Suburban Birds

The spectacular feature-directing debut of Qiu Sheng.

It’s the kind of movie you sit on, but then can’t wait to revisit. Suburban Birds is a rewarding and revelatory first feature from a fresh artistic voice.

This pleasing, if perplexing, feature debut from Qiu Sheng takes an agile and experimental approach to structure, as two story strands glance off each other, and occasionally intersect.

Viewers, too, may feel at once cast adrift in the film’s amorphous quests, and languidly seduced by its disorder.

Enigmatic but oddly entrancing feature debut.

The film’s refusal to commit to its passing fancies is a highly intentional and eventually tiresome declaration of Qui Sheng’s arthouse bona fides.

As it stands now though, the acting is good, but the narrative moves like molasses, leaving the audience at a distance.