Ni de lian

The first woman can’t keep a smile from her lips; the third woman wiggles her tongue frantically before collapsing into giggles. When the second man blinks, his eyes stay shut longer than necessary; the fourth man plays a harmonica but makes no other sound. We only ever see their faces, shot from the front or in profile, looking into the frame or past it, at something or someone else, with the same backdrop each time, an indeterminate room of shadows and shades of green. Some speak or even converse with the man behind the camera, others stay silent or appear to fall asleep; all have reached a certain age. The chimes and drones on the soundtrack ebb and flow, although their rhythm is as unpredictable as that of the film, there’s no fixed duration, no certainty of start or finish, no set amount of context, the faces are the only true constant, together with the movements they make. Recollections of childhood, money, and love flow out of wrinkles, foreheads, and baggy eyelids, or perhaps it’s the other way around. The last man is an actor and a familiar one at that, but here he’s no different from all the rest; faces grow old on the big screen, just like your face, like mine. (James Lattimer)