The Nightingale

Not for the faint-hearted — and even the tough-hearted might struggle in a few places. But this uncompromising, unflinching meditation on violence should be seen as widely as possible.

Although few would confuse The Nightingale with greatness (it’s just way too predictable), production-wise, everything is top notch, especially the cinematography of Sun Ming, who captures some almost epic images of rural Guangxi — makes you want to go there. Also, Li’s quiet strength as the grandfather grounds the film in a gentle, simple and appealing way.

The virtues of understatement and restraint are vividly apparent in Philippe Muyl’s The Nightingale.

The Nightingale is technically remarkable. Beyond its socio-political context, however, the film offers hardly anything inventive to the familiar generation-gap rite-of-passage dramedy.