This has literally been the worst time I've ever had at a movie theatre. I could leave you with that but allow me to describe the experience. I went to see The Assassin feeling a bit uneasy. I am not the greatest fan of Chinese cinema, after all. But thinking that this film won the Best Director award at this year's Cannes Festival I expected to see -at least- something spectacular.
What I watched instead was scenes after scenes of people not talking at all or walking on mountains, or for no reason whatsoever standing still for a long awkward time after having delivered a line. I watched irrelevant shots of goats, meadows or people preparing a bath. By the end of the movie, I even knew by heart the four or five phrases that would be repeated numerous times throughout the film. The Assassin despite its title, did not even offer any lengthy fight scenes as Chinese films are usually famous for. The duels were less than a dozen, lasted for less than four seconds each and were all abruptly cut off.
The Assassin named Nie Yinniang (Qi Shu) is a woman who after living in exile for more than 13 years, returns to her hometown with the order to kill her cousin who now leads a great military power in China and to whom she was once promised. Despite being an infamous assassin, however, she never kills anyone in the movie. And now she has to decide whether she'll follow the orders of her mistress or break with the order of the "assassins".
All this might sound (and could have been) interesting but the film was so slow and incomprehensible that it made it difficult to follow. The true motives of everyone in the movie remained inexplicable despite the recurrent lines that never moved the plot forward. And not even the beautiful costumes and sets could attract my attention for long. For the first time in my lifetime I caught myself dozing off. I even started playing another film in my mind instead of watching these endless torturous scenes. And mind you, I wasn't alone in this. Many were the viewers that left the theatre in the middle of the movie.
I can understand however, why this film might appeal to some people. It is trully a film for the few who can attain pleasure by just admiring the cinematography or by trying to fill in the unmentioned information of the plot. Perhaps, and even though I've seen a lot of films both more mainstream and more artistic and I can appreciate - or love- all kinds, I wasn't part of the target audience. But on the other hand, for the life of me, I cannot imagine that there wasn't a better film at the Cannes Festival to win the award for best direction.
One thing is certain: I will always remember The Assassin as it has been one of my most haunting movie-watching experiences in a long time.
The Assassin was shown on the 10th day of the AIFF, Saturday October 3rd.
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