Bi Gan on ‘Resurrection’, the Movie Monster and the Art of the Rewatch

Would you give up the ability to dream in order to live forever?

That question sets the stage for Bi Gan’s latest sci-fi drama, Resurrection, a film set in a future where humanity has sacrificed the ability to dream in exchange for immortality, though there is a small group of people who refuse to stop dreaming, known as Deliriants. These people would rather succumb to a hastened demise if it means spending their last days in the warmth of their illusions. Tasked with hunting them down is an agent known as The Big Other, who has the ability to enter the Deliriants’ dreams and snuff them out by shattering their illusions.

Resurrection focuses on one Deliriant in particular, known as the Fantasmer (Jackson Yee), who has taken the physical form of a monster. When The Big Other (Shu Qi) apprehends him, she takes pity. Instead of terminating him immediately, she provides a merciful death by placing a projector inside him, allowing him to take one final journey through his dreams. Inside the Fantasmer’s mind, we are taken through six unmoored stories that span a century of Chinese history and cinematic eras, from the silent era to noir and now. As the movie monster drifts through a century of illusions, its sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch are all stripped away until its consciousness fades completely.

Some films aren’t looking to be analyzed but experienced, a sentiment that could apply to Resurrection. While it boasts Bi Gan’s visually poetic style, its deeper resonance may elude the casual viewer. Laden with reverence for film history and realized through masterful camera work—including a signature one-take sequence—the film envelops audiences in its own spellbinding illusion that will most likely leave them with a feeling instead of a thought. Resurrection enters as a reminder of what cinema has given us—and what one could lose if they, too, choose to stop dreaming.

I spoke with Bi Gan about his latest film, his visual style, and why our protagonist had to be a monster. 

This interview was conducted via translator and has been edited for length and/or clarity. 

One thing I can’t shake is that in a film that feels like a love letter to the power of movies, the dreamer himself is a monster. Why make that choice? To me, it creates this fascinating tension. Is it a caution about getting lost in dreams, or is the monster in some way a reflection of guilt or obsession?

Bi Gan: For me, starting from the very beginning as I was writing this, I never intended to make a film about a love letter to film in general. I really wanted to make a film with this particular time span of 100 years to really look at the histories in China. The biggest challenge for me is to find an entry point. How am I going to tell this story with such a long time span? And I thought about using film history itself as an entry point to tease out the histories in China over the past 100 years. And that’s sort of the intention of making a connection to film.

I also think about the core of this particular character’s need to navigate and traverse within these 100 years through history and through film. It has to be almost like this monster of illusions, very gentle, but at the same time also carries with it, or with him, the power to really go through different eras and different genres and different styles, as a way to tell those stories.

In watching your films, I can imagine that the images are so precise in your mind before you shoot. You’ve said that you write in images. Have there been moments when you see what you want to do but get to set and things don’t quite work as planned? How do you navigate those moments when the visuals are so key to your poetic style?

I do have, in terms of storyboard, in terms of shooting script, going into each shoot, but also I’m very open to making adjustments based on what’s being captured on location during the shoot. For example, if I have the little girl who cannot cry the way that I want the tear to happen, then I will find a different way to maybe change the angle of the camera, change the time that I film this particular sequence, just so that I can somehow find a way to still get the tears that I want for that particular sequence.

So for me, it’s very much an evolving process open to a lot of onsite adjustments in order for me to get not only what I have in mind, but hopefully what will be even better than what I expected or what I can ever imagine or envision this particular shot should be.

You sort of touched upon the chord of the way that I operate. It’s that yes, I’m precise as a director going into each shoot, but at the same time, I’m also open to have the kind of special moments that give each frame certain soul, certain sensibilities, certain emotions as a result of the adjustments I might make during the actual shoot.

I’m fascinated by the six-chapter structure and how they showcase a different era of cinema. Which one’s central idea was the hardest to physically realize?

I am going to answer this question in a different way to think about how I define being challenging, being difficult, because there are different types of difficulties that I have experienced in these six different chapters. To me, the most challenging and difficult in terms of which part will definitely be the long take because that is just what it takes in order for you to have the one uninterrupted shot sequenced and done. So, that is the most challenging part.

Having said that, I do think that there’s also the difficulty in terms of how deeply you can portray a story to have those kinds of profound emotions and feelings that I want for the temple scene, for example. It’s seemingly a pretty straightforward shoot, and we finished in 10 days, but at the same time, this is the segment, the chapter that’s filled with a lot of scenery shots. How am I going to somehow, using those scenery shots, connect with the actors and have this sort of zen-like feeling and profoundness for them to really explore the sense of deep pain, deep guilt, and deep redemption along with the backdrop of this freezing cold snowy day? Those are all the terms of profoundness that are harder to really capture for this particular segment, and that’s why it is challenging and difficult on a different level.

And then the last one, in terms of technicality, it is very difficult to recreate the silent film chapter. How are you going to use this particular film language without contemporary technologies? It is very, very difficult to navigate in terms of the technology involvement, also the technical prowess that you need to have in order for you to not only recreate that silent film era, but also a silent film era at the beginning of the 20th century with a dreamlike quality. So, those were the challenges and difficulties in the different chapters.

I have to ask about time. We’re all used to consuming things quickly, on small screens, often with divided attention. But your films ask for the opposite—a long, focused sit in a dark room, void of distraction. Is that demand part of the point? Are you contributing to a necessary space that’s disappearing?

So, definitely it is one of the reasons that I make the films in the way that you described. Not only because I want to examine the film viewing experience as a collective humanity that we now have somehow evolved, but also the way that we receive information on a daily basis.

I do think that there’s a certain personal preference in terms of how I view and see the experience of watching a film. To me, it’s not so much just making films to conquer against how films and information are being consumed now in general. I just think that this is the most beautiful and the best way to watch a film. This is my personal opinion and my personal preference as well, that you need to watch film on a big screen in a dark room, collectively, along with other people, so that we are feeling that loneliness together.

And it’s that kind of sense of film viewing experience that I’m trying to create. You have a vehicle that we can still do that through my films. So, that’s sort of one of the reasons why I’m making the films the way I make them.

For me, I do think that when you mentioned this sort of small screens and short clips, it’s very fragmentary. I really hope that I, along with other filmmakers, will make more films that are not as fragmented as most of the devices that we use nowadays.

There are some films that want to be solved and some that want you to just experience them. With Resurrection, I found myself doing both. So I’m really curious: for you, as the filmmaker, what is the preferred state for the viewer? Should we think about it, live in it, or are you aiming for something different altogether?

I think that a testament to a good film is a film that is worthy of repeat viewing. Resurrection, to me, is one of those films you really need to take a long time to watch, and then watch again years or months later. You need to have a much longer cycle to think about this particular film because I do think that the way we understand films really involves a lot with the logic and life experience you carry with you when you are watching that particular film. And that kind of logic, that kind of lived experience, they are constantly evolving.

I can give you an example. Recently, I rewatched Hitchcock’s film Strangers on a Train. When I watched it in the past, I sort of tried to figure out why the story’s being told this way and that way, and how there are certain devices for the film. But then, when I watch it again as a more mature filmmaker, somehow I didn’t pay any attention to the plot lines, the devices, and the design. I’m very much about how certain shots are being captured and why.

And so again, I’m watching it with a completely different perspective because I now carry with me different logics and different life experiences. And therefore I get something that I didn’t get before when I watched it for the first time.

Resurrection is now playing in select theaters.