Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous

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As one of the world’s most celebrated cinematographers, Christopher Doyle has brought his inimitable imagistic flair to over three decades of films by a diverse roster of directors from Wong Kar-wai to Alejandro Jodorowsky. His third directorial feature is a playful meditation on a subject close to his expatriate Australian heart: Hong Kong, where he’s spent much of his adult life. Hong Kong Trilogy is an unclassifiable love letter to that megalopolis, joining elements of documentary, fiction, whimsy, politics and absurdist humor, with a cast of real residents playing versions of themselves. Its three segments portray three age groups shaping the city’s present and future. In “Preschooled,” children find time just to be kids when not chafing under various kinds of pressure (“I’ve been tutored so much, who needs real school anymore?,” one complains). The more reportorial “Preoccupied” chronicles the Umbrella Movement, a short-lived but resonant 2014 sit-in protest in favor of democratic reform. Finally, “Preposterous” seniors roam the city on a speed-dating adventure that climaxes in a Fellini-esque celebration of eccentricity at the beach. Throughout this fond, impudent survey, Doyle observes his adopted home with a longtime resident’s intimacy and an outsider’s curiosity—as well as, of course, a visual poet’s eye. —Dennis Harvey

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