully functioning town. This transformation renders Dangmai a fabular elsewhere, a dream-inflected space accessible only through the threshold of sleep, where the deserted space becomes animated and memory returns as embodied experience. The construction of Dangmai and its Miao significance gestures perhaps to a broader of condition of Chinese ethnic minorities in mainland China, who, though subsumed under the umbrella ethnicity of âthe Chinese peopleâ, are often visible through ethnographic tourism that highlights their cultural distinctiveness from the Han majority (Chawla 134; Zhou and Edlheim 260).19 Yet in Biâs construction, the town is not portrayed as an 19 The Chinese state has often supported the Miao community by including Miao embroidery in its âIntangible Cultural Heritageâ for preservation purposes and to boost Chinaâs âsoft powerâ. Similar practices include setting up tourism villages to enhance income for the Miao settlements in Guizhou. But these practices often engage in an internal exoticization of the Miao identity. See Muhammad Iqbal Chawla, âEthnicity, Diversity, and National Integration of China: A Case Study of Miao Community in China,â Journal of Development and Social Sciences, 82 ethnographic Miaozhai20 (Miao Village) but as a generic county-town of fun fairs and vendors with no clear ethnic demarcations. In refusing to stage ethnicity through the spectacle of settlement, Bi enacts a reflexive strategy: the Miao are not represented as a readily visible object of exotic display but as an implicit signifier in the name of the place Luo visits. This construct of a Miao-Han hybrid settlement that exists outside of real time and space perhaps then gestures towards a vision of mutual existence without internal exoticization, where neither are readily distinguishable from one another. The prisonâs magical-realist texture fuses the absence of the real with the vitality of the imagined, as a liminal site where the rules of waking life are suspended and an alternative âmagicalâ one takes place. In this sense, the ânon-existentâ town becomes an extensively tactile and traversable any-space-whatever, a locus of consolation where memory, dream, and desire intermingle beyond the coordinates of the real. In the sections that follow, I trace this dynamic through a set of key locations. In the first part of the film, the Xiaofeng restaurant sets the embodied flânerie in motion, where Luo, returning to mourn his father, starts his investigation to find Wan. The tunnel sequence extends this drift into a romantic flânerie shared with Wan. In the second partâs dreamscape, I delineate three more flâneries: Luo and Bai Maoâs scooter ride into the deserted prison; Luoâs airborne drift with Kaizhen; and his sorrowful walk after seeing his mother off, culminating in a dream reunion with Kaizhen. These journeys are not isolated, vol. 4, no. 4, Oct.âDec. 2023, pp. 126â136. P-ISSN: 2709-6254, O-ISSN: 2709-6262. https://doi.org/10.47205/jdss.2023(4-IV)12. 20 See more about this traditional Miao settlement at âMiao Ethnic Village in SW China Preserves Ancient Traditions.â Peopleâs Daily Online, 27 May 2024, https://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0527/c90000-20174482.html. Accessed 10 Sept. 2025. 83 Kaizhen is a double of Wan, just as the mother is doubled by another woman, layering each movement with echoes, displacements, and slippages between the real and the dream. Deferred Mourning and Imagined Romance: Drift between Memory and Present The dislocated, fragmented space of Long Dayâs Journey Into Night lends itself to the any-space-whatever: an ambiguous, affectively charged time-space that is not easily locatable. Rather than orienting the viewer, these spaces produce a sense of drift, inviting movement without destination. This spatial configuration, half-remembered, half-invented, structures Luoâs wandering, in the suspended present of trying to process past grief. As Luo recounts the reason why he returns to Kaili, we enter the Xiaofeng restaurant. The scene opens with a broken clock, and a woman walks into frame to take it down and switch it with a picture of Luoâs late father. The camera then moves slowly and horizontally to the left. This kind of slow tracking movement doesnât just reveal new visual information but modulates how we look. It draws the gaze gradually across space, not in a disjunctive way, but in a drifting manner, gently repositioning our relation to the room and stays on Luo (see Figure 1.). The frame doesnât really show the restaurant-proper. The shallow focus blurs the periphery, insisting instead on a tight visual intimacy: the picture, the clock, the rusted wall, and Luoâs face. And in doing so, the shot quietly displaces context, it denies the viewer full access to the spaceâs function as ârestaurant,â and instead emphasizes its weight as affective geography. The restaurant edges on being a blurred space where no customers are clearly visible and becomes Deleuzeâs any-space-whatever: a suspended place where the coordinates of time and function collapse into perception (Rodowick 75). It contains the photograph of the absent mother and the clock that no longer tells time. The clock that tells no time situates the restaurant out of time, where the measure of regular temporality has lost itself to the affective measure of Luoâs 84 contemplation. In place of a temporal unit is the unfolding tracking shot that becomes the very embodiment of time itself, not measured by the clock but experienced affectively through the scrolling image and rhythm. There emerges, in this example, the spatialization of Luoâs shifting and unstable memory. The restaurant is not a fixed location, but a mutable constellation of feelings and recollections. Space here is fluid, and its becoming into place is dictated not by function, but by Luoâs memory of his mother, the death of his father, and the missing Wan Qiwen. Luo later says he brought Wan here to learn about Zuo, âbecause when people eat, they canât lieâ (00:18:29), the restaurant becomes a site of involuntary truth, stringing a circuit between the recollection of Wan and the present where Luo mourns his deceased father in the restaurant named after his estranged mother. Perhaps not a restaurant, but an any-restaurant-whatever stripes of spatial and temporal coordinates from the outside world, where the two ends of past and present constantly refer to each other. The camera here also drifts to mirror Luoâs drifting psychology. The camera slowly pans to the left to follow him embarking on the search for Wan, not saying a word about his deceased father. The slow tracking shot sets up the filmâs spatiality mapped not by conspiracies or urban codes, but a space constituted as much by external material reality as by interior recollection. If Luoâs tacit stone-faced meander through the space maps the spatial fabric of memory in a time of change, then the drifting camera constructs its own practice of movement, slowly scrolling the screen as if surveilling, lingering on all the details before finally moving on: an embodied cinematic form of nostalgia. We do not get any panoramic shot but only close-ups. This externalizes Luoâs inability to narrativize his present and past, the space he moves through is not so much external terrain as it is the psychogeography of deferred mourning. He is caught in a feedback loop of the past, not simply remembering, but dwelling. 85 Figure 11. Luo Hongwu walks out of Xiaofeng Restaurant. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 00:10:31. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. This temporal and spatial ambiguity crystallizes further in the tunnel, a recuring motif in the film. The tunnel appears twice: first as Luo tails Wan after inviting her to her motherâs restaurant, and second during the dream sequence. Here we will focus on the first example. The tunnel is a sort of passage emphasizing transience, a non-space to be passed and not dwelt upon (77). However, Luo and Wan do the exact opposite. Luo, in his car, drives at pedestrian speed to keep up with Wan, as the two share a walk within the tunnel. In a spinning shot, the camera frames the back of Wan from Luoâs van, moving through a drape of waterfall and finally focuses on the figure of Wan, in red, walking slowly (see Figure 2.). The camera then pans back, following Wan who turns around and walks to confront Luo about his obvious stalking. Here, the cameraâs perspective changes seamlessly from Luoâs subjective POV of Wan to a third-person perspective of both Luo and Wan. As Bi himself notes, the tunnel scene represents a narrative point where the subjective and the objective start to become indistinguishable (Yang 70). Even 86 though the camera preserves the duration as much as possible, the questionable POV shift raises doubt regarding the indexicality of the cinematic apparatus, as well as echoing Luoâs prior claim that âcinema is for sure not real. But memories mix truth and lies.â (00:35:34). The falsification of memory is foreshadowed, as the filmic image does not reflect a stable reality but rather destabilizes itself through perceptual ambiguity. Here, the image of recollection does not represent memory, but rather its instability and mutability. Figure 12. Luo follows Wan into a tunnel. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 00:19:24. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. What this reflects is the contradiction between optical truth and absolute truth. In this case, the optical truth is Luoâs memory presented in cinematic image. Here the shift in perspective destabilizes the optical reality of the image, of Luoâs first encounter with Wan, and hints that what we see in the sequence may not be what really happened. This is especially the case after the camera pans and emerges out of waterfall, with water dripping on the lens. Here in Luoâs optical vision, in his recollection-image, we see Wanâs figure only from behind, as Luo recounts the similarity between Wan and his mother. The crucial conflict here is using realist 87 slow cinema aesthetics to represent the short-circuiting of memory and fantasization, to the extent that the memory becomes a result of fantasization, of the process of reminiscence going rogue, rerouted, on a detour, on its own flânerie. The car window which frames Qiwen even when she comes closer to talk to Luo affirms this observation, suggesting that she is always framed within his voiceover, his memory and fantasization. A literal embodiment of his desire and affect. In this sense, the tunnel becomes a symbol for not only a non-place suspended, protracted for the two to meander in romantically, but it also maps a dilated and protracted recollection, a place of ânon-memoryâ perhaps. In this sense, memory time is made excess as a means of preservation in a space of non-time, transforming into a source of affective intimacy. As the passage that links one side to the other through darkness, the inner any-space-whatever of the tunnel becomes the site where the fluid progression of recollection and narrativization is suspended and elongated into a kind of expansive, fallacious ground where recollection and fantasizing takes root in each other. Here the walking in the tunnel mirrors the entrapped flânerie of Luo, who, like the restaurant, cannot remember any spatial details but rather reconstructing constantly his own memories, projecting, creating the any-space-whatever of memory to project his desire and unresolved trauma. There are no spatial details to be mapped but only the nostalgic sensation of romance in the tunnel where all coordinates are lost in the passage of darkness. The camera does not simply record but drifts along from the real to the unreal. The Super Sleepwalker: Reclamation of the Real through Dream As mentioned above, the second half of the film is a one-hour 3-D long take that is supposedly a dream sequence. There is not necessarily a story for this part but a series of encounters. In chronological order, Luo enters his dream to find himself stuck in a cave with a boy with no name, and with whom he plays table tennis in exchange for the direction out. After 88 winning, the boy takes him out of the cave by scooter to a zipline, and gifts Luo the table tennis bat, saying that it has magic that can give its user to power to fly. Learning that the boy does not have a name, Luo decides to name him Bai Mao after his deceased friend. Luo then arrives in the village where he will encounter Kaizhen, Wanâs double, played by the same actress. Instead of having black hair and speaking Kaili dialect like Wan, Kaizhen appears with red hair, speaks Mandarin, and oversees a local arcade. When local hooligans harass her and lock her inside with Luo, barring her from attending a singing competition at the prison center, Luo remembers the magic tennis bat given to him by the child Bai Mao. Using it, he takes Kaizhen on a flying tour, descending into the village square so that she can pursue her dream of âbecoming a big starâ (01:40:18). The two momentarily part ways, after which Luo encounters a woman, played by the same actress who played Bai Maoâs mother, with a torch who quarrels with another man, demanding to be taken far away. Recognizing this as a spectral refraction of his own motherâs uninformed departure when he was young, Luo points a gun at the man and, with tears in his eyes, asks the woman if she has truly made up her mind. He then forces the man to take her along, before returning to the prison center where he meets Kaizhen again. Rejoining her, the two share a kiss in a magical room that spins upon itself when two lovers cast the right spell. The film concludes with the firework that was only meant to last a minute, now glimmering beyond its duration. Speaking of his insistence on this continuous long take, Bi explains that he wants to present the dream in its lucid state because he conceives of dreams as continuous rather than fragmented, despite