Pages

Friday, November 8, 2019

2013 film Kaili Blues at Maridon Museum, November 15.



The 2013 film Kaili Blues will play at Butler's Maridon Museum on November 15 as part of its Chinese Film Series. An AV Club review provides an introduction:
Bi Gan’s debut feature Kaili Blues ducks and doubles back like a fugitive trying to lose a tail, finding itself in stranger and stranger places. It has a pencil sketch of a plot, with the makings of a subtropical noir: Chen Sheng (Chen Yongzhong, the director’s uncle), a reformed gangster who now owns a small-town medical clinic in China’s misty Guizhou province, sets off to adopt his preteen nephew after hearing that his estranged half-brother, Crazy Face (Xie Lixun), might sell the boy off. Although the movie is peppered with references to gangland killings and has its share of pool halls and lowlifes in flip-flops, no one could mistake it for a crime drama. Rather, Bi has grabbed hold of the searching, remorseful component of noir and let the rest else slip away, creating a ruminative dream state on a sub-shoestring budget.
The movie starts at 6:00 pm and is paired by an introduction from Dr. William Covey of Slippery Rock University. The movie is free and open to the public, though reservations are required and can be made at 724-282-0123. The Maridon, an Asian art museum, is located at 322 North McKean St. in downtown Butler (map), roughly 40 miles north of Pittsburgh.