SOUNDLESS WIND CHIME (2009) Kit Hung

An enigmatic love story, filled with silences, unfolding across multiple time planes: past and present intersect, creating a single whole. This non-time is supported by the Eastern belief— repeatedly cited in the film —that a person, after their death, returns on the seventh day to say their goodbyes.

Words are almost entirely lacking, and understanding the story isn't easy, even if you let the images lead you along and take you by the hand: you have to get to the end of the film to fully understand it.

Technically, it's truly accomplished: beautifully colored photography, long takes, and equally evocative urban and natural landscapes. Despite being set between Hong Kong and Switzerland, the influences of Eastern cinema are prominent.

Even if the film is light and sweet, the story told speaks of an unbalanced love in which Pascal , a restless Swiss man who works as a street artist in Hong Kong ( and sometimes The thief ), he treats Ricky like a servile Chinese boy, subjugating him. Pascal needs Ricky but also desires a life that includes other boys to meet, discos, and freedom. This emotional dichotomy makes him suffer, and although I don't like his character at all, the moment he realizes that his behavior hurts Ricky beyond measure, he has an intuition of guilty awareness in a fabulous scene inside a bus, shot in beautiful colors.

It's very strange that such an intense and well-made film ( it took the director five years to finish it ) was successful only in very limited circles.