their disjointed imagery (Bi, âKoubei liangjihuahua zhihouâ). When we recall a dream, he notes, we do not describe it as hundreds of separate fragments but as one coherent experience, an illusion of continuity. His goal was not to capture the ârealâ in an indexical sense, but to 89 convey the ârealâ sensation of dream, a world âfalsely realâ (Bi, âIn Conversation: Bi Gan with Ethan Spiglandâ). The switch from 2D to 3D in this sequence accentuates the otherworldly texture of the dream (Bi, âIn Conversationâ). This 62-minute sequence was shot in its entirety, not digitally stitched together like a pseudo long take. Bi had rejected such methods earlier in Kaili Blues, insisting the travelling sequences be shot continuously so as to feel more believable, even at the cost of shakiness or blur (Bi, âYi wuxian jiejin xieshiâ 93). Mitchell van Vuren argues that such shifts in film texture enable extradiegetic âtravelâ by the audience, foregrounding a dialogical relationship between the viewer and the film over an immersive one (96). In other words, it is not only a lucid dream for Luo but also for the audience, except unlike a real dream, both are engaged in a journey of exploration (98). Discussing his long take, Bi distinguishes his method from Birdman (2014), known for its digitally stitched together pseudo-long takes and disguised cuts. Though conscious of constructing his dream sequence as both real and false, he insists on shooting it in its real duration. I argue this dedication to the profilmic event, the journey from the cave, through zipline into Danzhai prison, briefly up on a drone, and then on foot, shape the filmâs sense of âtravelâ. In his book Supercinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age, William Brown notes that advances in digital camera movements have facilitated a philosophical shift in how cinema constructs experience, producing Deleuzeâs âgaseous perception,â where the camera seems to pass through space effortlessly (46). Such a shift enables a posthuman take on reality, where all spaces form a continuum in the perspective of the digital camera (47). Brownâs theorization of this posthuman turn of the virtual camera is an illuminating counterpoint in thinking about Biâs physical camera. Though shot digitally, Biâs dream sequence avoids this virtual approach, grounding and pacing its movement in Luoâs modes of travel, on foot, scooter, zipline, or in the air, each maintaining a 90 contemplative, flâneur-esque pace. The camera, rooted in real action choreography, does not pass through walls but moves around them, detouring when needed to reframe on the characters, leaving the audience waiting until they reappear, often brushing through other parts of the reanimated prison as it finds its way back.21 Such âdead timeâ of Luoâs flânerie is not omitted but lived, rendering time not as measurement of action but a lucid experience of the dream fabric itself. This constitutes Deleuzeâs time-image in which the experience of unbroken time, as âpure sound and optical situationsâ, has come to subordinate the chain of narrative causality: ââ¦time is no longer the measure of movement but movement is the perspective of timeâ (Cinema 2 22). In the case of the dream long take, such a time-image is traversed through Luoâs ambivalent flânerie, a kind of action not clearly oriented into a set of movements, but which gives itself up to occasionally being lost in the flow of time. In this way, flânerie paradoxically produces the time-image: while it is constituted by bodily movement, its ambivalence prevents that movement from structuring temporality. Rather, the long take captures Luoâs inability to structure time in his dream while also floating with the dreamâs unfolding as an affective experience rather than as narrative progression. Although the dream sequence remains within the human register as driven by memory and desire, it nevertheless produces a flattening between Luoâs subjectivity (as he walks as himself in the space) and his memories (which serve as a foundation of the space he explores). The deserted prison could be seen as an extension of his subjectivity, but also as the part which he himself has not explored before. In this regard we see Deleuzeâs crystal architecture in its full indiscernibility between the self (Luoâs memory and present) and the other 21 Up until this thesisâs writing, no source indicates the use of digital special effects beyond standard color grading and the conversion from 2D footage to 3D footage. 91 (the material environment of the prison and its inhabitants), where past, present and dream-images coexist on the same surface. In this way, the long take, though rooted in human choreography, gestures towards the posthuman: not by erasing the human, but by decentering Luoâs subjectivity and situating him within a crystalline space of refracted temporalities and doubles. The dream sequence is constituted by three main flâneries. The first is the ride into the village on the back of a scooter with the unnamed boy, a spectral double of both Luoâs childhood friend and the unborn child he would have had with Wan. The two drift through a road entirely engulfed by darkness before descending via a zipline into the village below (See figure 3.). This ride at night, devoid of landmarks and orientation, evokes the any-space-whatever where the journey from A to B becomes a metaphorical one for the boy and Luoâs bonding. As the boy asks Luo whether he has ever kissed someone and what it feels like, Luo replies from the backseat, âlike a dreamâ (01:23:40). In this uncut tracking exchange, Bi embeds Luoâs romantic displacement and reverie into a moment of innocent inquiry between two figures who derive from the same subject Luo. The boy, at once the echo of a family never formed and a friend lost, voices an affection and desire that was not able fully to manifest. But what they do possess, is the excess of time from the tracking shot of them driving in the darkness, where transience does not produce dead time but time for affective bonding. 92 Figure 13. The boy takes Luo to the prison on a scooter. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 01:23:33. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. In the second dream flânerie, Luo escorts Kaizhen down to the singing competition taking place in the town center, which Kaizhen considers to be her chance of breakout stardom. Kaizhen, like the boy Bai Mao and the torch-bearing woman, is a spectral construction: an amalgam of displaced traits from Luoâs memory of Wan and his mother. Kaizhen, like Wan, is involved with a local mobster who makes money by loan sharking. But contrary to Wan who cheats on Zuo, Kaizhen is the one being cheated on by the mobster. Resigned to accept this fact, Kaizhen tells Luo she wants to be a singer and experience being on an airplane for the first time in her life. Using the magic tennis table bat gifted by the kid Bai Mao, Luo instead takes Kaizhen to âflyâ across the prison, an aerial traversal that mirrors the earlier scooter ride on the land. As the pair lifts off, the camera does not dwell on shots of their intimacy. Instead, it assumes a first-person perspective, drifting slowly over the neon-lit prison in a prolonged panoramic shot, showing the prison in a reanimated liveliness, populated by vendors and the audience of the singing competition (see figure 4.). Here the perspective shift mirrors that from the tunnel, but it 93 differentiates itself in becoming the perspective of not just Luoâs, but of both Luo and Kaizhenâs. As Liu Siqi observes, this dynamic movement imbues the camera with an active, exploratory presence, transforming it from a passive recorder into the character's POV, embodying their affective interconnectedness in this merging of perspectives (50). The cinematic perspective is shared between Luo, Kaizhen, and the viewers in front of the screen. Figure 14. Luo and Kaizhen spectate the town from above. Long Dayâs Journey into Night, dir. Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. 01:43:33. Reproduced for scholarly analysis under fair dealing. The aerial perspective of the prison in its reanimated form speaks to Luoâs regained control of spatial construction. As Teresa Castro notes, aerial mapping evokes a godâs eye view that condenses spatial heterogeneity into a legible whole (14). It is only in his dream that Luo is able to behold his environment as a whole and share such information in its majesty to the one he cares about. This cartographic gesture differentiates the dream sequence from its past-present counterpart, where the dream, contrary to reality, could be clearly legible in its spatial occupation rather being fragmented: dream for Luo is clearer than reality. Despite its spatial clarity, the 94 prison-town still emerges as an any-space-whatever that exists off the course of Luoâs reality, self-contained, requiring a rite of passage to enter, and imminently reflecting Luoâs past, all of which structures it as a heterotopic any-space-whatever filled with emotional potential every step Luo takes. While the two are airborne, a Dong (ä¾) folkloric music âSong of the Cicadasâ (âèä¹æ­â) play in the background (Wu Quan). This version is not the original but a remastered arrangement by composer Lin Qiang, which incorporates electronic elements, infusing the piece with laser-like, science-fictional soundscapes to complement the surreal sense of Luo and Wanâs flight. The Dong people is another ethnic group residing alongside the Miao in Guizhou province, with whom they share autonomous governance of Kaili (Kailiâs administrative status is the âQiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Provinceâ).22As one of the best known songs of the Dong community, âSong of the Cicadasâ tells the short-lived romance between two lovers and must be performed collectively with many singing together rather than by a soloist. Its polyphonic form, an imitation of the sound of the cicadas, relies on the interplay between high and low parts (Qin 98). Though not a Dong himself, Biâs inclusion of the song speaks to a topophilic nostalgia for the mixed ethnic space in which he grew up, instead of a desire to represent the ethnographic distinctiveness of Kaili. As I argued earlier, Bi refrains from direct ethnographic representation of Miao and Dong but stages them as implicit signifiers that 22 See more about this mixed ethnic autonomous prefecture at Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guojia Minzu Shiwu Weiyuanhui ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½å½å®¶æ°æäºå¡å§åä¼. âMiao zu èæ [Miao Ethnic Group].â Zhongguo shaoshu minzu ä¸­å½å°æ°æ°æ [Chinese Ethnic Minorities], Minzu wenti wuzhong congshu æ°æé®é¢äºç§ä¸ä¹¦ [Five Series on Ethnic Issues]. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guojia Minzu Shiwu Weiyuanhui, https://www.neac.gov.cn/seac/ztzl/mz/fzxz.shtml. Accessed 4 September. 2025. 95 reject self-exoticization. In this case, the rearranged, more modern version of âSong of the Cicadasâ perhaps gestures to the predicament faced by the ethnic minority in mainland China: that they are often displaced through their ethnic exoticism and must be actively âremasteredâ to have their culture meaningfully integrated into the dominant Han-centric mainland cultural sphere. Even integrated in the film, âSong of the Cicadasâ was not dubbed in Han Chinese, and only plays as an affective background track underneath Luo and Kaizhenâs conversation over how magical the sense of flight is. Interestingly, this airborne oral exchange is rendered through Luo speaking Kaili dialect, Kaizhen speaking Mandarin, and the Dong language in the background. Here the tension between the local (dialect and ethnic language) and the universal (Mandarin) is latent but contained within a romantic exchange that diffuses it. Nevertheless, this use of âSong of the Cicadasâ gestures to the problematics of ethnic minority representation in mainland Chinese films: First, much like the naming of Dangmai, Bi avoids deploying ethnic exoticization as a selling point, instead rendering ethnicity as something implicit, almost invisible. Second, however, it is precisely this invisibility, the latent presence of the ethnic minority secondary to the filmâs Han characters that raises the broader concern of representation: should the Miao and Dong be articulated as ethnographically distinct subjects, or as assimilated into the cultural normativity of the Han majority? For Bi Gan, he only gestures to this problematic without prescribing a solution, framing his works as rooted in personal nostalgia rather than ethnographic representation (âIn Conversationâ). Back down in the prison and briefly parted ways with Kaizhen who goes backstage to prepare for her breakout performance, Luo stumbles upon a quarrel between a torch-bearing lady and a faceless man, separated by the prison fence. The lady strikes on the fence in anger and begs the man to honor his promise to take her away from her current husband and son. Though it was 96 not clear what she meant where they planned to go and why the quarrel happens, the fact that the torch-bearing woman is played by the same actress who portrayed Bai Maoâs mother marks her as a spectral condensation of Luoâs own mother, who abandoned him as a child, and of his guilt over Bai Maoâs death. Pointing the gun at the man and forcing him to take the woman along, Luo gives the woman an apple for the road based on his memory of his mother saying that âone would eat even the core of the apple if they were at their saddestâ (01:02:40). The woman rejects but gifts him her watch in gratitude. Munching on the same apple and seeing the pair off on the other side of the fence, Luo walks back to the town centre, his eyes filled with tears. Through corridors, stairs, and pathways, the camera tracks from his back with the sound of him munching on apples and his stomping footsteps. The camera occasionally tilts down and reframes