The Calming

Lin only talks of the break-up once, at lunch with her friend in Japan, where her installation is being shown. It goes unmentioned when she visits her parents back in China or stays with her friend in Hong Kong, even though the removal company has taken her things to the new apartment already. Most of the time she’s alone though and it’s tempting to read emotion into her face, possibly because it’s so rare to see a film that shows a woman being by herself and by extension just being herself, barely defined by those around her. This could simply be how Lin lives, she’s a filmmaker and often on the move, each trip blurring into the next. Her gaze is inquisitive wherever she goes, as if collecting material for a film: looking out of the window of the new apartment, observing the girl in the same hospital ward, examining light and foliage in the parks she hikes through. On trains, in cars, on boats, she watches different landscapes pass before her, snowy mountains, neon cityscapes, misty plains, as long as her eyes stay open. They’re closed too at the music recital, though the tears flow nonetheless: here, as always, looking and feeling go hand in hand. (Berlinale)