An unnamed videographer drifts down Shanghai's Suzhou River, narrating the story of Mardar, a motorcycle courier who fell for a girl named Moudan, lost her, and has been searching for her ever since - except the videographer's own girlfriend, Meimei, might be Moudan reincarnated, or might just look like her. Lou Ye builds Suzhou River as a woozy, handheld neo-noir, equal parts Hitchcock and Wong Kar-wai, where it's never entirely clear which parts are being witnessed and which are being invented on the spot. The film won the Tiger Award at Rotterdam and was named one of Time Magazine's best films of the year, but it also got Lou banned from filmmaking in China for two years for screening it internationally without approval - one of the defining works of China's "Sixth Generation," made on the fly with a documentary rawness that's since become impossible to fake. J. Hoberman of The Village Voice called it a documentary that feels like a dream, while TIME's Richard Corliss described it as a ravishing wasteland of femmes fatales and lovelorn tough guys. Asia Cine-Club: Suzhou River (2000, China) Tuesday, October 6 | Doors: 6PM | Film: 8PM | TicTic, Phnom Penh