on his feet as he descends the stairs. Dark Green Night by Tai Zhaozhen is being performed on stage as he returns to the town centre, asking for Kaizhenâs whereabouts before finding her backstage. Contrary to the walk of discovery when just arriving in town, Luoâs walk here is affectively charged, presented in the entirety of its unfolding. Walking away from the double of his mother, Luo sobs in tears. The walk, presented in continuous long take with panning to reframe, is an embodied walk of sorrow. Through the town centre, where Dark Green Night sings about people finding consolation in their dreams, Luo walks from one affective experience to the other. The walk in the dreamville has thus become a collaborative effort between the viewer and Luo in this meandering through a landscape that he himself doesnât understand. The viewer becomes a flâneur-investigator, who drifts in the psychological landscape of Luo, manifested in full materiality on the screen, with Luoâs body moving himself. While Yang Yu interprets this sequence through the filmâs self-referential structure, reading each encounter as a double corresponding to past trauma or memory (the Bai Mao kid 97 corresponds to Bai Maoâs death, Kaizhen corresponds to Wan who vanished, and the torch-bearing lady corresponds to Luoâs motherâs abandonment) (76), what also stands out is how the dream becomes a site of active participation for both Luo and the audience through this embodied flânerie. Rather than being just a reconstruction of these traumatic pasts, these encounters open up to Luoâs active engagement in the dream, making him a participant who can rewrite the course as opposed to just being spectator of his past life. Within the dream, he intervenes decisively: he names the boy after his late friend Bai Mao, protects Kaizhen from harassment by hooligans and fulfills her dream of experiencing flight for the first time ever, before helping the torch-bearing woman to leave with her new partner. These moments mark a reversal of dreamâs supposed passivity: Luo does not passively relive abandonment but alters it, participating in influencing the outcomes of these events. The dreamworld is not a sealed projection of his unresolved past. Rather, it is open not only to discovery but also intervention. If the fragmented past-present sequence reflects an inability to arrive at a narrative, the dreamworldâs encounter then gestures to an attempt at renarrativization. The long take technique used in the dream sequence supports this: uninterrupted and fluid, it offers a continuous unfolding in a narrative of encounter, allowing meaning to emerge as Luo drifts. What emerges is not a passive return of memory in the form of dream, but a cinematic flânerie through a space of possibility, where Luo, half-dreaming and awake, could find consolation in a world that is still becoming. In Deleuzeâs account, the dream is not a hidden truth to be deciphered, but a mode of the âvirtualâ, one figure among many in the flow of images that make up the time-image (56). Dreams are not opposed to reality, but entangled with it in a circuit of becoming, where the virtual and the actual continually reflect and transform one another (Deleuze, 56). Deleuze writes 98 that the dream-image is part of a non-chronological temporality in cinema, where coexistent pasts and potential futures brush against the present (58). In this sense, Bi Ganâs dreamville is not a symbolic dream for psychoanalysis but part of the crystal circuit, in which Luoâs perception and memory are folded into an open, intense present, embodied through an extensive long take. The long take itself becomes the âactualâ of the dream-image that, far from being imaginary or unreal, presents an intensified sense of real temporal experience. This dream-image resists finality. It moves without destination, and in doing so affirms the slippage of time, the plasticity of memory, and the blurred boundary between psychic interior and cinematic profilmic exterior. The dreamville is, in Deleuzeâs words, like the ââanomalousâ states of a language system in relation to the current languageâ, a virtual that resembles the actual but deviates from it (58).23 This deviation in the fabric of dream, becomes Luoâs way out of the noir-ish situation of the real. The walk through the dream, then, is not a descent into symbolism, but a flânerie of not a single disillusioned man, but the collective sum of him, the people he remembers, and the lost space and time he recollects. The dream floats as much as Luo does, as much as time and space do. Chapter Conclusion Long Dayâs Journey Into Night is a salient case of the marriage between the industry and auteur experimentation. Through its noir configuration, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night encodes Luoâs struggle with remembering in an inescapable sense of fatalism. However, its drifting protagonist gives a different approach to its noir negation. Rather than the straightforward 23 This echoes Michel de Certeauâs notion of the pedestrian act as a speech act within the total language system, the dream here may likewise be conceived as a âdream-actâ in its capacity to reconfigure the actual through the virtual. It derives from the actual, diverges into the virtual, and returns to the real as a kind of transformed possibility, forming a continuous circulation between the two states. 99 downfall of a stranger seduced by the femme fatale, Luoâs melancholia is more a result of his own inability to move forward from the constructed vision of his lover, and of his past traumas. The fragmented present-past sequence reflects the inability to live in the present, haunted by a past, reflecting a common postsocialist disorientation. The disorientation presented in the film is rooted less in a concrete social critique on a specific aspect of mainland Chinese life than in Biâs personal relation to time and change. When asked what problems he has with this âeraâ (shidai, æ¶ä»£), Bi responds: âI can neither oppose nor support. It (shidai,or âthe eraâ) exists in my life, and I will be affected by it, but I do not wish to be controlled by itâ (âæåå¯¹ä¸äºï¼ä¹æ¯æä¸äºï¼å®å­å¨äºæççæ´»éï¼æä¹ä¼è¢«å®å½±åï¼ä½æä¸æ³è¢«å®å·¦å³â; my trans.) (Bi, âZhongguo Dianyingjia Xiehui Shouciâ). In the same interview, he reflects on how quickly the shidai is changing, noting that many of his friends have been consumed with making a living while he has remained focused on filmmaking. Biâs position echoes the filmâs temporal disorientation, as framed as a matter of Luoâs personal memory and subjective experience. Instead of a vagrant that is displaced due to the pressure of postsocialist transformation, Luo merely drifts out of the inability to reconcile. The mise-en-scène of the urban ruins, while evoking postsocialist social critique, nevertheless becomes affective rather than societal, like any-spaces-whatever that are deprived of functionalities, sites unlike the noir city where danger lurks, but spaces devoid of meaning or any animated-ness. They are the any-spaces-whatever par excellence, only graspable through beholding the charactersâ traversal. However, though Bi Gan himself states in multiple interviews that his films are made only in tribute to time and nostalgia, he perhaps unconsciously gestures to the predicament of ethnic minority representation in the Han-centric mainland mediascape. The construction of the non-existent Dangmai and the use of rearranged Dong folk 100 music speaks to the problematic of visibility for the ethnic minority. While Bi reframes from exoticizing them, he also did not make them legible enough to occupy their own time-space within this film but merely gestures towards their existence as spectral and secondary to the storyâs Han characters. The two-part segmentation forms a circuit between dream and reality, referencing each other. Through cinematic flânerie that immerses the viewer in Luoâs embodied trip, the audience partakes in the fragmentation of the real and experiences the dream in its full continuity. The film directs us constantly in the flux between the actual and the virtual, constantly gesturing toward our own relationship between the filmic virtual and the phenomenological real. Here, the dreamland is no longer a passive construct, but a becoming-memory, an image that thinks. In staging the many any-spaces-whatever in the dreamland where every encounter is contingent, but nevertheless finds echoes from Luoâs previous experience, Long Dayâs Journey Into Night spatializes the struggle of remembering, of the failed attempt at narrativizing oneâs past life. In this way, the disillusionment and failure to accomplish any sensible conclusion for the past crystalize in Luoâs flânerie, which in its movements through the nameless dream town maps it not only as a space of misplaced and unrealized desires, but also as a space of possibility, a site of interpretive potential, in Deleuzeâs account (120). The immediacy and presentness of the hour-long long take become a perpetual unfolding in the cinematic present, embodying Luoâs entrapment in a perpetual ânowâ that is here to stay, to be dwelled in, to be meandered through. This is perhaps Bi Ganâs strategy against the pervasion of modernity teleology in real life: while the real postsocialist China is caught in an intense present, a phase suspended in developmental optimism, between disillusioned past and uncertain future, Bi constructs an alternative being-in-the-present in a reverie weaved by nostalgic memory, fantasies and consolation. 101 In this way, flânerie, as an act of forming connections with oneâs space, distilling, observing, a critically detached but sensuous movement, becomes how Luo navigates Kaili in Long Dayâsâs Journey Into Night. It becomes a cinematic cartography of material reality and affects, not in the sense of charting a fixed map, but in drawing paths through uncertainty, in scripting the flow of perception across an indeterminate space. This links closely to Long Dayâs Journey Into Nightâs use of the long take and the slow pan, which are not merely stylistic choices but modes of sustaining the integrity of space and time, holding together the visible world and its unseen affective transformations. Here, space is not cut up but lived through, and time is not measured but endured. The image does not command but invites interpretation. The camera does not master the scene but drifts across it, glossing, sliding, meandering, much like the slow flâneur, whose steps are not aimed towards the destination but at the revelation during the trip. There are no destinations here, only a chain of contingencies, faces, doubles, and landscapes that evoke recollection rather than closure. Every step forward is also a step backward into the folds of memory, into the deep side of oneâs humanity, into the realm of nostalgia, where dream and past are indistinct, where what we see might already be gone, and what we want might never be what we wanted. This is perhaps Bi Ganâs message for himself as well as the audience, when in Kaili Blues he evokes a line from the Diamond Sutra, which is a text from Buddhist scripture: âThe past is unattainable; the present is unattainable; the future is unattainableâ (âè¿å»å¿ä¸å¯å¾ï¼ç°å¨å¿ä¸å¯å¾ï¼å°æ¥å¿ä¸å¯å¾â; my trans.). Should this be read as a consolation of cowardly retreat from political activism in an increasingly surveilled postsocialist China, or a courageous embrace for the futility of human desires for individual transcendence? Or perhaps it is only through realizing that one must let go, that one can finally start to live again. 102 Chapter 4: Conclusion and Reflection This project started with my interest in the narrative breakdown and depiction of aimless wandering in two contemporary Chinese neo-noirs: Diao Yinanâs The Wild Goose Lake and Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey Into Night. I ask the question: Why would characters drift in a narrative that often promises action, chases, and investigation? How do these aimless wanderings inform our understanding of the story? And how does the camera represent this wandering? To frame such deferred movement in the fatalistic narrative of noir, I use Linda Chiu-han Laiâs reinterpretation of the flâneur as critical method and frame it within the context of Gilles Deleuzeâs any-space-whatever. Writing on Jia Zhangkeâs Xiaowu and Lou Yeâs Suzhou River, Lai reworks the idea of the flâneur as a cinematic interpretative method to understand the embodied movement of the camera along with the filmâs often mobile and marginalized characters. The flâneur, in its very origins, refers to an idle intellectual who strolls the street to make informed observations of the city (Tester 7). Here Lai recenters it as a figure of mobility, whose walk through the city, when seen and heard through the cinematic apparatus, becomes not just optical but also a corporeal traversal embedded in the constructed spatiality of the city (215). Understanding mainland Chinese postsocialist cities as heterotopias layered with unresolved temporalities and spatial contradictions, Lai argues that cinematic flânerie constitutes a âpoetics of discovery,â where viewers are grounded in the encounter of the characters as they drift through the contingencies of urban reality, embodying the fragmented and denarrativized urban experience (224). While Laiâs recentering focuses on the denarrativization of story, I extend her framework by bringing in Isabel Carrera Suárezâs counter-flâneur. Carrera Suárezâs counter-flâneur reframes the flâneur from an idle intellectual observer into a marginal social agent, who has no capacity to make informed observations but whose movements in space show the 103 negotiation between themselves and the spatial logic of the city (856). In short, Lai allows us to approach the flâneur not only as a narrative figure, but also as a metaphor that describes how the film itself moves through space and time. Carrera Suárez