Recommended if you are into Art-House cinema.

Well acted, and the way the characters communicate with the camera and with each other is rather compelling.

But the pace is too slow. Even though it is quite short in absolute time (around 90 minutes only) , I started to lose interest in what was going on by the middle of it.

Not in the list of movies I will rewatch, even though I'm happy I've watched it once.

Xiao Mei a young troubled girl living in a big city vanishes, her last days are reconstructed by her family, lovers and acquaintances in this faux documentary style drama.

In short: Warning; this is a slowpaced mystery with a clear focus on subtle drama and silent human suffering. Don't exspect anything else. Protagnoist is know as Qin Ren Mei/Xiao Mei (some symbolism here?). This could have been a strong 8 or a weak 9 if only a handful or minor things were better/different.

So the story is built up around a subversed character study (from the outside looking in),in of itself nothing new but done realistically (yes, also on a string budget afaik) and feels real capturing the despair of the protagonist through alot of it. Especially the train journey is good cinemtaographical candy for those working with movies.

If you do not care for serene movies with despair in them (that rely, as trance do, on bringing a state of mind to the viewer/listener) this is not for you.

In longer: Around the hour mark it explains the notion of ghosts, spirits and the looker on from a modern perspective.

After that another Journey is shown to begin as a woman enters a train and then exits a black tunnel simply to enter another one and exit that and so on. -An analogy of life's inner up's and down's, this is also shown more clearly when the woman on the train has been instructed not to talk when they pass within the tunnel, but to wait for light before "being extrovert" by communicating. The trainride ends with a red horizon covered by heavy clouds above, the sea and some few lights in the darkness shown before it fades to black and a white and black photgraph of Xiao Mei is shown sitting in a concrete tunnel with a thin light at the end. A tunnel that is gradually faded into black. The thin light remains to last as an "I" before also fading.

A photographer's story is then told and how he comes to follow her to the same concrete tunnel (culvert) - and the picture we recently got is subverted where she's walking toward the light and as it grows she becomes a black line on the bright background. -A yin and yang symbolicism for the inner journies - denoting a comment on their impact on the outer journey. The black line ("I") then fades into white. As the photographer follows he also fades into white. Possibly a note that you need to let go of your subject at some point (as in the real ending of Xiao Mei's story was also the ending of the photographer).

Pro's Classical plotline done well and realistically Cinemtaography Symbolicism

Con's Doesn't use environmental sounds enough to strengthen the emotional setting Some of the scenes feels a little forced The meta perspective where the director breaks the 4th wall actively doesn't really ad that much to the story (as example watch the short Here from 2012).

End notes MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD: "Faust is dead." is written at a house near the incident in centrum for the movie, the incident which the missing protagonist went missing after. Denoting either her state of mind or that her trade with the devil was not to be and she had broken it off.

The fading phography can be viewed as the ending story of Mei, until then the photographer is found - when they both then fade that could be explanatory of the "real" end to Mei. The 4th person breaking interview does this ex post (after the event) meaning that the photographer made it out of the tunnel, creating an uncertainty around Mei - possibly implying what happened.