Blue Sun Palace

Tsang chooses to forgo much attention to plot or character development, instead prioritizing mood, choosing to harness grief in its pure form.

Blue Sun Palace’s tale is filled with quiet spaces, and the way the texture of this quiet changes over the course of the film is a testament to its power.

“Palace” prioritizes mood over plot. Tsang allows her experienced actors plenty of breathing space to convey the melancholy of their existence in situations where dreams are more likely to be deferred than to come true.

Tsang and her strong cast, with superb contributions from production designer Evaline Wu Huang, have captured something evanescent and life-giving, and grounded it in kitchen clatter and workplace chatter, the gritty day-to-day.

By its final grace note, one that considers the reality that some wounds aren’t meant to heal, “Blue Sun Palace,” a soulful and passionate meditation on loss, shines as a new gem of slow cinema.

An accidental romantic triangle is the centrepiece of Chinese-American writer-director Constance Tsang’s observant, lovely feature debut.

This is ultimately about longing, loneliness, grief, and finding a place in a challenging environment. It is indeed also about the need to feel, yes touch, but not in obvious ways we might expect.

All the essential questions raised throughout revolve around the film’s form: the attractions of cinema here well and truly usurped any (emotional) attachment to cinema.