Resurrection

In theory, Bi Gan’s transcendentally beautiful film Resurrection is a work of science fiction – one set in a future where people can live forever if they surrender the ability to dream. 

But the Chinese filmmaker is not all that bothered about explaining the logistics of this anodyne imagined world. Instead, he follows a single rebel who chooses dreaming over conformity – and like the episodic visions that visit this tossing, turning sleeper, Gan's story has a bewildering logic all of its own. It's simultaneously a mesmerising love letter to film (no wonder it wooed its way to a Prix Spécial at Cannes), and a Buddhism-tinged meditation on what it is to prepare for death, even as the ugliness of the world pulls you back from the brink of nirvana.

We begin in a gorgeously crafted, trippily meta rendition of an old silent movie: figures scurry in and out of a matte painting of an opium den, then a giant hand peels back the picture to reveal a stone tunnel leading underground. This is the lair of the Deliriant (Jackson Yee), who's dressed in a monstrous, Nosferatu-esque white mask, and devouring poppies that fuel the dreams that will soon kill him. A female projectionist/spiritual guide (Shu Qi) finds him and uses his body as a living cinema, loading him up with four films that'll help him let go of his earthly ties before he dies, by living out strange, sinful scenarios. First, he becomes murderously embroiled in the bleak life of a theremin-obsessed musician in a wartime city. Then, he's a former monk who has a surreal encounter with a spirit inhabiting the body of his father in a snow-covered abandoned Buddhist monastery. Next, he’s a card shyster who recruits a young girl to solve a riddle in a luxurious-but-seedy resort. Then, finally, he's a hedonistic young reveller stumbling into the path of vampires on the eve of the millennium, his wild night in a red-lit, rain soaked city depicted in an astounding single take.

Cinema isn’t just a medium here, it’s a healing balm

Throughout, Gan captures the ephemerality of life with slow shots of ponderously melting wax, spinning wheels painted with the fragile life cycle of a poppy, and mandarin characters drawn on the surface of an algae-covered pool, soon surrendering to murk. Cinema isn't just a medium here, it's a healing balm, able to save the Deliriant’s tormented soul by exorcising his darkest impulses and replacing them with moments of sheer filmic wonder. 

Still, even if it's filled with imagery so beautiful you could stick them straight on an art gallery's walls, Resurrection is sometimes maddening to watch. Its intricately-wrought plot strands seem to fall apart as you try to grasp them, like snowflakes melting on hot skin. There are connections and resonances, sure, but it doesn't feel as though the Deliriant's dreams are ultimately intended to make sense. Instead, they're a metaphor for humanity's relentless greedy appetite for meaning, for stories, for beauty, for new experiences. 

Perhaps we really could live forever if we let go of our hunger – but would it be worth it?

In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 13.