On Suzhou River (2000)

Lou Ye’s tragic and heartrending love story of Suzhou River (2000) encompasses an unknown narrator—anonymity is literal, we are not given the information regarding his name, or his appearance, nor do we ever see him throughout the runtime of the film—who sustains his life in Shanghai, close to the eponymous Suzhou River area, by doing photography and videography. This unknown narrator—who I will simply be referring to simply as the Narrator henceforth—inaugurates his narration by recording Suzhou River and interposing many details regarding its importance and interpretation. The river, like all the other areas the camera can observe, is in an unmaintained appearance; the past, present, and future are withheld within and the trademark human qualities of friendship, love, family, and loneliness are legible from Suzhou River. In the vicinity of an area of decrepitude and somberness, the film’s plot is disentangled.

During a freelance job opportunity, the Narrator meets with a girl named MeiMei who is employed at a bar, doing entertainment performances. The pair hit it off swiftly and started dating in the ensuing days, which constitutes the inceptive video recordings. While the aspects and video documentation of their relationship were recorded as a POV, the storyline later diverges toward the path of a saddening love story between a motorbike courier and a rich man’s daughter: Mardar and Moudan.

Mardar and Moudan’s story launches wholesomely and positively, as the pair start growing liking to one another, but things take a darker and ominous turn when Mardar kidnaps Moudan for ransom money. Through some course of events, Moudan—as she is set free with her ransom fee being paid—throws herself from the eponymous Suzhou River and is never to be found again. Subsequently, Mardar is sentenced to prison for some time, however, when he is released he unswervingly searches for his lost love Moudan.

This subplot—though it can be argued that it is hard to distinguish which one is subordinate to the other—is acquainted with the audience on the basis that Moudan looked exactly like MeiMei. Moreover, the story of Mardar and Moudan are told to the Narrator by MeiMei, who was also told this story by Mardar who staunchly believed that MeiMei was, in fact, Moudan herself.

A Chinese Sixth Generation masterpiece, Lou Ye’s Suzhou River (2000) is a heartbreaking and disillusioning love story which is like no other. A must-watch, Ye subtly utilizes the depressive and melancholic undertones within the circumference of a ruinous and proletariat Shanghai in order to produce a realistic and heartbreaking love story which leaves the audience no less affected than the participants of the story.