Film

The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998)

Director: Po Chih Leong

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Po-Chih Leong's film begins strikingly with a car wreck suspended in the treetops. The female driver had the misfortune to be involved with one Steven Grlscz (Law). It's not until Grlscz's next girlfriend meets with an equally grisly fate that Inspector Healey (Spall) takes an interest - although the suspect could scarcely be more cooperative. He even saves the inspector from a gang of muggers on the Underground. Meanwhile, Steven has taken up with an engineer, Anne Levels (Löwensohn), who can't figure out her charming, mysterious lover for the life of her. A strange, enigmatic, stylish and stimulating picture, this toys with tropes from the horror movie, the thriller and romantic melodrama with singular results. The closest comparison is with Harry Kümel's elegant philosophical fantasy films Daughters of Darkness and Malpertuis; the original screenplay has similar mytho-poetic pretensions, with its ruminations on the nature of good and evil, love, death and the whole damn thing. Po Chih Leong brings a stately sense of foreboding to the proceedings, hints at a contorted, expressionist shadow behind Law's brooding beauty and charisma, and uses the dissolve almost as a fleeting totem of impermanence.

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