Picture of the movie Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui (The Wild Goose Lake ) © DR
The lovers’ escape by Diao Yinan
An actor in Mingri tianya (All Tomorrow’s Parties) in 2003, Diao Yinan went on to direct Ye Che (Night Train), screened in Un Certain Regard in 2007, the story of a relationship between a female guard in a women's prison and the lover of a prisoner she had executed. Five years after Bai ri yan huo (Black Coal, 2014), the gruesome story about a mysterious laundress living in a mining town, Chinese director-screenwriter Diao Yinan continues to highlight the social divides in his country in Nan Fang Che Zhan De Ju Hui (The Wild Goose Lake), a dark thriller screened in Competition. Actors Hu Ge (Xin hai ge ming (1911), 2011) and Wan Qian (Dang kou feng yun (God of War), 2017) play out their fate. Interview.
What drove you to work on this film?
The inspiration came to me quite spontaneously. A few years ago, one afternoon, I was sitting on the sofa listening to music. It was a foreign song with lyrics that I found hard to understand but by ear, I guessed it was a song about a love affair. Suddenly, a story came into my head: to escape from a police manhunt, a prisoner on the run crosses half of China to a beach where he finds his girlfriend from high school. I wrote it and then I set it aside. Years later, this fictitious story actually happened in real life. So I decided to transform it into a script.
How did you choose the actors?
I have a completely open attitude with regard to actors. My choices are not only based on how an actor's temperament resembles that of the character. I also tend to look for actors who are very different from the ones who appear to be suitable for the role because this adds a different colour to the whole thing. I like to invite professional actors to interact with amateurs because simple performances can be the source of a true feeling of transparency.
Is The Wild Goose Lake as sinister and criminal as your other films?
Sinister and criminal often go together, and this is the way I see the world: my characters are dangerous, charming and condemned.