provides us with a reconsideration of how the aimless wandering enables marginal social agents to negotiate their relationships to the social space they occupy. Bringing together these past discourses on the flaneur, noir genre and postsociailist Chinese cinema, I coin the term noir flânerie, to describe the distinct narrative situation and mode of representation used in the two films to express postsocialist Chinese disorientation. The deferred fatalistic movements in the two films inevitably restructures temporality, placing their cinematic spatiality and temporality in an ambivalent standstill, each extending the otherâs limit, coded by noir fatalism and modernist disorientation. My contribution in this thesis is to extend Linda Chiu-han Laiâs method of cinematic flânerie by bringing in Deleuzeâs any-space-whatever and Flemingâs any-now(here)-spaces. While aligning with Lai in viewing the mainland Chinese postsocialist city as a heterotopia marked by unresolved temporalities and spatialities, I invoke Deleuzeâs any-space-whatever to illustrate the affective potential of such flânerie in the cinematic postsocialist urban heterotopia. For Deleuze, the any-space-whatever is a crucial step towards a re-formation of time in cinema, where, as mentioned in Chapter 3, the hollowed-out, unsituated âanywhereâ status of the space enables a reconsideration of timeâs relationship to space and movement where movement replaces numeric metric for measuring time, generating a temporal experience alternative to that of postsocialist modernization teleology. Flemingâs theorization complements Laiâs theorization of the mainland city as heterotopia by extending Deleuzeâs framework into a specifically mainland context, where the suspension of temporality in an unlocatable space is not the result of postwar trauma in Deleuzeâs original conception of 104 ruins as any-space-whatever, but rather a temporal standstill in the socialist teleology of development and national revival, since these processes seem never-ending (Fleming 533). The cinematic apparatus, while enabling us to walk with the flâneur-character, also allows the space to be beheld as a site of singularities, whose affective qualities need to be attended to individually. By conjoining the term ânoirâ with âflânerie,â I seek to delineate a cinematic strategy, or perhaps identify a subgenre in postsocialist mainland Chinese cinema, which conveys its affective ambivalence in a genre-coded way. Noir flânerie, in this context, describes a complementary combination of the noir genre and flâneur narratives to encode postsocialist affects of disorientation. Flânerie has always been an act borne of the inability to stay present, to not be content with what already is (Frisby 64; Tester 12); and noir is a genre characterized by disillusionment, fatalism, and hopeless outlooks (Naremore 10; Spicer 4). Noir flânerie thus describes a narrative situation where one moves to escape but is not quite sure how, in a gloomy city of institutional entrapment, that will eventually result in oneâs failure. Conjoining the two terms captures this ambivalent narrative suspension: a situation where the plot does progress, but moving forward means accelerated demise, thus one drifts to delay his doom. Viewed in this light, The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night delay the progression of the story, staging dead time that momentarily detaches from the sensory-motor schema, going on tangents and detours, before its characters return to accept the inevitable. Such is the case for Zhou Zenong in The Wild Goose Lake, who is caught lingering between his delayed death and this very life of the present, going in and out of places of the Wild Goose Lake area, stringing together a loose mise-en-scène filled with signifiers of postsocialist contradictions. This contingent flânerie is not only an interpretive method concerned with narrative, but also with cinematic intervention to probe how cinema constitutes the embodied 105 spatial practice within the cinematic world (Lai 216). This is exemplified more significantly in the one-hour long take around dreamville in Long Dayâs Journey into Night, where the camera shifts perspective intra-characters and shows the plasticity of fabricated memory and dream, generating a ground-level ambivalently posthuman roaming, blurring the boundary between the boundary of human consciousness and unconsciousness. In Chapter 1, I argued that Long Dayâs Journey Into Night and The Wild Goose Lake exemplify a conscious combination of the noir genre and cinematic flânerie to represent virtual, pastiched postsocialist Chinese cities, as a strategy to cater to market, festival and ideological demand. In the chapter on The Wild Goose Lake, I investigated how the film constructs and localizes its noir atmosphere by building a Chinese âsouthernâ village-within-a-city that reflects the fragmented textures of postsocialist urbanization, while deliberately distancing itself from representing any real mainland city. By tracing Zhou and Liuâs movements as a form of cinematic flânerie, I argued that the film transforms the heterotopic landscape of the Lake into Deleuzeâs any-spaces-whatever: sites of contingency where time, affect, and uncertainty gather. These spaces are not passive backdrops but postsocialist any-now(here)-spaces that embody social fragmentation, offering what Lai calls a cinematic âpoetics of discovery,â where viewers and characters alike negotiate meaning. Rather than mounting overt political critique, the film adopts a neutral stance toward surveillance, presenting it as a functional apparatus while simultaneously pastiching urban decay and rural precarity into a stylized noir terrain. In this sense, The Wild Goose Lake does not represent a ârealâ Chinese city but instead reimagines the peripheries as cinematic terrains of tension and intimacy, where desire, memory, and systematic fatality circulate. Through noir flânerie, the film repurposes marginal space as a site of imaginative, affective possibility, prolonging life and intimacy against the inevitability of 106 postsocialist fate. Similarly, Bi Gan constructs a fictional Kaili in his Long Dayâs Journey Into Night as an affective noir mise-en-scène to frame Luoâs fatalistic investigation of his past, shifting between memory and present before dissolving into a dream where he can finally attempt to resolve trauma. While drawing on familiar noir tropes such as âthe Stranger and the Femme Fataleâ, Bi Gan displaces the genreâs fatalism into Luoâs inability to reconcile with his past and his lost lover. The fragmented narrative structure of the first part, oscillating between past and present, mirrors a postsocialist disorientation, but one interiorized into Luoâs rumination on his past rather than on the present society. Weaving a loose web of nostalgic pop culture references from the 1980s and constructing Kaili from a deserted local mercury mine, Bi stages an affective noir mise-en-scène that enables Luoâs explorative and introspective flânerie. Through the filmâs deployment of any-spaces-whatever, including the Xiaofeng restaurant where he mourns his late father, the tunnel where Wan and Luo first meet, and the dreamville where doppelgängers walk, the film transforms derelict postsocialist sites into spaces of memory, affect, and possibility, not to be abandoned but to be revisited. The climactic one-hour long take stages flânerie as a spatio-temporal endurance: a cinematic cartography that drifts across uncertain terrain, sustaining space and time as lived duration, where Luo reconciles with his past, in the comforting fabric of the world that he dreamt up. Here, the camera embodies the flâneurâs movement, to reveal contingencies, doubles, and recollections along the way. The construction of an undisrupted temporality creates a Deleuzian time-image, which renders a reconsideration of how time is experienced lucidly in Luoâs dream, contrary to his fragmented disjointed reality haunted by flashbacks. It is thus the movement of flânerie that gives rise to a reconstruction of time not as a measurement of action because the action itself is ambivalent, but as a space in which affective experience unfolds instead of narrative progression: a sensory-motor schema half 107 broken down, but not fully; a movement-image stretched in the state of becoming time-image. In this sense, Bi stages flânerie as a movement for living in a suspended present, an embrace of memory, reverie, and detour against both postsocialist teleology and the futility of desire. The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night both resort to constructing fictional, pastiche Chinese cities rather than approaching the city in a documentary mode like their sixth-generation counterparts. This distancing from real locations, I argue, may be tied to the changing industrial context of filmmaking in China, where the use of fictionalized cities becomes a strategy to dilute noirâs subversive energy to grant a domestic release to reach more potential audiences. Such proliferation of anonymous Chinese any-space-whatever gestures to the dual dynamic of tightening state ideological control and the homogenization of mainland urban space devoid of defining characteristics. Future research might further investigate this trend in mainland Chinese cinema, not just noirs, where films are set in generalized Southern or Northern cities instead of real Chinese cities, while simultaneously substituting local dialects with standardized Mandarin. This combination of a vaguely locatable city and standardized Mandarin seem to reinforce the any-space-whatever status of mainland city representation, generating perhaps more and more any-Chinese-city-whatever, or any-space-whatever with Chinese characteristics, a homogenization of city imageries, or perhaps the homogenization of Chinese cities themselves. What do we make of films set in fictional Southern cities that are entirely dubbed into standardized Mandarin? Is there self-exoticization within this mainland Chinese South-North divide and their use of different accents? How does the vague situatedness of âSouthâ or âNorthâ shape our spatial perception of China? These questions would require an investigation into the relationship between the circulation of Mandarin in mainland mass media vis-Ã -vis that of regional dialects, and perhaps also the relationship between the cinematic center 108 of China (Shanghai, Beijing for example) and the lesser represented cinematic peripheries like Kaili in Bi Ganâs cinema, and the fictionalized pastiche city (of Hubei and Guangxi) in Diaoâs film. Whatâs more, both directorsâ fascination with the âChinese Southâ is another discourse worth probing, especially in the context of the emerging South China New Wave Cinema, first identified at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2020 (Liu S. 43). This group included Bi Ganâs Long Dayâs Journey Into Night and Kaili Blues, Yang Chaoâs Crosscurrent (2016), Gu Xiaogangâs Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (2019), and Gao Mingâs Damp Season (2020) (Liu S. 43). What defines the South China New Wave is first and foremost its geographical setting in the South, often marked by ethnographic attention to local landmarks and the use of dialects (Liu S. 44). However, the reason I did not frame The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night within this grouping is that the discourse itself requires further refinement. For example, the so-called âChinese Southâ is highly heterogeneous. Bi Ganâs films are all set in Guizhou province; Diaoâs The Wild Goose Lake is a pastiche of Hubei and Guangxi; Yang Chaoâs Crosscurrent follows the Yangtze River across multiple provinces (Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, and Shanghai); Gao Mingâs Damp Season is set in Shenzhen in Guangdong. All these provinces house very different cultures and regional dialects. Moreover, how do we situate the South China New Wave in relation to earlier âSouthernâ movements such as the Taiwan and Hong Kong New Waves, exemplified by the works of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Edward Yang, Wong Kar-wai, and Fruit Chan? Their films also display a topophilic fascination with sinophone space Southern to mainland China. In other words, what does the âSouthâ mean in this context? Does it merely designate a geographic preference? If so, is this preference driven by personal nostalgia, or is it an attempt to package the periphery as the exotic? Moreover, is 109 there any aesthetic unity across the films it designates? Is it the subtropical mise-en-scène elements (humidity, heat waves, river/sea-based settlements, incessant rain)? If the South China New Wave is defined by âsubtropical mise-en-scène elements,â how might it be placed in dialogue with other cinemas of the global south that likewise stage their stories in humid, ruminative landscapes of rain, sweat, water, and heat? As Liu Siqi has pointed out, the South China New Wave also seems like a discourse more concerned with independent auteur cinema in the mainland than with larger-budgeted works like Diaoâs The Wild Goose Lake (43), which raises further need for clarification for this concept. Finally, there should be a reconsideration of film noir discourse in the Chinese context. The concept of Chinese film noir did not enter popular discourse until 2014, when the success of Diaoâs Black Coal, Thin Ice popularized noir in both the mainland critical and audience discourse (Harry Kuoshu 15). The commercial and critical success of Black Coal, Thin Ice sparked a scholarly seminar in 2014 hosted by the then-State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the PRC and the China Film Art Research Center, in which the film was noted as proof of the noir genreâs ability to not only attract audience attention but also to embed meaningful social critique. As such, the seminar concluded that noir, once successfully localized