Hooo boy. So there are a lot of things to say about this film, better captured in other reviews, and probably more acutely felt, since Brighter Summer seems more like a film that I appreciated and admired rather than loved, although I suppose this has more to do with an aesthetic preference for complex and novelistic cinema working inside of a family context (Yi Yi is my Yang pick) rather than being applied at a communal and societal level, which…

When I was young, I realized that I could do what I thought was best and still hurt those around me in a way that I could not see. It crushed me. This happens when the branches of the family tree split: a child must shake off their parents’ influence and test their limits. We are given life, but must come into one of our own creation. Our lives are filled with these meaningful contradictions and mixed feelings: we may…