The Ambiguous Focus - episodes 4 to 6
The handsome protagonists of novel 'Mr Zhang and Mr Zhang' deserve a last look-in, with their final three episodes coming to a close. They are going to be difficult to write about without giving away spoilers and without writing too abstractly, but I'll give it a try. (To read my earlier review of episodes 1 to 3, you can find it here.)
Summary: Zhang Nan and Zhang Zhe continue with their struggles in their new separate lives, pining for each other but still heavily constrained by the forced exile imposed on them in episode three. They desperately try to meet when they can, but most of their secret contact is over the phone. The lives of their friends continue to deteriorate as well, and everyone is increasingly despairing of their future. Chunzi's relationship turns upside down and destabilises all his friends.
The three final episodes of this grim mini-series are very grim indeed. The earlier trap set for Zhe and Nan is now inescapable and exerts an increasingly unbearable tension. But somehow the bulk of the interactions between the characters are still so restrained and calm, even when surrounded by the turbulent hopelessness of it all. Whenever the tension finally snaps, there's such a flood of bitter tears and violent recriminations that the audience is left torn and ragged. The Ambiguous Focus gives us no joy, no kindness, no simple pleasures, no relief from the horrors the boys are living. Its narrative tortures us just as it did in the first three episodes, but now despair has become the sharpest and strongest note in this dirge of endless pain, confusion and anger.
Each episode still alternates in perspective between Nan and Zhe, as it backtracks over the same period of time and thereby offers up its shock revelations per character. However this narrative device has now started to wear thin. It was genuinely astonishing in episode three, but by the time we reach the climax of episode six, it has nothing further to offer. What we really need are clear answers and honest motives, and while the story's sleight of hand is still interesting, it is by now detracting from the coherence of the narrative and has become unexpectedly annoying. There's simply not enough to anchor us to Nan and Zhe - or to their lives before all this mess started - to be able to tolerate plot contortions or limited characterisations any more. So it's a shame that what focus there is rests entirely on The Answer to The Big Question "Will they get back together?", which is too abstract when there's so much hysteria and high-stakes tragedy unfolding around them. There was great potential for real drama in the initial episodes, especially in what could have been secretly worked out between Nan and Zhe to escape their nightmare and possibly even run away and get married (as Zhe even suggests on a couple of occasions). Instead the evasive, camp exaggerations of the melodrama and its over-reliance on narrative deceit completely hijack the show.
The finest moment in these episodes comes when The Big Question is finally answered, and it draws on everything we've experienced with the boys on their harrowing journey into the future. Without giving anything away, it's quiet, restrained and beautifully judged, and all of it happens as we watch Nan drink a cup of tea that Zhe makes for him. It's by far the best scene in a series that has repeatedly aimed high at portraying their violated love but used the opposite means to reach up to it. It just demonstrates where this show could have gone from the beginning, if only it had reined itself in more judiciously.
Unfortunately this beautiful moment is promptly ruined by giving us the final scene on a bridge with the two boys that undermines all its earlier hard work. Once again, the show's ambiguities and manipulations produce an effect on its audience that makes us neither happy nor sad, just mystified and annoyed at what has been squandered (our goodwill being not the least among the long list of losses). It's fine to deny the audience a concrete resolution, and it makes sense to deny it in this instance, but it's common decency to give us something concrete in return. Especially when the rest of the show has been like trudging thirstily through a scorching hot desert shimmering with mirages. The final ten minutes of the drama will certainly make you marvel at its tragic beauty, but it's just as likely going to make you want to give up searching for answers in disgust. There is nothing definite about The Ambiguous Focus, and that's both its greatest strength and its worst failing. It's disappointing in all its pointlessly elaborate magnificence.
Rating: 13 out of 20
Ending: Ambiguous. What else could we expect?
Best scene:
If you want bitchiness, high drama and passion, the break-up scene at the bar in episode two is breathtakingly good.
If you want restraint and incongruity, the climactic cup of tea scene in episode six is perfection.
Summary: Zhang Nan and Zhang Zhe continue with their struggles in their new separate lives, pining for each other but still heavily constrained by the forced exile imposed on them in episode three. They desperately try to meet when they can, but most of their secret contact is over the phone. The lives of their friends continue to deteriorate as well, and everyone is increasingly despairing of their future. Chunzi's relationship turns upside down and destabilises all his friends.
The three final episodes of this grim mini-series are very grim indeed. The earlier trap set for Zhe and Nan is now inescapable and exerts an increasingly unbearable tension. But somehow the bulk of the interactions between the characters are still so restrained and calm, even when surrounded by the turbulent hopelessness of it all. Whenever the tension finally snaps, there's such a flood of bitter tears and violent recriminations that the audience is left torn and ragged. The Ambiguous Focus gives us no joy, no kindness, no simple pleasures, no relief from the horrors the boys are living. Its narrative tortures us just as it did in the first three episodes, but now despair has become the sharpest and strongest note in this dirge of endless pain, confusion and anger.
Each episode still alternates in perspective between Nan and Zhe, as it backtracks over the same period of time and thereby offers up its shock revelations per character. However this narrative device has now started to wear thin. It was genuinely astonishing in episode three, but by the time we reach the climax of episode six, it has nothing further to offer. What we really need are clear answers and honest motives, and while the story's sleight of hand is still interesting, it is by now detracting from the coherence of the narrative and has become unexpectedly annoying. There's simply not enough to anchor us to Nan and Zhe - or to their lives before all this mess started - to be able to tolerate plot contortions or limited characterisations any more. So it's a shame that what focus there is rests entirely on The Answer to The Big Question "Will they get back together?", which is too abstract when there's so much hysteria and high-stakes tragedy unfolding around them. There was great potential for real drama in the initial episodes, especially in what could have been secretly worked out between Nan and Zhe to escape their nightmare and possibly even run away and get married (as Zhe even suggests on a couple of occasions). Instead the evasive, camp exaggerations of the melodrama and its over-reliance on narrative deceit completely hijack the show.
The finest moment in these episodes comes when The Big Question is finally answered, and it draws on everything we've experienced with the boys on their harrowing journey into the future. Without giving anything away, it's quiet, restrained and beautifully judged, and all of it happens as we watch Nan drink a cup of tea that Zhe makes for him. It's by far the best scene in a series that has repeatedly aimed high at portraying their violated love but used the opposite means to reach up to it. It just demonstrates where this show could have gone from the beginning, if only it had reined itself in more judiciously.
Unfortunately this beautiful moment is promptly ruined by giving us the final scene on a bridge with the two boys that undermines all its earlier hard work. Once again, the show's ambiguities and manipulations produce an effect on its audience that makes us neither happy nor sad, just mystified and annoyed at what has been squandered (our goodwill being not the least among the long list of losses). It's fine to deny the audience a concrete resolution, and it makes sense to deny it in this instance, but it's common decency to give us something concrete in return. Especially when the rest of the show has been like trudging thirstily through a scorching hot desert shimmering with mirages. The final ten minutes of the drama will certainly make you marvel at its tragic beauty, but it's just as likely going to make you want to give up searching for answers in disgust. There is nothing definite about The Ambiguous Focus, and that's both its greatest strength and its worst failing. It's disappointing in all its pointlessly elaborate magnificence.
Rating: 13 out of 20
Ending: Ambiguous. What else could we expect?
Best scene:
If you want bitchiness, high drama and passion, the break-up scene at the bar in episode two is breathtakingly good.
If you want restraint and incongruity, the climactic cup of tea scene in episode six is perfection.
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