Chinese director Wang Jiangyong keeps the camera at a distance in his feature debut “The Night That Binds Us,” which world premiered in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, observing the uneasy connection between a college student and an older dormitory manager. The film adapts a short story of the same name by Zhang Chu, a winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize, one of China’s top literary awards. It follows Sun Guofeng, whose parents’ arrest on suspicion of fraud leaves him adrift in Shanghai, and An, the dorm manager who is grieving her daughter’s death and the collapse of her family.
Wang says the original story’s image of a dorm manager dancing stayed with him and helped convince him to bring the story to the screen. Wang spent a year developing the script, keeping what he calls the source story’s “pain of alienation and fragile beauty of a forbidden connection.” He added characters including Guofeng’s girlfriend, Yezi, and his roommate, Ale, expanding the story into a relationship among the three. An’s cramped duty room becomes her refuge, while the empty campus during the holidays reflects Guofeng’s uncertainty.
Wang relies on fixed long takes and keeps close-ups to a minimum. He wants the camera to feel like “a quiet observer,” leaving audiences to form their own opinions about the relationship. The characters’ shifting positions in the frame and gradual changes in shot size carry much of the emotional movement.
Only in the final long take does the camera follow Guofeng. Hu Ling, who plays An and whose credits include Lou Ye’s “Summer Palace,” says she was in tears the first time she read the script. Liu Xingsheng, an older schoolmate from film school, recommended her to Wang, and she sent the director a video of herself reading the script through tears.
I’ve been through a lot myself. This script convinced me completely and made me want to bring An to life,” Hu tells Variety. I wanted to keep her grief understated, like someone whose heart has gone numb,” she says of her discussions with Wang about how much emotion An should show.
Hu and Wang also agreed that An and Guofeng’s bond should not be played as a romance. She says she and actor Tan Zuhong, who plays Guofeng, kept their distance off camera as well, remaining courteous colleagues on set. After reading the script, those partners connected with the characters’ circumstances and joined the project.
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