Chinese director Gu You's conclusion to his 'Landscape' trilogy too often steps into maudlin territory, but rights itself whenever it focuses on everyday details in its portrait of three generations of grieving women.
By Guy Lodge
Plus IconGuy Lodge
Film Critic
@guylodge See All
Busan International Film Festival The most moving scene in “The First Taste of Loneliness” is not, in fact, its most tear-streaked. Gu You‘s heartfelt family portrait opens on an extended, anguished scene of three women — a mother, her daughter and her granddaughter — keeping vigil at the bedside of their beloved husband, father and grandfather as his longtime battle with pancreatic cancer comes to a close. Emotions run high and loud; the camera peers closely into their grief. But it’s a quieter, more composed moment a little later that really jabs at the heart. A short time after her father’s death, Yue (Zhou Xun) opens the final jar of his famous homemade pickles, tastes them, and with the bittersweet knowledge that she’ll never get to do so again, declares it a good batch.
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