SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2025 REVIEW! Good films can move you, while truly great ones can alter the fabric of your being. Writer-director-star Erica Xia-Hou’s Banr is the latter. This Chinese drama doesn’t just tug at your heartstrings; it wrenches them. This is not a mere cinematic odyssey into love, loss, and the enduring power of companionship.
This dramatic look into the lives of three family members tells the story of an aged couple who have spent 40 years together, navigating the complexities of love and devotion. Erica (the filmmaker herself), the couple’s daughter, watches as her mom slips away into the abyss of Alzheimer’s while her father, the wife’s rock, has recently succumbed to a heart attack. Still, the old man is determined to take care of his wife. What transpires is an intricate tapestry of these three lives. Memories intertwine with the present; reality merges with illusion, and in every moment, there is love — unyielding, raw, and utterly devastating in its authenticity.
Xia-Hou crafts the emotion in Banr, her debut feature, seamlessly. She blends poetic fragments of memory, the affectionate humor of loved ones, and the dreams of youth into a beautiful, emotional tapestry. The result is a film that feels less like a constructed narrative and more like an unfiltered, deeply personal, and heartbreakingly true window into real lives. Her style mixes nods to French New Wave and Italian Neorealism to surprising effect. The director’s bold storytelling choices keep us perpetually off-balance, mirroring the disorienting and heart-wrenching nature of Alzheimer’s itself.
“…the couple’s daughter watches as her mom slips away into the abyss of Alzheimer’s…”
The performances are so natural that it often feels as though we are intruding on a sacred space between the married couple. The lead actors do not merely portray love, they embody it. They make every glance, touch, and moment so real that it seems these two have lived a whole life together we’ll never see.
What makes Banr extraordinary is its ability to shift perspectives, placing us inside the fractured mind of a woman losing herself while also grounding us in the lucid reality of those desperately trying to hold on to her. The indignity of aging, such as regretful incontinence, the confusion of not remembering what a sweater is, and trying to put it on as pants, are played for realism but never feel contrite. The loss of a former teacher’s intellect is now reduced to the good days of remembering photos and days of staring at light bulbs, screaming for the husband always by her side. Through delicate yet deliberate filmmaking, Xia-Hou does not just ask us to witness this journey, she compels all watching to feel it. Hollywood has traveled this path before in such fare as On Golden Pond and Dad with Jack Lemon, but this is without a doubt not a mere imitation. It is profoundly moving, doubly so for anyone at or close to this stage of life or who knows someone there now.
Beyond the deeply personal and emotional storytelling, the narrative also holds a mirror to society’s treatment of the elderly, exposing the way we warehouse them in institutions, particularly the poorer, where they are often forgotten. The old are tolerated and allowed to shuffle around, stare into the sun, and bounce rubber balls on a mat. Too often, they are placed in facilities where they are stripped of autonomy and dignity, left to fade into sterile environments that fail to acknowledge their humanity. Xia-Hou subtly but powerfully critiques this system, reminding us that love and companionship should not be relegated to the past but honored in the present, even as memory deteriorates.
Banr is a love story in the truest sense. It is about devotion in the face of inevitable loss, about the courage it takes to remember, and the unbearable weight of forgetting. Stunningly subtle and crushingly intimate with subtitles, this is highly recommended.
Banr screened at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival.
"…highly recommended."
