In Luz (花明渡), the director and writer Flora Lau has created a thoughtful dissertation on the things in our lives that never change, and the things in our lives that are rapidly changing forever.
In the opening titles, created by the designer Tom Kan, we see all the hyper-real neons that we find not only in the cityscapes of Chongqing and Hong Kong, where parts of the stories are set, but also in the virtual reality worlds in the fictional game of Luz. Wei (Xiao Dong Guo) lives in Chongqing and is a reformed ex-con who yearns to reunite with his estranged daughter, Fa (En Xi Deng), and is reduced to attempting to communicate with her via her online chatroom. Ren (Sandrine Pinna), is a disheartened gallerist in Hong Kong, the daughter of a well know and deceased artist, who has left behind a painting of a deer and the central motif of the film. Sabine (Isabelle Huppert), is the stepmother of Ren who lives in Paris, submerged in the art world, and these two pairings, and the oceans and longings between them, mirror not only each other, but set up a series of juxtapositions which overlap and collide with each other, asking the viewer to question what is real and what is not, and what is it that they really want.
The online multiverse of Luz provides worlds which are virtual, but in this futuristic tech which we all know is just around the corner, feel close, if not better than, real life. The gamers look like themselves, and the worlds look like actual places, poignantly pointing out that what people are looking for in artificial experiences is something authentic.
Premiering at Sundance Film Festival 2025
Written & Directed by: Flora Lau
Produced by: Yvette Tang
Producers: Flora Lau, Stephen Lam, Joseph Sinn Gi Chan
Executive Producer: Yvette Tang
Director of Photography: Benjamin Echazarreta
Editors: Flora Lau, Fernando Epstein, Denis Bedlow
Music Composer: Mimi Xu
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Sandrine Pinna, Xiao Dong Guo, Lu Huang, David Chiang, En Xi Deng, Mimi Xu
The movement of Ren to Paris adds a tonal change, bringing in subdued and classical colours. Huppert is on great form in the film, portraying a sanguine woman with not many days left on the clock, who wants to make the most of what she has left. At one point she admonishes her stepdaughter for wasting time on her video games, and insists on taking her out to an emotionally consuming opening of an art show. In a different way, they both take up their time losing themselves, rather than having the hard conversations that are right in front of them.
The game of Luz provides otherwise unlikely encounters between Wei and Ren, and a platform for an emotional learning arc, that builds around the disco pixelated deer, the drive for the hunt, and the peace in giving up the chase.
At times the need to tie all the strings together, and to clash the complementary elements against each other, can be a little obvious and cliched, but overall the spaces in dialogue and interior life give the viewer license to find themselves in the story, as well as room to appreciate the visual spectacle of the film, and ultimately absorb the messages about healing and connection and forgiveness within families, or as the director noted, the huā míng dù; that is the花 Flower ; the 明Light ; and the 渡 Journey.
Irresistible spoke to one of the producers Joseph Sinn Gi Chan, and the composer and cast member Mimi Xu about the film.
What meaning does all the technology in the film have for you?
Joseph Sinn Gi Chan: The AI part of the film is really a trick to show us what we are all chasing. We are all chasing our iPhones to give us what we don’t have in reality. But for me, we are looking for love and understanding, and forgiving, especially in families, but across all our relationships.
Does the film mean for those ideas to translate to larger arenas?
JC: We need to open our minds and see things from other people’s angles. It’s a film about family, but the ideas can be applied to the whole world, country to country.
How did you set about composing the score for this film?
Mimi Xu: The director transmitted her vision to me and then I tried to transmit my vision in my way. It was a really in- depth collaboration.
This film is very me as I’m French and I have Chinese heritage. I compose and record mostly in London, but I did do some for this film in Paris as well. It was a long process. I personally loved the brief because my natural inclination towards music is to be on a spectrum somewhere between classical and techno, and I work in both those worlds. I was able to express these two sides of myself, as well as think about the past and the future. It’s worlds colliding, virtual and real, and I have really tried to get that across in the music.
You have a role in the film as well?
MX: I play Isabelle Huppert’s assistant. After this experience, I have so much respect for acting. It’s so hard!
Which other music projects are you involved in?
MX: I deejay. I also have a band in London called Awkward Moments: it’s an electronic duo with those classical elements I was talking about. We’re more musically open these days, crossing genres is so much more normal. I like to live in all those worlds.
How do you think a film like this answers questions about community, especially globally?
MX: Everyone can relate to the subject . We all go through loneliness, longing for a better connection with family and friends, with partners. Post- covid especially people are meeting and looking for answers to some of that longing in the virtual reality world. We are all closer now paradoxically, with connections and video calls. I’ve lived in Australia which is far away, but now my Australian friends feel closer. They travel and there’s online connections. We’re getting closer and I think the tech is helping with that.
In the Q&A after the premier, the director explained some more of the process behind the film.
Flora Lou: It took me a while to develop the script, particularly parts about the online game. Production was across a few different countries so that also took a while. After we finished post- production Covid hit, so the film was stalled for a few years. Altogether it’s been an eight year journey.
In Buddhism, everything is an illusion. I’ve been trying to solve this concept for a long time. I made the film to try and dissolve whether everything we see is real or not. The idea of what is real and what is not real is fascinating to me.
I tend to daydream a lot, and I’m constantly going back and forth between a dream world, a virtual world, and the real world. I took my time in writing, so everything happened organically. The game was really difficult to write, it became very complex and I had to throw a lot out to get back to the core of the film.
The deer in many cultures is a special spiritual animal, so it is metaphor for what we chase for in life. A lot of people are chasing after something that could be fake. A lot of time when they figure out what it is they’re chasing, by exploring spirituality, that’s when they see the deer. In the film, when they put down their weapons, the deer actually comes to them, they’ve stopped chasing the illusion.