in the Chinese context, constitutes a valid and promising creative strategy for filmmakers moving forward (Yao 43). However, the concept âChinese film noirâ (zhongguo heise dianyin ä¸­å½é»è²çµå½±), is itself a questionable concept and must be further examined in a transnational lens. With Sheldon Lu, Chris Berry, Will Higbee and Song Hwee Limâs transnational methodology in mind, we might reflect on the question of what kind of Chinese-ness is the term âChinese film noirâ designating here. The answer is, and within the scope of the two case films discussed in this thesis, it designates film noirs that were made in adherence to the 110 regulation and ideological bounding of the nation-state of the Peopleâs Republic of China, within which circulates imageries of a PRC in postsocialist transformation. Reflection on this mainland Chinese-ness is important because though it is often agreed that mainland noir did not garner wide-spread attention until Black Coal, Thin Ice, Hong Kong noir has been around for many years already, as Stephen Teo attributes its lineage from Johnnie To of the 2000s, John Woo of the 1990s to Tsui Hark of the 1980s (137). This delineation is important in considering the regional socio-cultural differences that nurse distinct cinematic cultures. Thus emerges a need to, in future research, properly map out a historiography of noir that emerges in postsocialist Peopleâs Republic of China, as a start. This noir historiography may well extend into the Maoist era or even republican period. This has been done partially by Stefano Locati, who argues for a Chinese âquasi-noirâ tradition that dates to the socialist 1960s and persisted into the 1980s. Locati identifies that many propagandist fante pian (åç¹ç, the counter-espionage film) of the 1960s made use of common noir lighting and themes of paranoia in staging a good-vanquish-evil narrative to reinforce the legitimacy of the newly established Peopleâs Republic (105). Locati further traces this lineage into the more urban and industrial-themed 508 Mystery Case (508 çæ¡, 1984) and The Black Cannon Incident (é»ç®äºä»¶, 1985) and argues these films have showcased a degree of self-reflexivity in their deliberate use of noir techniques and their thematic defiance of socialist realism that precedes them (108). It is because of the urban turn of this early post-socialist âquasi-noirâ cinema that Locati believes paves the way for the emergence of the more urban and bleak noirish representation of postsocialist China in the likes of Jia Zhangkeâs Xiaowu and Lou Yeâs Suzhou River (109), which this essay has attempted to situate using the umbrella category ânoir flânerieâ. By no means comprehensive, I have attempted to sketch out a brief contour of the postsocialist early 2000s mainland noir and 111 established a lineage to the late 2010s in The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night from the perspective of flâneur narrative, taking into account the changing industrial and sociopolitical context of mainland China. There are of course many films deemed or promoted as ânoirâ within this gap between Jia Zhangke/Lou Ye and Diao Yinan/Bi Gan that eluded the scope of this thesis, and how they constitute a distinct âmainland noirâ historiography needs to be explored in future research. Harry Kuoshu has addressed Ning Haoâs 2006 breakout Guy Ritchie-esque Crazy Stones using both neo-noir and black comedy genre, arguing for a parallel between the filmâs carnival energy with the fast development of mainland China (14). Lou Ye has persistently made noir-tinged films such as Mystery (2012), The Shadow Play (2018), and Saturday Fiction (2019). Jia Zhangke, on the other hand, has also used noir aesthetics to map the violence of postsocialist transformation in A Touch of Sin (2013) and Ash Is Purest White (2018). Xin Yukun, a director emerging in the 2010s, quickly established himself as a prominent figure in mainland noir with his The Coffin in the Mountain (2014) and his The Wrath of Silence (2017). Cao Baopingâs The Dead End (2015) is a serious-toned drama about a family massacre, while his 2016 film A Cock and a Bull is a pastiche black comedy involving a mysterious murder in the Chinese northwest. The complex landscape of mainland noir, even by simple enumerations here, with their heterogenous qualities in thematic concerns, mode of representation, and their genre mixing, poses a challenge in creating a unanimous definition of âmainland noirâ. Writing a âmainland noirâ historiography will thus require an effort in trying to account for how these mainland films are noir, to what degree are they ânoirâ, to what degree are they âmainlandâ, and what this âmainland noirâ historiography may be productive in illuminating discourse on mainland cinema, global noir, and the transnational (Chinese) cinema. Aside from mapping the films, it is also important to trace when exactly the term âfilm noirâ (é»è²çµå½±) entered 112 mainland consciousness, in what context it was first translated or coined, and how it was used in mainland academia, news reports or filmmakerâs accounts. Quentin Tarantinoâs visit to Beijing Film Academy and the showcase of his Pulp Fiction (1994) in 1995 is an often-cited anecdote that symbolizes film noirâs entry into mainland filmmakersâ and scholarsâ consciousness (Yu Sui). However, a more systematic survey of mainland news report and scholarly articles is needed to further pinpoint how and when noir entered mainland consciousness. Furthermore, this trend of proliferating noir-coded mainland crime films may be linked to what Caleb Kelso-Marsh describes as the use of noir as a strategy to rebrand films for international exposure, enhancing their circulation and recognizability. This echoes Bi and Diaoâs creative methods, which I have detailed in their respective chapters: both consciously adopt noir tropes as narrative frameworks for their auteurist expressions, intentionally promoting their films as ânoirâ to enhance their festival prestige and market visibility. Such use of genre aligns with Chinaâs state-led soft power discourse, articulated in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016â2020), which emphasized enhancing cultural influence abroad by circulating meaningful Chinese stories on the global stage (âCultural Development and Reform Planâ). At the same time, the emphasis that both The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night place on their domestic markets shows an increasing awareness among mainland filmmakers of the need to cater to both festival and domestic audiences by circulating a loose network of common postsocialist signifiers in the Chinese any-space-whatever, whose meanings welcome plural interpretations from many. Though not entirely new in constructing this cinematic noir flânerie, with Sixth Generation directors like Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye setting earlier precedents, directors like Diao and Bi have brought this âmarriageâ of noir and flânerie to notable fruition, achieving both box office success and international festival recognition. In drawing upon how Diao and Bi 113 adopt noir as a genre, what I hopefully have demonstrated is that it may be more productive to consider how filmmakers themselves view noir as a useful framework defined by a set of narrative and visual elements, rather than only asserting that noir is hard to define. Noir in scholarly discussion is indeed, like Naremore asserts, a discourse of âa loose, evolving system of arguments and readings that helps to shape commercial strategies and aesthetic ideologiesâ (11). But this should not be confused with how filmmakers mobilize it, not retrospectively but rather operationally, as both an artistic framework and as a marketable label. Caleb Kelso-Marsh, David Desser, and Stephen Teo, in writing on global and Asian noir, all caution against Western-centric perspectives in noir studies, where emerging crime-related films in East Asia are recognized as ânoirâ primarily to make them legible to Western audiences and festival circuits (Desser 639; Kelso-Marsh 42; Teo 140). The result is that any Asian noir that does not conform to Western genre expectations risks being deemed a failure. Kelso-Marsh quotes Desser to expose this Eurocentric discourse: âThis tension between recognizing a kind of noir in Asia while disavowing any âAsianâ particularity in noir--(Akira) Kurosawa makes âartâ noir; (Seijun) Suzuki is like Sam Fuller; Wong (Kar-wai)âs films are variations on the French New Wave; (John) Woo derives his structures from Hollywood--is one which denies us the ability to see noirâs reach beyond merely a few isolated examplesâ (46). Kelso-Marsh then argues that Asian noir itself circulates within an âintra-regional cinematic flowâ of genres such as Japanese yakuza and Chinese wuxia, which, alongside Hollywood conventions, shaped many classic Asian noirs (48). Such decentering of Hollywood film noir is illuminating because it reminds us of the importance of excavating local histories and recognizing noirâs adaptability as a transnational form, not just American/Hollywood, but a flexible cinematic language that can be reworked across different social realities. 114 The answer, then, is not that noir has become invalid for evaluating non-Western crime thrillers, but that we must be attentive to how it is applied. Future examinations of Chinese noirs should acknowledge and explore noir as a transnational genre with intra-cultural influences (this includes perhaps a retracing of classical American film noir as well, since it is itself a hybridized cultural phenomenon of French, German and American influences). It is true that when one thinks of noir, one is prone to cite Hollywood classics like The Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity as reference points, as is the case for both Diao and Bi. But as scholars, our task is to explore how these films engage in dialogue with cinematic predecessors, local cultural traditions, and regional socio-political contexts. Neither Diao nor Bi replicates precisely the âStranger and Femme Fataleâ formula; instead, they rework noir tropes to tell mainland Chinese stories. Thus, the filmsâ invocations of noir conventions should be seen as one among many dialogues in play, between filmmakers and markets, censorship, and their own auteurist ambitions. These are not simply mainland Chinaâs entry into Western neo-noir but mainland films that speak simultaneously to Western noir discourses as well to their own cinematic traditions and local socio-historical contexts. In all cases, the stamp ânoirâ may be no different from the festival stamp that grants these films entry to broader exposures. To invoke the transnational lens again, what we witness in this marriage between mainland investors and the French endorsement in both The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night is a mutually beneficiary relationship: while the mainland filmmakers seek a platform to accumulate cultural prestige, the international festivals and French cultural ministry seek to reinforce themselves as cultural authorities in dictating what constitutes world auteur cinema essentials. Nevertheless, such mutually complicit relationships, as Chris Berry reminds us, do not necessarily negate the specific message or aesthetics of a given film (465). In fact, it is precisely 115 their heterogeneity, noir flânerie, for example, that becomes the central concern of this thesis so far. The filmsâ transnational status, the need to travel afar for recognition and to subject themselves to both foreign and domestic gazes, is perhaps an aspect that deserves further attention. The transnational âflânerieâ of The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night perhaps reflects and reenacts the historical logic by which international film circuit is organized, around the center of traditional film nations like France and institutions like Cannes, which are rooted in a global order shaped by uneven geopolitical histories (Stringer 35). Future research may relate to conceptualize mainland filmmakersâ relationships with international film festivals, both domestic (Shanghai International Film Festival, Beijing International Film Festival, for example) and foreign, to explore how they navigate the tension to perform an adequate âChinesenessâ both at home and overseas. Although my research begins with the figure of the flâneur, film noir, and postsocialist Chinese cinema, what I unconsciously probe is perhaps the cinematic representation of modernity and postmodernity as experiences of lived fragmentations. Indeed, both the flâneur and noir emerged as cultural figures that embody a modernist anxiety towards development. Flânerie, as Lai argues, is a spatial act that seeks to remap the individual in relation to an ungraspable surrounding (205). As Jennifer Fay and Justus Nieland note, the international appeal of noir lies in its depiction of modernityâs crisis on a global stage: âof rootless and wandering desire; of chance, accident, and class instability; of local traditions and spaces either imperiled or energized by global flows of culture and capitalâ (xiii). The Wild Goose Lake and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night can be read as parables of how modernity manifests in postsocialist China, cinematic expressions of a spiritual impasse marked by alienation and existential anxiety under mainland Chinese modernity. In this context, flânerie emerges both as a symptom of this crisis, 116 embodying displacement in space and time, and as a critical method, a way of knowing in the midst of modernity. Through the flâneurâs movements and the cinematic forms that stage them, these films render visible urban alienation, perceptual dissonance, and the psychic effects of structural uncertainty. Flânerie becomes the way that both characters and the camera move. Cinema, in this sense, takes on the role of Baudelaireâs modern hero: a vantage point from which to observe the tragedy of a life coded with noir fatalism, rendering its transience sublime (13). Modernity appears as an unending condition we cannot escape from but must learn to navigate. Noir and flânerie together articulate this impasse. Noir treads the precarious line between market and art, voicing a hope for redemption even as its fatalism forecloses it. Flânerie stages the bodyâs drift in the abyss of the city of darkness. Together, they offer not resolution but revelation: a cinematic practice of dwelling in uncertainty, of prolonging time and space against inevitability, and of finding fleeting beauty in detour of a journey doomed to meaninglessness. 