Free and Easy

Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurismäki, Fargo (the Coen brothers) and Samuel Beckett's absurd plays are all fitting references for what goes on in Free and Easy, winner of a prestigious jury award at Sundance 2017. The film is set in Northeastern China, where a stranger arrives in a snow-covered and seemingly desolate small town. He presents himself as a soap salesman, but is not quite as innocent as he seems. Most of the other characters are also trying to fool each other (or themselves): a dubious monk, a Christian man searching for his missing mother, a confused reforestation agent, a talentless Kung Fu-instructor and two lazy cops.

There seems to be a general lack of trust, meaning and direction, mockery is made of all figures of authority, and daily life – or rather, survival – drags slowly on. Only when a murder takes place do the characters realise that they might have something to gain from helping each other.

Free and Easy is classical deadpan comedy, with a deliberately slow pace, and characters closer to one-dimensional types than fully realised individuals. But the film is anything but simple and superficial. The comic timing is exquisite, and cinematographer Wang Weihua makes brilliant use of the landscape and the architectural ruin of the small town, suggesting a backdrop of dramatic social change. Cato Fossum

Geng Jun (b. 1976) is from Northeastern China, but is now based in Beijing and part of the independent film community there. He has written and directed a number of films, including the comedy The Hammer and Sickle are Sleeping (2014), also set in the Northeast.