Not Coming to a Theater Near You

The Case / Xiang zi / China / 2007

Dashang, a reticent husband with a history of infidelity, manages a small inn with his wife in the shadow of a mountain. He is ill, we’re told, though his illness is never revealed; he spends much of the film going between his greenhouse and lying in bed. His wife is doting and patronizing, forcing him to eat healthy and give up cigarettes, though her ways have root in his disloyalty and emotional distance; at times compassionate and loving, and at other times cold and paranoid, she has clearly been wronged.

The title object appears almost immediately: A locked piece of luggage floating down a river. When it becomes stuck on a jutting of rock outside the inn, Dashang manages to scoop it from the water without alerting his wife. Stealing away to his greenhouse, he opens the case to find blocks of ice, each containing a severed human body-part. From there on he balances trying to remain at ease in front of his wife with ogling his discovery in private, hiding the case behind a false wall so it won’t be found. He doesn’t go to the police, we soon learn, because his brother-in-law also happens to be the chief, as well as the man who unearthed his affair.

The case as a metaphor initially seems overdone, especially when the ice begins to melt and Dashang tries to hide severed hands in flower pots. This happens as his marriage becomes increasingly strained thanks to a new arrival at the inn: A beautiful young woman and her sick husband. (It’s interesting to note that, while Deshang’s wife is never given a name, the young woman’s name is revealed almost instantly.) But the blatant metaphors end when the film’s plot takes a brazenly sharp turn towards Fincher territory, exposing a major secret and ultimately squandering any remaining tension that’s been built up, sexual or otherwise. And after this scene ends, we’re thrown once again into the grinding cogs of yet another plot twist, this one a tiresome Hollywood cliché that answers little and, occupying less than five minutes, is totally pointless.

by Adam Balz | Source: 35MM Theatrical Print
24 Apr 2008 1:31 PM | Submit Comment