117 Works Cited Augé, Marc. Non-Places. 1992. Verso Books, 2023, pp. 60â93. Baudelaire, Charles. Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. 1863. Translated by Jonathan Mayne, Phaidon, 1995, pp. 1â35. Berry, Chris. âTransnational Culture in East Asia and the Logic of Assemblage.â Asian Journal of Social Science, vol. 41, no. 5, 2013, pp. 453â70. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23654795. ---. âWhat Is Transnational Cinema? Thinking from the Chinese Situation.â Transnational Cinemas, vol. 1, no. 2, 2010, pp. 111â127. Intellect, https://doi.org/10.1386/trac.1.2.111_1 Bi Gan æ¯èµ£. âKoubei liangjihuahua zhihou, gen Bi Gan daoyan liaoliao âDiqiu zuihou de yewanââ å£ç¢ä¸¤æåä¹åï¼è·æ¯èµ£å¯¼æ¼èèãå°çæåçå¤æã [After Polarized Reception: Talking with Bi Gan About Long Dayâs Journey into Night]. Basai dianying å·´å¡çµå½±, Jiemian çé¢, 2 Jan. 2019, https://www.jiemian.com/article/2758931.html. Accessed 14 Aug. 2025. ---. âYi wuxian jiejin xieshi de fangshi tongwang menghuan zhidiâfang âLubian yecanâ daoyan Bi Ganâ ä»¥æ éæ¥è¿åå®çæ¹å¼éå¾æ¢¦å¹»ä¹å°ââè®¿ãè·¯è¾¹éé¤ãå¯¼æ¼æ¯èµ£ [Approaching the Dream World Through Near-Realism: Interview with Kaili Blues Director Bi Gan]. Interview by Ye Hang å¶èª. Beijing dianying xueyuan xuebao åäº¬çµå½±å­¦é¢å­¦æ¥ [Journal of Beijing Film Academy], no. 3, 2016, pp. 91â95. ---. âZhongguo dianyingjia xiehui shouci fabu âshouci zhizuoren mingdanââ ä¸­å½çµå½±å®¶åä¼é¦æ¬¡åå¸âé¦æ¬¡å¶çäººååâ [China Film Association Releases the First List of First-Time 118 Producers]. Zhongguo dianyingjia xiehui ä¸­å½çµå½±å®¶åä¼ [China Film Association], www.zgdydyxh.com/sitefiles/1/10/179.html. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. ---. Interview by Ethan Spigland. âIn Conversation: Bi Gan with Ethan Spigland.â The Brooklyn Rail, 4 Apr. 2019, https://brooklynrail.org/2019/04/film/In-Conversation-BI-GAN-with-Ethan-Spigland/. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. ---. âDaoyan Bi Gan tan yingpian Diqiu zuihou de yewan ji qi chuangzuo å¯¼æ¼æ¯èµ£è°å½±çãå°çæåçå¤æãåå ¶åä½â [Director Bi Gan on Long Dayâs Journey Into Night and His Creative Process]. Interview by Radio France Internationale. RFI, 12 June 2018, https://www.rfi.fr/cn/%E7%A7%91%E6%8A%80%E4%B8%8E%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96/20180621-%E4%B8%93%E5%AF%BC%E6%BC%94%E6%AF%95%E8%B5%A3%E8%B0%88%E5%BD%B1%E7%89%87%E5%9C%B0%E7%90%83%E6%9C%80%E5%90%8E%E7%9A%84%E5%A4%9C%E6%99%9A%E5%8F%8A%E5%85%B6%E5%88%9B%E4%BD%9C. Accessed 27 June 2025. ---. âLong Dayâs Journey into Night as Seen by Bi Gan.â Interview by Festival de Cannes, 15 May 2018, www.festival-cannes.com/en/2018/long-day-s-journey-into-night-as-seen-by-bi-gan/. Accessed 26 June 2025. ---. âShijian yu kongjian, jiyi yu ying su æ¶é´ä¸ç©ºé´ï¼è®°å¿ä¸ç½ç²â [Time and Space, Memory and Opium]. Interview by Muyan æ¨è¨. Cinephilia è¿·å½±ç½, 5 May 2019, cinephilia.net/70669/. Accessed 27 June 2025. Blumenthal-Barby, Martin. âIn the Name of the Law: Langâs M.â Cinema and Surveillance: The Asymmetric Gaze, Routledge, 2023, pp. 68-84. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003229834-4. 119 Bogue, Ronald. âEighteen Signs (More or Less). â Deleuze on Cinema. Routledge, 2003. pp. 65-105. Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. Basic Books, 2001, pp. 41-60. Braester, Yomi. âIntroduction: Film and the Urban Contract.â Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract, Duke University Press, 2010, pp. 1â26. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1131743.5. Accessed 30 June 2025. Brown, William. Supercinema: Film-Philosophy for the Digital Age. Berghahn Books, 2013. Carrera Suárez, Isabel. âThe Stranger Flâneuse and the Aesthetics of Pedestrianism.â Interventions, vol. 17, no. 6, Nov. 2015, pp. 853-65. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2014.998259. Castro, Teresa. âCinemaâs Mapping Impulse: Questioning Visual Culture.â The Cartographic Journal, vol. 46, no. 1, Feb. 2009, pp. 9â15. Taylor & Francis, https://doi.org/10.1179/000870409X415598. âCentral Propaganda Department to Take Over Film, Publishing, and News Work.â The Paper æ¾æ¹æ°é»ç½, 21 Mar. 2018, https://news.ifeng.com/a/20180321/56928639_0.shtml. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Centre national du cinéma et de lâimage animée (CNC). âAide aux cinémas du monde.â CNC, https://www.cnc.fr/web/en/funds/aide-aux-cinemas-du-monde_190870. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. ---. âAide aux cinémas du monde : résultats des comités de chiffrageâRésultats des commissionsâ [World Cinema Support: Results of the Estimation CommitteesâCommission Results]. CNC, https://www.cnc.fr/professionnels/aides-et-120 financements/international/coproduction/comites-de-chiffrage-aide-aux-cinemas-du-monde . Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. CG Cinema. âFilms.â CG Cinema, https://www.cgcinema.eu/films. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. ---. âà propos.â CG Cinéma www.cgcinema.eu/a-propos. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. Chang, Justin. âAt Cannes, Genre Filmmaking from âParasiteâ to âThe Wild Goose Lakeâ Turns Heads.â Los Angeles Times, 22 May 2019, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-ca-mn-cannes-genre-parasite-wild-goose-lake-tarantino-20190522-story.html. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. ---. âChinaâs Long Dayâs Journey Into Night Is a Hypnotic Dream of a Film.â Los Angeles Times, 18 Apr. 2019, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-long-days-journey-into-night-review-20190418-htmlstory.html. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Chawla, Muhammad Iqbal. âEthnicity, Diversity, and National Integration of China: A Case Study of Miao Community in China.â Journal of Development and Social Sciences, vol. 4, no. 4, Oct.âDec. 2023, pp. 126â136. P-ISSN: 2709-6254, O-ISSN: 2709-6262. https://doi.org/10.47205/jdss.2023(4-IV)12. Chen, Hongyu éé¸¿å®. âShehuihua meiti huanjing xia de dianying xin yingxiao yanjiuâyi Qianren 3: Zaijian qianren he Diqiu zuihou de yewan wei liâ ãç¤¾ä¼ååªä½ç¯å¢ä¸ççµå½±æ°è¥éç ç©¶ââä»¥ãåä»» 3: åè§åä»»ãåãå°çæåçå¤æãä¸ºä¾ã [New Film Marketing in the Era of Social Media: A Case Study of Ex-File 3 and Long Dayâs Journey Into Night]. Dianying wenxue çµå½±æå­¦ [Film Literature], no. 5, 2019, pp. 66â69. Chen, Shixian éè¯å¨´, and Li Zhen æè´. âTianwang wang shenmeâ âå¤©ç½âç½ä»ä¹ [What Does Skynet Watch?]. Renmin zhoukan äººæ°å¨å [Peopleâs Weekly], 20 Nov. 2017, 121 https://paper.people.com.cn/rmzk/html/2017-11/20/content_1825998.htm. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Chen, Xuguang éæ­å . âOn the Practical Origins, Theoretical Resources, and Systematic Construction of âFilm Industry Aestheticsââ [âLun âdianying gongye meixueâ de xianshi youlai, lilun ziyuan yu tixi jiangouâ è®ºâçµå½±å·¥ä¸ç¾å­¦âçç°å®ç±æ¥ãçè®ºèµæºä¸ä½ç³»å»ºæ]. Journal of Shanghai University (Social Sciences) ä¸æµ·å¤§å­¦å­¦æ¥ï¼ç¤¾ä¼ç§å­¦çï¼, vol. 36, no. 1, Jan. 2019, pp. 28â40. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1007-6522.2019.01.003. âChinese Film Wins Vancouver Festival Prize.â Screen Daily, 2 Oct. 2003, https://www.screendaily.com/chinese-film-wins-vancouver-festival-prize/4015325.article. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. âChongqing dahei chueâe: shang wan minjing canzhan, zhubu heie renyuan 3608 renâ éåºæé»é¤æ¶ä¸ä¸æ°è­¦åæ ææé»æ¶äººå 3608 人 [Chongqing Anti-Mafia Campaign: Over 10,000 Police Involved, 3,608 Arrested]. Zhongguo xinwen wang ä¸­å½æ°é»ç½ [China News Service], 1 June 2010, https://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2010/06-01/2315272.shtml. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Chu, Yiu-Wai. âIntroduction: Main (Land) Melody Films and Hong Kong Directors.â Main Melody Films: Hong Kong Directors in Mainland China. Edinburgh University Press, 2022, pp. 1â28. Edinburgh Studies in East Asian Film. Conrad, Mark T. âIntroduction.â The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conrad, University Press of Kentucky, 2005, pp. 1-4. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/3573. 122 ---. âNietzsche and the Meaning and Definition of Noir.â The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, University Press of Kentucky, 2005, pp. 7â22. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/3573. Coproduction Office. âAbout.â Coproduction Office, https://coproductionoffice.eu/about. Accessed 15 July 2025. âCultural Development and Reform Plan During the 13th Five-Year Plan Period.â The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council, 7 May 2017. Xinhua News Agency, https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2017-05/07/content_5191604.htm. Davis, Rebecca. âTencent Picturesâ Lineup Is a Mix of Hollywood Content and Chinese Propaganda.â Variety, 19 June 2019, https://variety.com/2019/film/news/edward-cheng-tencent-pictures-1203246187/. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven F. Rendall, University of California Press, 1984. Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: Movement-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam. University of Minnesota Press, 1986. ---. Cinema 2: Time-Image. Translated by Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Desser, David. âGlobal Noir: Genre Film in the Age of Transnationalism.â Film Genre Reader IV, edited by Barry Keith Grant, University of Texas Press, 2012, pp. 628â48. https://doi.org/10.7560/742055-039. Diao, Jinuo. The Chinese Film Industry: Features and Trends, 2010â2016. PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 2018. St Andrews Research Repository, https://doi.org/10.17630/10023-19497. 123 Diao, Yinan åäº¦ç·. âFuyuan guaidan xianshi de shenmei zhuiqiuâDiao Yinan fangtanâ å¤åæªè¯ç°å®çå®¡ç¾è¿½æ±ââåäº¦ç·è®¿è° [âRecovering the Aesthetic Pursuit of Grotesque Reality: Interview with Diao Yinan about The Wild Goose Lakeâ]. Interview by Li Xun æè¿ . Dianying yishu çµå½±èºæ¯ [Film Art], no. 4, 2019, pp. 60â65. ---. âInterview with Director Diao Yinan: Death and Beauty Are Inseparable.â Interview by CineCina çº½çº¦åè¯­çµå½±è. CineCina, 6 Mar. 2020, https://cine-cina.co/2020/03/06/cinecina-interview-with-director-diao-yinan-death-and-beauty-are-inseparable/. Accessed 26 June 2025. ---. âHuosiren de langman zhuyiâ æ´»æ­»äººçæµªæ¼«ä¸»ä¹ [âThe Romanticism of the Living Deadâ]. Interview by Jin Tian ä»å¤©. Cinephilia è¿·å½±ç½, 23 Apr. 2020, cinephilia.net/76995/. Accessed 25 June 2025. ---. âDiao Yinan zhuanfang: fengge shi dikang suoyou yongchang he fubai de wuqiâ åäº¦ç·ä¸è®¿ï¼é£æ ¼æ¯æµæææåº¸å¸¸åè è´¥çæ­¦å¨ [âDiao Yinan Interview: Style Is a Weapon Against All Banality and Corruptionâ]. Cinephilia è¿·å½±ç½, 5 Dec. 2019, https://cinephilia.net/71872/. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Dimendberg, Edward. Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity. Harvard University Press, 2004. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pncpr0. âDiqiu zuihou de yewan å°çæåçå¤æ [Long Dayâs Journey into Night] Box Office Data.â Maoyan, https://piaofang.maoyan.com/movie/345036?_v_=yes. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Dong, Jinsong è£å²æ¾. âShiyi, ruhe yong jishu qu jiedu? Zhuanfang Diqiu zuihou de yewan DP Dong Jinsongâ è¯æï¼å¦ä½ç¨ææ¯å»è§£è¯»ï¼ä¸è®¿ãå°çæåçå¤æãDP è£å²æ¾ 124 [âPoetry, Interpreted through Technology? A Conversation with DP Dong Jinsong of Long Dayâs Journey Into Nightâ]. Interview by Yingshi Gongye Wang å½±è§å·¥ä¸ç½. Cinehello.com, 2019, cinehello.com/m/mstream/114597. Accessed 27 June 2025. Du, Simeng æææ¢¦. âNanfang chezhan de juhui geâan: touzi fengxian, zaiyu yingpian yu guanzhong de juliâ ãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãä¸ªæ¡ï¼æèµé£é©ï¼å¨äºå½±çä¸è§ä¼çè·ç¦» [The Wild Goose Lake Case Study: Investment Risk Lies in the Distance Between Film and Audience]. Chang baodao é¿æ¥é [Longform Report], www.jljjjwh.com/new_view_46994.htm. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Fan, Wenxi èæè, and You Congrui æ¸¸ä¸ç. â âDiqiu zuihou de yewanâ: koubei piaofang duanya xiadie, yingxiao cuowei re de huo?â ãå°çæåçå¤æã: å£ç¢ç¥¨æ¿æ­å´ä¸è·, è¥ééä½æ¹çç¥¸? [Long Dayâs Journey Into Night: Box Office Collapse and the Misfire of Marketing?]. Shangxueyuan åå­¦é¢ [Business College], 2019, pp. 45â47. Fay, Jennifer, and Justus Nieland. Film Noir: Hard-boiled Modernity and the Cultures of Globalization. Routledge, 2009. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203869680. Felperin, Leslie. âBlack Coal, Thin Ice Review â A Chilly, Neo-Noir Thriller.â The Guardian, 12 June 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/jun/12/black-coal-thin-ice-review-a-chilly-neo-noir-thriller. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Feng, Yunda Eddie. âRevitalizing the Thriller Genre: Lou Yeâs Suzhou River and Purple Butterfly.â Puzzle Films, edited by Warren Buckland, Wiley, 2008, pp. 187â202. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444305708.ch9. Festival de Cannes. Bacurau. Festival de Cannes, https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/bacurau/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. 125 ---. Elle. Festival de Cannes, https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/elle/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. ---. Diqiu zuihou de yewan (Long Dayâs Journey Into Night). Festival de Cannes, https://cinemadedemain.festival-cannes.com/en/f/di-qiu-zui-hou-de-ye-wan/. Accessed 6 September 2025. ---. âMichel Merkt.