If you’ve been watching the movies coming out of China over the past few years, you’ve no doubt noticed that many… okay, most… of them have a patriotic bent. Gone are subjects that the government has deemed to undermine national security, and that means no more movies about corrupt cops or government officials because they just don’t exist in China. Instead, there are plenty of films about the wonderful men and women who diligently serve in the disciplined services, the country’s fabulous space program or the evil foreigners who exploit naïve Chinese tourists and migrant workers. There have also been a few films of late that take a look back into China’s recent past. Those are the arthouse films. Out now is one such film, ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS, which is set in the early 1990s, just as China was beginning its period of rapid modernization.

Ma Zhe (Zhu Yilong/朱一龍, LIGHTING UP THE STARS) is the chief of police in a provincial town in rural China. When an old woman is found murdered on the bank of the town’s river, the clues quickly point to a local man known as “the madman” as the prime suspect. No sooner is the madman apprehended and committed to a mental hospital, then Ma’s boss (Hou Tianlai/侯天來, COME BACK HOME) pushes him to close the case quickly so that it will look good to the party bigwigs. Ma, though, has his doubts of the madman’s guilt but after the madman escapes from the hospital, more people suddenly turn up dead… by the river. As Ma continues to investigate the murders, he begins to see that others in the town may have had motives to kill too. All is not as it seems on the surface in this dreary town. Meanwhile, Ma’s wife, teacher Bai Jie (Chloe Maayan/Zeng Meihuizi/曾美慧孜, THREE HUSBANDS) is pregnant with their first child and there’s a chance that the baby has a genetic defect. Faced with the question of whether Bai Jie should have an abortion, along with the case and his boss’ insistence to wrap things up, Ma is pushed to the brink where he doesn’t even know what is real and what is imagined.

Based on Yu Hua’s/余華 novella, “Mistakes by the River”, ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS is director Wei Shujun’s/魏書鈞 fourth film to play at the Cannes International Film Festival. Not surprisingly, many of the movie critics who cover Cannes fell over themselves waxing poetic about this film. Clearly, ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS plays right into their egos with its pretentious cinematography (the film was shot in 16 mm and has a grim, grainy look) and its message that everyone in this town is offbeat to some extent. I can see what Wei and his co-screenwriter Kang Chunlei/康春雷 (who pulls double duty here acting as “the madman”) were trying to achieve here but we’ve seen much of this before. I’m reminded of a similar neo-noir film from 2014, BLACK COAL, THIN ICE (白日焰火), which took home the Golden Bear (for Best Film) and the Silver Bear (for Best Actor) at the Berlinale that year. ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS meanders, much like the titular river that should be flowing. Like BLACK COAL, THIN ICE, there are some scenes that are very specifically rooted in mainland Chinese habits, particularly when it comes to eating. In this film, Ma smokes with one hand while he eats with the other. It’s no wonder his unborn child might have a defect with all that second-hand smoke he’s forcing his wife to breathe. I shudder at the bad memories of my trips to China in the 1980s and ’90s that those scenes bring back to mind.

But back to the film, even though its metaphors, and there are many, are a little too on the nose, it did very well on the festival circuit before opening in Chinese cinemas in October. Since that time, it has become one of that country’s highest grossing arthouse films. Maybe even the mainland Chinese are tiring of their jingoistic movies.

ONLY THE RIVER FLOWS opened yesterday in Hong Kong. For me, it was a big shrug. Maybe you’ll feel differently.

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