FREE and EASY 轻松＋愉快
(97 min, 2016, dir. GENG Jun 耿军)
Fresh from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival!
Followed by a Q & A with the director, producer and cast members
Friday, February 3, 7:30 PM
Michelson Theater, NYU Dept. of Cinema Studies
721 Broadway, 6th Floor
Presented by the Asian Film & Media Initiative in the Department of Cinema Studies.
NYU ID required.
Under a tin-gray sky, in a hollowed out corner of northern China, a stranger arrives in town bearing magical soap—but smelling it will cost you. Nearby, a pair of unenthused cops try cracking a seemingly simple case. Or not. And you can forget religious solace; the only monk around is not what he seems.
Director Jun Geng is at his best when he celebrates the gaunt, manufactured landscapes of an unseen China and holds anyone of authority up to a Jarmusch-esque light for examination. Geng’s affection for his ensemble of offbeat, yet everyday, characters—combined with cool, angular visuals that create a strange harmony between the harsh, geographical backdrop and its humble inhabitants—makes their absurdist journeys feel human.
Steeping a caper in a workerless industrial center puts a fresh twist on the crime genre, proving Geng’s love of working against convention, as he casts a satirical eye on a system so flawed it’s tragicomic.
––2017 Sundance Film Festival
About the director
Geng Jun was born in 1976 in Heilongjiang Province, China. He has directed and written many films including Hawthorn (2002), Diary in Bulk (2003), Barbecue (2004 Festival of 3 Continents, 2005 International Film Festival Rotterdam), Youth (2009 Rome International Film Festival), and The Hammer and Sickle are Sleeping (2013 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival best short film winner). Jun also directed Poetry and Disease (2011). The Hammer and Sickle are Sleeping screened at NYU Cinema Studies in October for the 8th Reel China@NYU Biennial.
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