When Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival was inaugurated in 1996, it was known affectionately as FantAsia, dedicating itself to bringing exposure to the cinemas of China, Japan, South Korea and other countries in the region. The fest still lives up to this initial mandate, but has also expanded its scope to include all kinds of weird and wonderful genres, as well as making room for some higher-profile North American and Canadian premieres. Nonetheless, Fantasia has to do less of the heavy lifting — that is to say, it can share with its audiences singular Asian flicks that other, bigger festivals have done the work of uncovering.
One prominent example in this year’s edition Liu Jian’s “Have a Nice Day,” which previously made a splash in the main competition at this year’s Berlinale. Making its Canadian Premiere in Montreal, “Have a Nice Day” — a sort of geographically shifted, off-kilter animated update of the Coen Brothers’ “Blood Simple” — is a bitter pill to swallow, a film that is likely too slow for genre fans and too misanthropic and unfocused for Chinese arthouse diehards.
Very much wearing its influences on its sleeves, Liu’s sophomore feature follows a cast of characters over the course of one night, all in pursuit of a bag of cash. Broken up into four distinct acts, “Have a Nice Day” kicks off when Xiao Zhang seizes an opportunity to steal his boss’ money in order to fund further plastic surgery for his girlfriend. Not only does gang boss Uncle Liu send a goon to retrieve his plundered yuan (bowler-clad Skinny, an Anton Chigurh type that shores up the Coen brothers connection), but a series of friends, relatives and strangers who catch wind of the money also hatch their own plans for how they might get ahead in the world if they could get their mitts on it.
If popular American and Japanese animation is characterized by its dynamic movement (think the innovations in the establishing shots of “Akira” or Roger Deakins’ contributions to “Wall-E”), “Have a Nice Day” is as static and slow-moving as the work of, say, Jia Zhangke. That is, the film moves like one would expect of many Chinese-language arthouse classics: long, almost static takes, lingering images that emphasize the texture of a lived-in environment and creative use of off-screen space. Arguably, this tack, while clearly an act of economy for a film that’s making the most of its limited budget, is even more distancing than Jia’s occasionally obtuse work.
The aforementioned pacing of “Have a Nice Day,” and its ensuing arthouse vibes, are complicated by the choice of medium which seems to erase any trace of humanity in the face of greed. None of the compounding relationships and unlikely intersections of characters are above exploitation, and the protagonist’s potentially noble ambitions to aid his girlfriend are drowned in ridicule. Don’t look for any detached-yet-affecting performances or feats of animation here—Liu’s interests are far more critical and mean-spirited, just as they are invested in the postmodern frontiers of genre and style.
It’s forgivable — even admirable — for an animated film to limit its range of movement and the breadth of its locations in accord with the scale of its production. However, “Have a Nice Day” also hammers in its themes, expounding on the culture of greed as capitalism transforms the modern landscape of China. This transformation is a literal one, setting the film in a crumbling, desiccated concrete city that has been left behind as centers of production and development ebb and flow.
If the genre beats and dark humor of the film are liable to ring familiar with Western audiences, something is lost in the foregrounded sense of space, who are unlikely to recognize the prescient of a dialectic of development and decay. It is fun spotting barely-disguised advertising posted on the walls of an Internet café or pasted on alley walls; “Halo” and “The Hunger Games” stick out as more memorable Easter eggs that speak to the cultural exchange between the East and the West.
The unique cocktail of Coen brothers-esque cynicism and the Sixth Generation’s wariness of Chinese capitalism in “Have a Nice Day” makes for a sour blend. While Liu Jian’s effort might jibe with some, it is far more likely to confound audiences. Regardless of the film’s quality, it should always be commended when a new animation studio takes a foothold in an unlikely territory, signalling a font of creativity ready to spring forth. “Have a Nice Day” marks the emergence of a significant countercultural voice from China, and one that has proven distinctive—and yet familiar— enough to bend the international ear. You know you’ve struck a nerve with the establishment when the prestigious Annecy International Animated Film Festival has to bow to pressure from the Chinese government and remove your film from their selection. Here’s hoping director Liu Jian and his animation team have the savviness to navigate censorship as they refine their form and message. [C+]