[Tweet from TIFF ’18; I’ll revisit the film at some point and write more.]
Feels scattershot, even for Jia, and I’m not surprised to learn that it’s inspired by material omitted from Unknown Pleasures and Still Life. Zhao holds it together, as usual, here with a valuable assist from the always galvanizing Liao Fan.
70/100
Second viewing, last seen just prior to its original theatrical run. My Time Out New York review (appended below) implies that I had seen The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, which in fact I still have not; presumably the animated sequences here are taken from that earlier effort. Feels a tad lazy on Temple's part. In general, though, I remain impressed by how anarchic this comes across, even as it largely conforms to the retrospective rock doc's chronological-oral-history template.…
