“Creates some incredibly complex visuals here”

Here at ICS we have been huge fans of Gu You’s (formerly known as Gu Xiaogang) Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains (Chun Jiang Shui Nuan); we even picked it as Best Picture in our 2021 Awards. So, any of Gu’s follow-ups will instantly grab our attention. That film, inspired by Chinese painter Huang Gongwang’s 14th century work of the same title, became the first installment of his Shanshui (Landscape Painting) trilogy. The second film in that trilogy was Dwelling by the West Lake (Cao Mu Ren Jian) in 2023, and now Gu You completes this series with the Busan premiere of The First Taste of Loneliness (Chu Ci Chang Dao Ji Mo).

With his latest, Gu has created another film about multigenerational family stories intertwined with an old mother figure at the center. The story starts with the passing of the father, Luna’s husband. As in most conservative societies, a widow starting her life anew is uncommon, especially at Luna’s age, and she struggles with health problems of her own as well. Luna’s daughter Yue moves in with her to help her mother get through the process. Their old family apartment – which plays a crucial role in the film and is a character of its own – is on a very high floor with no elevators. But even leaving that apartment means closing a chapter of their lives, and no one seems ready for that. Yue comes in with her own struggles, especially regarding her teenage daughter Moon. She is also at a crossroads, with high school about to end and all her peers realizing they will drift apart, possibly to never see each other again. It may not be death, but it is another kind of loss. And while all three main characters are dealing with some variation of loss, Luna makes a huge change in her life: she starts dating a man, an old man near her age. She refuses to give up on life.

Luna / Moon symbolizes the truth of life in Zen Buddhist culture. All material pursuits in life are like reflections of the moon on different rivers. Gu You’s camera, like in all three films in his trilogy, tends to move away from the buildings towards those rivers cutting through the city of Hangzhou, as if it tries to catch a glimpse of the ultimate truth. Through the eyes of these three women of different generations, The First Taste of Loneliness is about the search for meaning in a life that is always moving towards endings and death in various shapes and forms. In consequence, it is also about those who stay behind after some crucial part of one’s life is gone or changed forever. It is a film in search of visual poetry about loneliness.

The only concern is that it is hard to say The First Taste of Loneliness is anything more than that. What made Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains uniquely powerful was not only the visual approach, but also the strength of its characters and conflicts. It seems like Gu You’s cinema took a step back from plot and text in his later attempts, this one included, and focuses more on what is unexpressed through words and storylines. He seems more interested in creating a mood, probably a transcendent sense of capturing a deeper truth. To be honest, one can achieve that with less familiar, more unorthodox characters than Luna, Yue, and Moon. Still, Gu creates some incredibly complex visuals here; especially a oner at a high school ceremony with at least hundreds of extras can easily compete with some of the gorgeous shots in Sandra Wollner’s Everytime for the most “How did they manage to do that?” take in recent years. It is impressive stuff, and gives The First Taste of Loneliness some value. Unfortunately, it’s just not the same amount of the masterpiece that started this trilogy.