â Festival de Cannes, www.festival-cannes.com/p/michel-merkt/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. ---. Nanfang chezhan de juhui (The Wild Goose Lake). Festival de Cannes, 25 Apr. 2024, www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/nan-fang-che-zhan-de-ju-hui/. Accessed 26 June 2025. ---. Ye che å¤è½¦ [Night Train]. Festival de Cannes, https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/ye-che/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. Fleming, David H. âDeleuze, the â(Si)Neo-Realistâ Break and the EmerDunce of Chinese Any-Now(Here)-Spaces.â Deleuze Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, Nov. 2014, pp. 509â41. https://doi.org/10.3366/dls.2014.0168. Flood, Maria. âFrom Colonial Casbah to Casbah-Banlieue: Settlement and Space in Pépé le Moko (1937) and La Haine (1996).â Cinematic Settlers: The Settler Colonial World in Film, edited by Janice Lahti and Ryan Weaver-Hightower, 1st ed., Routledge, 2020, pp. 177â188. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003057277. Frisby, David. âThe Flâneur in Social Theory.â The Flâneur, edited by Keith Tester, Routledge, 1994, pp. 81â110. Gan, Nectar. ââFight Clubâ Has a New Ending in China. And This Time, the Authorities Win.â CNN Business, 26 Jan. 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/26/media/china-fight-club-ending-censorship-mic-intl-hnk. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. 126 Gao, Shiyuan é«è¯æº. âGucheng Suoluo yinxiang (lvren xinyu)â å¤åæ¢­ç½å°è±¡ï¼æ äººå¿è¯­ï¼ [âImpressions of the Ancient City of Solo (Travelerâs Reflections)â]. Renmin Ribao äººæ°æ¥æ¥ [Peopleâs Daily], 16 Nov. 2022, p. 14. https://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2022-11/16/nw.D110000renmrb_20221116_3-14.htm. Accessed 6 Sept. 2025. Ge, Yiting èæ¡å©·. âNanfang chezhan piaofang jin 2 yi, kan duli zhizuo yingpian ruhe maixiang gongyehuaâ âåæ¹è½¦ç«âç¥¨æ¿è¿ 2 äº¿ï¼çç¬ç«å¶ä½å½±çå¦ä½è¿åå·¥ä¸å [The Wild Goose Lake nears 200 million at the box office: how an independent film moves toward industrialization]. Diyi caijing ç¬¬ä¸è´¢ç» [Yicai Global], 16 Dec. 2019, https://m.yicai.com/news/100436499.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Ginsberg, Robert. âThe Ruin as Aesthetic Experience.â The Aesthetics of Ruins, Editions Rodopi, 2004, pp. 155â72. Higbee, Will, and Song Hwee Lim. âConcepts of Transnational Cinema: Towards a Critical Transnationalism in Film Studies.â Transnational Cinemas, vol. 1, no. 1, 2010, pp. 7â21. https://doi.org/10.1386/trac.1.1.7_1. Hu, Jintao è¡é¦æ¶. âFull Text of Report Delivered at the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.â China Daily, 25 Oct. 2007, https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hqzg/2007-10/25/content_6205616_7.htm. Accessed 1 Sept. 2025. Hua, Ying è±æ¥¹. âTianwang: wei âPingâan Chengduâ baojia huhuâfang Chengdu shi shiwei changwei, zhengfawei shuji, gongan juzhang Li Kunxueâ å¤©ç½ï¼ä¸ºâå¹³å®æé½âä¿é©¾æ¤èª127 ââè®¿æé½å¸å¸å§å¸¸å§ãæ¿æ³å§ä¹¦è®°ãå ¬å®å±é¿ææå­¦ [Skynet: Escorting âSafe ChengduââInterview with Chengdu Party Standing Committee Member and Police Chief Li Kunxue]. Zhongâan wang ä¸­å®ç½ [Anhui Public Security News], 7 Sept. 2009, http://news.cps.com.cn/article/200909/175187.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. âHui zuo shengyi de Jia Zhangke, weishenme tuichu le Pingyao?â ä¼åçæçè´¾æ¨æ¯ï¼ä¸ºä»ä¹éåºäºå¹³é¥ï¼ [Why Did Jia Zhangke, a Skilled Businessman, Withdraw from Pingyao?]. The Paper æ¾æ¹æ°é», 25 Oct. 2020, https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_9701138. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Jaffee, Valerie. âBringing the World to the Nation: Jia Zhangke and the Legitimation of Chinese Underground Film.â Senses of Cinema, no. 32, July 2004, https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature-articles/chinese_underground_film/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. âJinma jiang di 55 jie ruwu ji dedao mingdanâ éé¦¬çç¬¬ 55 å± å ¥åæ¨å¾çåå® [55th Golden Horse Awards Nominees and Winners List]. Central News Agency 中央社, Oct. 2018, www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/201810015008.aspx. Accessed 26 June 2025. Kelso-Marsh, Caleb. âEast Asian Noir: Transnational Film Noir in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.â Renegotiating Film Genres in East Asian Cinemas and Beyond, edited by Lin Feng and James Aston, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, pp. 41â69. Kuoshu, Harry H. Craziness and Carnival in Neo-Noir Chinese Cinema. Springer International Publishing, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73081-9. 128 Lai, Linda Chiu-han. âWhither the Walker Goes: Spatial Practices and Negative Poetics in 1990s Chinese Urban Cinema.â The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Zhang Zhen, Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 296â314. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822390008-010. Li, Li æå. âDianying gongye meixue de piping yu chaoyueââyu Chen Xuguang xiansheng shangqueâ çµå½±å·¥ä¸ç¾å­¦çæ¹è¯ä¸è¶ è¶ââä¸éæ­å å çåæ¦· [âCritique of âFilm Industry Aestheticsâ: A Discussion with Professor Chen Xuguangâ]. Zhejiang chuanmei xueyuan xuebao æµæ±ä¼ åªå­¦é¢å­¦æ¥ [Journal of Communication University of Zhejiang], vol. 25, no. 4, Aug. 2018, pp. 93â98. ---. ââDiqiu zuihou de yewanâ: Dianying gongye meixue shiyu xia de yishu dianying shengcun kaowenâ ãå°çæåçå¤æãï¼çµå½±å·¥ä¸ç¾å­¦è§éä¸çèºæ¯çµå½±çå­æ·é® [Long Dayâs Journey Into Night: A Survival Interrogation of Art Cinema from the Perspective of Film Industry Aesthetics]. Dianying Yishu çµå½±èºæ¯ [Film Art], no. 4, 2019, pp. 46â49. Li, Peilin æå¹æ. âJubian: Cunluo de zhongjieâdushi li de cunzhuang yanjiuâ å·¨å: æè½çç»ç»ââé½å¸éçæåºç 究 [Great Transformation: The End of VillagesâA Study on Villages-in-the-City]. Zhongguo Shehui Kexue ä¸­å½ç¤¾ä¼ç§å­¦ [Chinese Social Sciences], no. 1, 2002, pp. 168â179. Li, Yan æå¦. âDiao Yinan zai Nanfang chezhan de juhui li de yuwang he suqiuâ åäº¦ç·å¨ãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãéçæ¬²æåè¯æ± [âDiao Yinanâs Appeals in The Wild Goose Lakeâ]. Xin Jing Bao æ°äº¬æ¥ [The Beijing News], 9 Dec. 2019, https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/157586720815558.html. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. 129 Li, Yang ææ¨. âDaoyan Li Yang fangtan: pai Mang jing de shihou bei dingxing wei dixia dianyingâ å¯¼æ¼ææ¨è®¿è°ï¼æãç²äºãçæ¶åè¢«å®æ§ä¸ºå°ä¸çµå½± [âInterview with Director Li Yang: Blind Shaft Was Labeled an Underground Filmâ]. Interview by Liu Hui åæ. Jintian wang ä»å¤©ç½ [Jintian.net], https://www.jintian.net/fangtan/liuhui.html. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. Li, Zeng. "So Close to Paradise (1999) and The Missing Gun (2002): Hollywood Models and the Production of Film Noir in Chinese Cinema at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century". Journal of American-East Asian Relations 20.1 (2013): 48-67. https://doi.org/10.1163/18765610-02001007. Lin, Lisa. Convergent Chinese Television Industries: An Ethnography of Chinese Production Cultures. Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91756-2. Liu, Hui åæ. âLi Yang fangtan: dianying de yiyiâ ææ¨è®¿è°: çµå½±çæä¹ [Interview with Li Yang: The Meaning of Film]. Jintian wang ä»å¤©ç½, https://www.jintian.net/fangtan/liuhui.html. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025. Liu, Siqi. âThe South China New Wave: Cinema as Xinxiang (Affective-Ideational Imagery).â Chinese Film in the Twenty-First Century: Movements, Genres, Intermedia, edited by Corey Schultz and Carla Marcello, Routledge, 2024, pp. 43â58. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003371694-5. Locati, Stefano. âThe Chinese âQuasi-Noirâ Cinema Tradition: From Fante Pian to Neo-Noir.â Chinese Film in the Twenty-First Century: Movements, Genres, Intermedia, edited by 130 Corey Schultz and Cecília Mello, Routledge, 2023, pp. 99â113. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003371694. âLou dao, nin zhe bu dianying de jingtou weishenme zheme huang?â å¨å¯¼ï¼æ¨è¿é¨çµå½±çéå¤´ä¸ºä»ä¹è¿ä¹æï¼ [Director Lou, Why Is the Camera So Shaky in This Film?]. Sohu æç, 7 Apr. 2019, https://www.sohu.com/a/306446645_662944. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. âLou Ye, bu que qian leâ å¨ç¨ï¼ä¸ç¼ºé±äº [Lou Ye No Longer Lacks Money]. The Paper æ¾æ¹æ°é», 9 Nov. 2021, https://m.thepaper.cn/baijiahao_15297851. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025. âLou Ye wenyi wangshi, 1989â2019â å¨ç¨æèºå¾äºï¼1989â2019 [Lou Yeâs Literary Past, 1989â2019]. Huxiu èå , 8 Apr. 2019, https://m.huxiu.com/article/293101.html?f=ydzx. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Lovatt, Philippa. âLife Is Cheap: Chinese Neo-Noir and the Aesthetics of Disenchantment.â East Asian Film Noir: Transnational Encounters and Intercultural Dialogue, edited by Chi-Yun Shin and Mark Gallagher, I.B. Tauris, 2015, pp. 179â95. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780755693429. Long Dayâs Journey Into Night [å°çæåçå¤æ]. Directed by Bi Gan, Zhejiang Huace Film & TV, 2018. Lu, Sheldon H. âNotes on Four Major Paradigms in Chinese-Language Film Studies.â Journal of Chinese Cinemas, vol. 6, no. 1, 2012, pp. 15â26. https://doi.org/10.1386/jcc.6.1.15_1. ---. Transnational Chinese Cinemas: Identity, Nationhood, Gender. University of Hawai'i Press, 1997, Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/book/7977. M. Directed by Fritz Lang, Nero-Film AG, 1931. 131 Marquis, Christopher, and Kunyuan Qiao. âThe Third Front Construction and Private Entrepreneurship.â Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. Yale University Press, 2022, pp. 176â88. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv3006z6k. McGrath, Jason. âWorlds in Fragments: Culture and the Market Under Postsocialist Modernity.â Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age. Stanford University Press, 2008, pp. 1â24. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780804768481-003. âMiao.â Encyclopaedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Miao. Accessed 19 Aug. 2025. âMiao Ethnic Village in SW China Preserves Ancient Traditions.â Peopleâs Daily Online, 27 May 2024, https://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0527/c90000-20174482.html. Accessed 10 Sept. 2025. Mu, Jun ç©ä¿. âLeixing zhong de zuozhe: xiaofeizhuyi yujing xia de yishu biaoda celüeâyi Cao Baoping, Diao Yinan, Cheng Er de jinqi chuangzuo wei liâ ç±»åä¸­çä½è ï¼æ¶è´¹ä¸»ä¹è¯­å¢ä¸çèºæ¯è¡¨è¾¾ç­ç¥ââä»¥æ¹ä¿å¹³ãåäº¦ç·ãç¨è³çè¿æåä½ä¸ºä¾ [âThe Author within the Genre: Artistic Expression Strategies in the Context of ConsumerismâA Case Study of Recent Works by Cao Baoping, Diao Yinan, and Cheng Erâ]. Dianying pingjie çµå½±è¯ä» [Film Appreciation], no. 15, 2017. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1002-6916.2017.15.007. âNan fang chezhan de juhui åæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ [The Wild Goose Lake] Box Office Data.â Endata, https://ys.endata.cn/Details/Movie?entId=682020. Accessed 29 June 2025. Naremore, James. More than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts. Updated and expanded ed., University of California Press, 2008. 132 Nie, Wei. âThe Generation, Transformation, and Dissipation of the âSixth Generationâ Cinema in China: The Entropy Change of a Concept.â Journal of Chinese Film Studies, vol. 1, no. 3, 2021, pp. 376â396. De Gruyter, https://doi.org/10.1515/jcfs-2021-0033. OâBrien, Charles. âThe Cinema Colonial of 1930s France.â Visions of the East: Orientalism in Film, edited by Matthew H. Bernstein and Gaylyn Studlar, Rutgers University Press, 1997, pp. 207â231. âOrganizational History of Broadcasting and Television Institutions.â National Radio and Television Administration, https://www.nrta.gov.cn/col/col2046/index.html. Accessed 28 July 2025. Palmer, R. Barton. âMoral Man in the Dark City: Film Noir, the Postwar Religious Revival, and The Accused.â The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, University Press of Kentucky, 2006, pp. 187â206. Pépé le Moko. Directed by Julien Duvivier, Paris Film, 1937. Qin, Wei ç§¦ä¼. âGuangxi yuan shengtai minâge de yishu tedian fenxi yu yanchang yanjiuâyi Dongzu dage âChan zhi geâ wei liâ å¹¿è¥¿åçææ°æ­çèºæ¯ç¹ç¹åæä¸æ¼å±ç ç©¶ââä»¥ä¾æå¤§æ­ãèä¹æ­ãä¸ºä¾ [âAn Analysis and Performance Study of the Artistic Characteristics of Guangxiâs Original Ecological Folk Songs: Taking the Dong Peopleâs Grand Song Song of the Cicada as an Exampleâ]. Shaoguan xueyuan yinyue xueyuan é¶å ³å­¦é¢é³ä¹å­¦é¢, Zhongguo wenyijia ä¸­å½æèºå®¶ [Chinese Literary Artists], 2019, pp. 98â100. Qi, Zhifeng é½ä¹ä¸°. âShijie meiti kan Zhongguo: Bo Xilai de hong yu heiâ ä¸çåªä½çä¸­å½ï¼èçæ¥ççº¢ä¸é» [World Media on China: Bo Xilaiâs Red and Black]. Meiguo zhi yin â 133 Zhongwen wang ç¾å½ä¹é³ï¼ä¸­æç½ [Voice of America Chinese], 7 June 2011, https://www.voachinese.com/a/article-20110607--world-press-coverage-on-china-123375468/782705.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Ran, Jin åé, and Zhao Lei èµµè¾. âGong Gangmo an: xunwen bigong zhi mi weijieâ é¾åæ¨¡æ¡ï¼åè®¯é¼ä¾ä¹è°æªè§£ [The Gong Gangmo Case: The Mystery of Coerced Confession Remains Unsolved]. Nanfang zhoumo åæ¹å¨æ« [Southern Weekly], 6 Jan. 2010, https://www.infzm.com/contents/39772. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. RED. â âDiqiu zuihou de yewanâ yijing daodi da jiemiâ ãå°çæåçå¤æãä¸éå°åºå¤§æ­ç§ [The Long Take Secrets Behind Long Dayâs Journey Into Night]. Cinehello.com, 2019, cinehello.com/m/mstream/114596. Accessed 27 June 2025. Renmin wang Hubei äººæ°ç½æ¹å [Peopleâs Daily Online Hubei]. âDianying Nanfang chezhan de juhui shouying: Hu Ge wangwo biaoyan huozanâ çµå½±ãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãé¦æ è¡æ­å¿æè¡¨æ¼è·èµ [Film The Wild Goose Lake Premieres: Hu Geâs Immersive Performance Receives Praise]. Renmin wang Hubei äººæ°ç½æ¹å [Peopleâs Daily Hubei], 2 Jan. 2020, http://hb.people.com.cn/n2/2020/0102/c370738-33683661.