Due to a sound issue at our recent screening of The Shadowless Tower at NeueHouse, we've rescheduled the film's Los Angeles premiere for March 17 and moved the event to 2220 Arts + Archives. All attendees will receive a free tote bag courtesy of MUBI.
Screening to be preceded by a video introduction by Zhang Lu.
Gu Wentong, a middle-aged food critic, is drifting through the local eateries of vibrant Beijing with his younger photographer colleague Oyang. A divorcé with a 6-year-old daughter and estranged from his father for decades, he is looking for a new perspective on life while reconsidering his failings as a father, a son, and a lover.
While the seasons come and go, people get together and move apart. Only one thing will remain the same: The White Pagoda where they all meet sooner or later… Official selection: Berlinale, NYFF, Viennale.
TRT: 144 min.
"A contemplative film of quiet rewards." —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
"A supremely confident piece of film-making... The Shadowless Tower is a wistful drama that suggests unlearning yourself is just as important as knowing yourself." —Patrick Gamble, Little White Lies
"Like the best 'novelistic' films...The Shadowless Tower communicates complex states of being through framing, camera movement, and the accretion of detail over time." —Michael Sicinski, InReviewOnline
"A wistful drama... Zhang, who was an established novelist before pursuing filmmaking, handles the parallels between the characters’ out-of-time-ness and the cultural confusion of an evolving state with literary finesse." —Jake Cole, Slant Magazine
"Wry and wistful... reveals its arcs of change not in dramatic showdowns or sudden revelations, but in ellipses, in the occasional mysterious fold in chronology and, most rewardingly, in the casual, unforced repetition of certain motifs." —Jessica Kiang, Variety
(Available to download after screening date)