Sun Spots - Heng Yang, 2009

The plot of Sun Spots is minimal. It all comes down to a tragic love triangle. A tattooed young man lives without God, injunctions or aim in a quiet green corner of China. He does violent jobs for loan sharks - his machete is never out of reach. He falls in love with a pretty girl. She tries to forget her sorrow about the deceit of her former lover. If this synopsis sounds like a typical Asian gangster melodrama, the style and story of Yang Heng’s second feature is very different. In 31 shots, he shows what is possible with the sharpness of modern HD video, without camera movements, zooms or cuts. The visual experience is shaped by the length of time that people get to study all the details in the beautiful landscapes - from discarded beer bottles in the foreground to small rivers in the background and of course the body language of the characters, who are (usually) somewhere in the middle