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Rodowick, D. N. Gilles Deleuzeâs Time Machine. Duke University Press, 1997. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822396871. Sanders, Steven M. âFilm Noir and the Meaning of Life.â The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, University Press of Kentucky, 2005, pp. 91â105. Schrader, Paul. âNotes on Film Noir.â Film Genre Reader IV, edited by Barry Keith Grant, University of Texas Press, 2012, pp. 265â78. https://doi.org/10.7560/742055-022. 134 Scott, A. O. âReview: In âThe Wild Goose Lake,â Itâs Not Safe to Be a Gangster.â The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/05/movies/the-wild-goose-lake-review.html. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. âShan he gu ren å±±æ²³æ 人 [Mountains May Depart] Box Office Data.â Maoyan, https://piaofang.maoyan.com/i/imovie/247161/box?barTheme=181622&share=iOS&utm_source=maoyan_appShare. Accessed 18 Aug. 2025. Shen, Yang æ²æ. âWe Have Never Rejected Commercial Cinema: An Interview with the Producer of The Wild Goose Lakeâ [â âNanfang chezhan de juhuiâ zhipianren zhuanfang: women conglai bu paichi shangye dianyingâ ãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãå¶çäººä¸è®¿ï¼æä»¬ä»æ¥ä¸ææ¥åä¸çµå½±]. Interview by Dao Tong å¯¼ç­. The Paper æ¾æ¹æ°é», 2019, www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_5180428. Accessed 25 June 2025. Shen, Yi æ²ä¹. âChongqing shi jianchayuan fabu âdaheiâ baipishuâ éåºå¸æ£å¯é¢åå¸âæé»âç½ç®ä¹¦ [Chongqing Peopleâs Procuratorate Publishes White Paper on Anti-Mafia Crackdown]. Jiancha ribao æ£å¯æ¥æ¥ [Procuratorial Daily], 28 Apr. 2010, www.spp.gov.cn/zdgz/201004/t20100428_27180.shtml. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Shu, Liang èé. â âBairi yanhuoâ piaofang po yi chuang jilu shuxie wenyipian lizhi shiâ ãç½æ¥ç°ç«ãç¥¨æ¿ç ´äº¿ åè®°å½ä¹¦åæèºçå±å¿å² [Black Coal, Thin Ice Breaks 100 Million at the Box Office, Setting a New Record for Art-House Film]. China Daily ä¸­å½æ¥æ¥ç½, 10 Apr. 2014, cn.chinadaily.com.cn/2014-04/10/content_17423533.htm. Accessed 25 June 2025. 135 âSIFF PROJECT | Dianying xiangmu chuangtou pingwei hui mingdan gongbuâ çµå½±é¡¹ç®åæè¯å§ä¼ååå ¬å¸ [SIFF PROJECT | Jury List for Film Project Venture Capital Announced]. Shanghai guoji dianying jie ä¸æµ·å½é çµå½±è [Shanghai International Film Festival], www.siff.com/content?aid=import-cms-3293. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. Silbergeld, Jerome. Hitchcock with a Chinese Face: Cinematic Doubles, Oedipal Triangles, and Chinaâs Moral Voice. University of Washington Press, 2004. Skoble, Aeon J. âMoral Clarity and Practical Reason in Film Noir.â The Philosophy of Film Noir, edited by Mark T. Conard, University Press of Kentucky, 2005, pp. 41â48. Spicer, Andrew. Film Noir. 1st ed., Routledge, 2002. Routledge eBook. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315837826. Stringer, Julian. âFilm Festivals in Asia: Notes on History, Geography, and Power from a Distance.â Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, edited by Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist, Routledge, 2016, pp. 34â48. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315637167. Teo, Stephen. âDarker than Dark: Film Noir in Its Asian Contexts.â International Noir, edited by Homer B. Pettey and R. Barton Palmer, Edinburgh University Press, 2014, pp. 136â54. https://doi.org/10.3366/J.CTT14BRZ6D.12. Tester, Keith. âIntroduction.â The Flâneur. Routledge, 1994. RLE Social Theory. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315765389. The Wild Goose Lake [åæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼]. Directed by Diao Yinan, Green Ray Films, 2019. 136 Unifrance. âArte France Cinéma.â Unifrance, https://www.unifrance.org/annuaires/societe/80026/arte-france-cinema. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. ---. âLong Dayâs Journey into Night.â Unifrance, https://en.unifrance.org/movie/45394/long-day-s-journey-into-night. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. ---. âMemento Production.â Unifrance, https://en.unifrance.org/directories/company/351974/memento-production. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Van Vuren, Mitchell. âLucid Dreaming in the Film Theater: A Trans-Spatial and Transcultural Approach to Long Dayâs Journey into Night.â Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities, vol. 5, no. 1, Aug. 2020, pp. 90â101. https://doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.82 Vena, Teresa. âThe CNC Stresses the Success of Its Aide aux cinémas du monde Initiative at Cannes.â Cineuropa, https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/477826. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Vertigo. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Paramount Pictures, 1958. Wang, Lin æ±ªç³. âDiao Yinan: Black Coal, Thin Ice Was My Self-Reprogrammingâ [âDiao Yinan: Bairi yanhuo rang wo wanchengle ziwo xinaoâ åäº¦ç·ï¼ãç½æ¥ç°ç«ãè®©æå®æäºèªææ´è]. The New York Times Chinese Edition çº½çº¦æ¶æ¥ä¸­æç½, 2 Apr. 2014, cn.nytimes.com/film-tv/20140401/tc01diaoyinan/. Accessed 25 June 2025. ---. âJia Zhangke: Mingyun benshen nandao shi tian zhuding?â è´¾æ¨æ¯ï¼å½è¿æ¬èº«é¾éæ¯å¤©æ³¨å®ï¼ [Jia Zhangke: Is Fate Itself Predetermined?]. The New York Times Chinese çº½çº¦æ¶æ¥ä¸­æç½, 30 Oct. 2013, https://cn.nytimes.com/film-tv/20131030/tc30jiazhangke/. Accessed 10 Oct. 2025. 137 Wang, Yong çå. âEstablishing the National Radio and Television Administration; State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television to Be Abolished.â Xinhua News Agency / China Government Network, 13 Mar. 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/2018lh/2018-03/13/c_137035576.htm. Accessed 25 June 2025. Wu, Quan æ­¦æ. âDiqiu zuihou de yewan li de wuyue, shi Dongzu dage de yongtanâ ãå°çæåçå¤æãéçå·«ä¹ï¼æ¯ä¾æå¤§æ­çåå¹ [âThe Shamanic Music in Long Dayâs Journey Into Night Is a Chant of the Dong Peopleâs Grand Songâ]. 163.com, 19 Jan. 2019, https://www.163.com/dy/article/E5T4KKU30521UO8O.html. Accessed 20 Aug. 2025. Xi Jinping ä¹ è¿å¹³. Zhongyang zhengzhi ju âsan yan san shiâ zhuanti minzhu shenghuo hui shang de jianghua ä¸­å¤®æ¿æ²»å±âä¸ä¸¥ä¸å®âä¸é¢æ°ä¸»çæ´»ä¼ä¸çè®²è¯ [Speech at the Central Political Committee âs Special Democratic Life Meeting on the âThree Stricts and Three Earnestsâ]. Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe ä¸­å¤®æç®åºçç¤¾, 2016. Xiao, Hongshi èå®å®. âTanju: feiqi gongkuang yinni shenshan, xiri yiyuan youju xuexiao juquanâ ãå¾éãæ¢ç§ï¼åºå¼æ±ç¿éå¿æ·±å±± ææ¥å»é¢é®å±å­¦æ ¡ä¿±å ¨ [Photo Collection: Exploring the Abandoned Mercury Mine Hidden Deep in the Mountains, Once Complete with Hospital, Post Office, and School]. Tencent xinwen è ¾è®¯æ°é» [Tencent News], 16 Aug. 2017, mhuanbao.bjx.com.cn/mnews/20170816/843838.shtml. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. Xiao, Jiwei, and Dudley Andrew. âPoetics and the Periphery: The Journey of Kaili Blues.â Cineaste, Summer 2019, https://www.cineaste.com/summer2019/poetics-and-periphery-journey-of-kaili-blues. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. 138 Xinhua she æ°åç¤¾. âXinhua she pingchu 2012 nian guonei shida xinwen (an fasheng shijian weixu)â æ°åç¤¾è¯åº 2012 å¹´å½å åå¤§æ°é»(æåçæ¶é´ä¸ºåº) [Xinhua selects top 10 domestic news stories of 2012 (in chronological order)]. Zhongyang zhengfu menhu wangzhan ä¸­å¤®æ¿åºé¨æ·ç½ç« [Central Government Portal], 29 Dec. 2012, www.gov.cn/jrzg/2012-12/29/content_2301665.htm. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Xu, Yuedong å¾æ¦ä¸. ââBi Gan ye jiang ta de chengzhang jingyan, danshi meiyou yidian dian zilian zilianâ: Dai Jinhua VS Bi Ganâ âæ¯èµ£ä¹è®²ä»çæé¿ç»éªï¼ä½æ¯æ²¡æä¸ç¹ç¹èªæèªæâï¼æ´é¦å VS æ¯èµ£ ["Bi Gan Also Talks About His Growth Experience, But Without a Trace of Self-Pity or Narcissism": Dai Jinhua VS Bi Gan]. Huozhi wenhua æ´»å­æå [Huozhi Culture], Sohu æç, 24 Dec. 2018, https://www.sohu.com/a/284133071_268920. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. Xuexi.cn å­¦ä¹ å¼ºå½. âHu Ge xin pian âNanfang chezhan de juhuiâ piaofang po yi! Ni zhidao zhexie muhoutaimi ma?â è¡æ­æ°çãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãç¥¨æ¿ç ´äº¿ï¼ä½ ç¥éè¿äºå¹åç§å¯åï¼ [Hu Geâs new film The Wild Goose Lake breaks 100 million at the box office! Do you know these behind-the-scenes secrets?]. Xuexi.cn å­¦ä¹ å¼ºå½, article.xuexi.cn/articles/index.html?art_id=5676300215146763559&study_style_id=feeds_default&pid=&ptype=-1&share_to=weibo&from=singlemessage&source=share. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Yang, Xiaoxia æ¨å°é. âLubian yecai de xiangtu qingjie yu shihua biaodaâBi Gan geren yingxiang fengge chutanâ ãè·¯è¾¹éé¤ãçä¹¡åæ ç»ä¸è¯åè¡¨è¾¾ââæ¯èµ£ä¸ªäººå½±åé£æ ¼139 åæ¢ [The Local Sentiment and Poetic Expression of Kaili Blues: A Preliminary Study of Bi Ganâs Personal Film Style]. Zhongguo dianying pinglun ä¸­å½çµå½±è¯è®º [Chinese Film Review], pp. 20â22. Yang, Yanling. âFilm Policy, the Chinese Government and Soft Power.â New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, vol. 14, no. 1, Mar. 2016, pp. 71â91. https://doi.org/10.1386/ncin.14.1.71_1. Yeguang: Nanfang chezhan de juhui dianying muhou jilupian å¤å ï¼ãåæ¹è½¦ç«çèä¼ãçµå½±å¹åçºªå½ç [Night Light: The Making of The Wild Goose Lake]. Directed by Liu Juan åå¨, 2019. YouTube, uploaded by Ru ge xingban Ziyi rensheng â Hu Ge zixun zhuan you pindao å¦æ­è¡æ¿ æ£æäººç - è¡æ­ HuGe èµè®¯ä¸æé¢é, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0JQud4PSA8. Yu, Sui ä½è½. âZhuiyi Kun Ding zai Zhongguo de riziâ è¿½å¿ææ±å¨ä¸­å½çæ¥å­ [âRemembering Quentinâs Days in Chinaâ]. Jiemian çé¢, 17 Apr. 2019, https://www.jiemian.com/article/3052659.html. Accessed 8 Sept. 2025. Yu, Yang. âProjection of Multiple Fantasies: De-subjectivity of Images in Long Dayâs Journey into Night.â The International Journal of the Image, vol. 13, no. 1, 2022, pp. 63â79. Common Ground Research Networks, https://doi.org/10.18848/2154-8560/CGP/v13i01/63-79. Zhang, Bin å¼ æ, and Luo, Hanxiao ç½ææ. 2023. ââNanfangâ zuowei fangfaââlun dalu dianying zhong de âNanfangâ yu Nanfang dianying de jueqiâ âåæ¹âä½ä¸ºæ¹æ³ââè®ºå¤§éçµå½±ä¸­çâåæ¹âä¸åæ¹çµå½±çå´èµ· [âThe South as Method: On the South in 140 Mainland Cinema and the Rise of Southern Filmâ]. Minzu Yishu Yanjiu æ°æèºæ¯ç 究 [Ethnic Art Studies], vol. 36, no. 5, Oct. 2023, pp. 67â76. Zhang, Zhen. âIntroduction: Bearing Witness: Chinese Urban Cinema in the Era of âTransformation.ââ The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, edited by Zhen Zhang, Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 1â46. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822390008-002. Zhongguo qingnian bao ä¸­å½éå¹´æ¥. âShouji shimingzhi: jianjinshi gaigeâ ææºå®åå¶ï¼æ¸è¿å¼æ¹é© [Real-name registration for mobile phones: a gradual reform]. Zhongqing zaixian ä¸­éå¨çº¿ [China Youth Daily], 10 Sept. 2010, https://zqb.cyol.com/content/2010-09/10/content_3409941.htm. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Zhongguo xinwen wang ä¸­å½æ°é»ç½. âNÃ¼ peiyong: zhen de shi peiyong haishi changji?â å¥³éªæ³³ï¼ççæ¯éªæ³³è¿æ¯å¨¼å¦ï¼[Female swimming companions: Are they really companions or disguised prostitutes?]. Zhongguo xinwen wang ä¸­å½æ°é»ç½ [China News Service], 15 Oct. 2008, https://www.chinanews.com/shipin/2008-10-15/news5052.html. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guojia Minzu Shiwu Weiyuanhui ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½å½å®¶æ°æäºå¡å§åä¼. âMiao zu èæ [Miao Ethnic Group].â Zhongguo shaoshu minzu ä¸­å½å°æ°æ°æ [Chinese Ethnic Minorities], Minzu wenti wuzhong congshu æ°æé®é¢äºç§ä¸ä¹¦ [Five Series on Ethnic Issues]. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guojia Minzu Shiwu Weiyuanhui, https://www.neac.gov.cn/seac/ztzl/mz/fzxz.shtml. Accessed 4 Sept. 2025. 141 Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Guowuyuan ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½å½å¡é¢. âGuizhou sheng guihua jianyaoâ è´µå·çè§åç®è¦ [Brief Plan of Guizhou Province]. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo zhengfu gongbao ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½æ¿åºå ¬æ¥ [Gazette of the State Council of the PRC], 2012, www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2012/content_2049997.htm. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Zhongyang Renmin Zhengfu ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½ä¸­å¤®äººæ°æ¿åº. âZhonghua Renmin Gongheguo di yi ge wunian jihua (1953â1957)â ä¸­åäººæ°å ±åå½ç¬¬ä¸ä¸ªäºå¹´è®¡å (1953â1957) [âThe First Five-Year Plan (1953â1957)â]. Zhongyang Zhengfu Menhu Wangzhan ä¸­å¤®æ¿åºé¨æ·ç½ç« [Central Peopleâs Government of the PRC], 17 Mar. 2006, www.gov.cn/test/2006-03/17/content_229523.htm. Accessed 17 July 2025. âZhongguo Tianwang yi jiancheng: 2 yi shexiangtou haomiao ji xunrenâ ä¸­å½å¤©ç½å·²å»ºæï¼2äº¿æåå¤´æ¯«ç§çº§å¯»äºº [Chinaâs Skynet complete: 200 million cameras enable millisecond tracking]. Fenghuang wang å¤å°ç½ [iFeng Tech], 4 May 2018, https://tech.ifeng.com/a/20180504/44980719_0.shtml. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025. Zhongyuan wang ä¸­åç½. âLubian yecai huo Maoyan zuigao zhuanye pingfen wei shuqidang dailai yiji qingfengâ ãè·¯è¾¹éé¤ãè·ç«ç¼æé«ä¸ä¸è¯åä¸ºæææ¡£å¸¦æ¥ä¸å­£æ¸ é£ [Kaili Blues Receives Maoyanâs Highest Professional Rating, Bringing a Breath of Fresh Air to the Summer Season]. Huanqiu wang ç¯çç½ [Huanqiu News], https://china.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnJWPJu. Accessed 13 Aug. 2025. 142 Zhou, Jianhong, and Johan Richard Edelheim. âThe Subjectivity of Miao People in Tourism Representations.â Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, vol. 22, no. 3, 2024, pp. 259â76. https://doi.org/10.1080/14766825.2024.2379760.
Thesis/Dissertation
eng
Cinema and Media Studies
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Graduate
Brown, William, 1977-
Noir flâneur as method : mapping postsocialist affect in The Wild Goose Lake (2019) and Long dayâs journey into night (2018)
Text