The Ear (2009)

Inspired by Gogol's short story The Nose, Yi Zhou has wrote this film about the loss of an ear. The film begins with Pharrell cutting vegetables in an infinite, white space. Suddenly his ear falls off. Pharrell wraps his head as an homage to Van Gogh. The ear turns itself into an architectural element, an EarBridge. The camera approaches the bridge, then the ear. Suddenly, we are inside the Ear, endless stairs facing us. Fireworks, glue like drops, a loss of equilibrium and senses with re-adjustment, a tree trunk falls in front of us. We keep on moving downward, towards the trunk, following a vertical path, towards tree veins, towards the salts that are in the wooden interstices. We penetrate into the salt too. Once out, we find ourselves again facing the infinity stairs. We get closer and closer to a door. We see heads while the camera pulls us towards the abyss. A gel-like, dark, and semitransparent water absorbs and emits ears. One of the ears comes towards us, it overshadows our vision, yet it frees us. A bridge stretches from the ear hole. The bridge is surrounded by water and mountains. At last, we see Pharrell reading the newspaper.