[BONUS] Episode M - Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014)
This week on Be Gay Solve Crimes, we welcome the Chinese century with our most Brackets Chinese detective movie yet. A film that might be described as “what if someone made Disco Elysium the movie but set in Heilongjiang instead of Estonia.” It’s Black Coal, Thin Ice (2014), a.k.a. Daylight Fireworks.
Join us for a 2 hour extravaganza where we take a firm stance against the Nightcrawler Body-Cam school of fight scene cinematography, Mia practices her Chinese pronunciation, Lucy gets advice on how to reverse her telomeres (whatever those are), and all three of us have wildly conflicting interpretations about the ending.
Be Gay Solve Crimes are on Bluesky, where you can also find each of the team: November Kelly, Mia Mulder, and your local librarian Lucy, who writes all the music for the show.
Join us next time for a dose of Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye (1973)
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Comments (25)
The post crime chinese meal and drinks made me think - it’s only detective fiction in the loosest possible sense of the term but I’d love to hear bgsc talk about anatomy of a fall, not least because I never see anyone talk about it as a queer movie which is significantly about homophobia!!!!
Honestly, the main thing that this film taught is that the answer to “how do you make a modern mainland Chinese neo-noir” is “Chelyabinsk”. It is to make a movie about post-Soviet Russia, in China.
Holding my breath for a Judge Dee/Di Renjie future episode(?)
I feel Wu's "redemptive arc" is narratively supposed to be taking the fall for her dead husband she felt she betrayed (who actually killed the jacket guy), kind of going back in time to resolve the impetus of how the whole nightmare began, a useless and futile gesture given he's already dead - just like a daylight firework. I think this resonates more thematically as her making the moves she can with very little agency - coerced at every turn by the actions and influence of men, even by her own conscience under the duties and responsibilities of heterosexual marriage. Just my interpretation, of course
Really enjoyed this one, I'll have to find the film to watch sometime.
big recommend longlegs, a movie that i consider to be strongly transmasc and that really goes in on beautiful static shots as a source of horror!! the director has talked about how he enjoys static shots that are quite some distance from the action, as it makes the viewer feel helpless, which i find a really interesting take on how to achieve horror thru cinematography
What a wonderful, horrible movie. There is absolutely no affirmation of life in this, the characters just become worse people, and the victims just continue to suffer. It all just sucks. But it's a really good work of art.
Unfortunately, I actually do know a little Chinese, and the tonals on that pronunciation were not on point.
I chanced into this compliments of Kanopy a while ago, and have been waiting for this episode since Nova mentioned it in passing on KJB. Such a good movie.
great episode. would dearly love to see you cover Decision to Leave. it has a lot of similar themes, when i think about it. (and also static shots!)
If there’s one thing this podcast has inspired me, a cishet man, to do, it’s to make the protagonist of my detective story a long haired twink with cat motifs named Lee Clementine, outrunning his past as part of the deepest pit of masculinity- the Marines in Vietnam
Oh hell yeah, "Memories of Murder" future episode!
I love this movie. Only a few scenes with non-diegetic music and it doesn't follow a Syd Fields three act structure. Many thanks to November for bringing it to me as an aside on one of the other pods, and many thanks for bringing it to BGSC
I’ve had this on my to-watch pile since Nova mentioned it on the last KJB Q&A; guess it’s time to actually consume media
The ashes buried at a street tree reminds me of the folktale of the dog & the murder neighbors
High quality Simpsons reference regarding ice production.
Marriage papers should come as a passport. You stamp your seal in each other's, a sort of visa, a second stamp revokes the visa. This gives divorce at least the opportunity to use a big red WHOMP stamp
Oh shit that's gonna tie ghosts there
I self-taught / took Chinese lessons for about 6 months when I was underemployed because I only have a high school diploma and I wanted some sort of skill. Haven't developed the ability to see my life as one single continuous moment despite what that Amy Adams documentary promised Some wild coincidences: I looked up the Chinese school near me, and discovered that the Chinese as a Second Language teacher lived in my apartment complex, two doors away from me. (She and her husband turned out to be religious nuts, she actually said that Chinese comes from Hebrew like all other languages) My sister sent me a "white guy shocks waiter" reel by a guy named MandarinKyle, a fit blonde guy who lives in China and teaches mandarin. One day at work at my remote job, I mentioned to my supervisor that I was trying to learn mandarin. My supervisor said that her son actually lives in China and teaches mandarin... her son was MandarinKyle For anyone interested, honestly just go to r/Chineselanguage and then find the Discord and then find a Chinese buddy to talk to
Episode N for Naked Gun Lets gooooo
Femme fatale gets away with it: The Last Seduction. Not sure it's a detective movie. There are detectives in it, they are not up to the task. For a different dynamic, that of femme fatale vs female detective: Black Widow. Great episode too, thanks for keeping me sane for two hours during dull work stuff. Will check out this movie as I love a good femme fatale. Only thing I love more is a bad one.
Bleak you say? Cold you say? How about Jar City an Icelandic detective movie that should be a future episode
Hears mention of The Third Man. Me: future episode?
the sino-brazilian century will be so beautiful
2 hours of be gay solve crime to finish my dissertation to. Thank god for that