Blue Gate Crossing

A high school in Taipei. Yueh-chen likes her classmate Shihao but cannot tell him. She asks her close friend Kerou for help: Kerou will carry the letter and speak for her. Kerou goes. Shihao notices the girl who brought the letter and likes her. Kerou does not want this. Her own feelings are elsewhere and she is only now understanding it: the person she likes is Yueh-chen. Nothing is said among the three of them. The swimming pool, bicycles, preparing for examinations and the school wall; the narrative moves among these. Yee Chih-yen writes and directs. Gwei Lun-Mei and Chen Bolin are in the cast. It is a Taiwanese and French co-production. It was shown in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. For Gwei Lun-Mei and Chen Bolin the film was the start of their careers. Its form is minimal; little music, little event, and the characters do not say what they think. The matter it treats is a feeling that cannot be named; the narrative does not turn it into a story of coming out and uses no labels. The school wall and the night scenes are its spaces; the city is barely seen. Its ending gives no resolution and does so deliberately. Its limit is scale; the narrative is small and it would be wrong to wait for a large event. Who it is for: viewers who like Taiwanese cinema and quiet stories of the young. Who it is not for: it is slow, has little event, and the ending is left open.