First Love: The Litter on the Breeze

Eric Kot's 1997 Hong Kong film follows a director asked to make a film about first love. Kot shows his own process of thinking: the ideas he rejected, the unfinished attempts and finally the two stories he chose all appear inside the narrative. One of the two is about a woman who sleepwalks at night and a man who watches her from a distance; the other about a married shop owner confronted by a first love. Neither is completed and the film does not hide it. Kot was known as a comedian and does something entirely formal here; the editing is scattered, the narrative turns on itself and genre expectation is repeatedly broken. Takeshi Kaneshiro is in the cast and the visual language of Hong Kong cinema of the period is pronounced. Who it's for: those who like nineties Hong Kong cinema and formal experiment. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a whole story; the film consists of deliberately unfinished pieces.