Endless Night

A Lao Pan Film production. (International sales: Lao Pan, Beijing.) Produced by Zhang Yifan. Directed, written by Pan Jianlin.
 
With: Guan Na, Bao Tong, Ye Lang, Yao Hui.
 

Night is not the only thing that seems eternal in the dull, feminist parlor game-cum-faux docu "Endless Night," by writer-director Pan Jianlin, a former production manager for helmer Jia Zhangke. Based on a true story, but using actors instead of the actual subjects, DigiBeta outing turns the story of a woman's lifetime of sexual abuse into a 79-minute dirge. Beyond Pusan, where such Asian fare has become distressingly common in its competing New Currents section, pic's future lies in arty fest sidebars that peddle such amateurish filmmaking as avant-garde cinema.

 

A painter (Guan Na) confesses her history of sexual woes to an unseen interviewer, while assorted talking heads (all unidentified) interrupt to make predictions, interpretations and judgments. To further underline pic's message, Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream" is conveniently visible in the background during the protag's interview. Poorly recorded sound includes extraneous traffic noise, rustling clothes and clomping footfalls; sole music is an atmospheric clip from Hans Zimmer's score for "Black Hawk Down" during the opening sequence of the painter taking a shower.