What’s in the Darkness

A coming-of-age fable mapped onto an unsolved crime story, at once dream-hazed and sharp-edged with suspense, Variety called writer/director Wang Yichun’s outstanding debut “the most acute and uncompromisingly grim murder mystery to come out of China in years,” but the film owes as much to The Diary of a Teenage Girl as it does to Diary of a Serial Killer. What’s in the Darkness brilliantly evokes the perils of repressed desire, while equating China’s transition to capitalism with the prurient confusion of puberty. In a semi-rural village of Hebei Province in the early 1990s, someone is raping and killing young women, and carving a cross into their flesh. Following the case with perverse fascination, Jing (Su Xiaotong) struggles to harness her emerging sexuality while her father (Guo Xiao), a low-level cop, futilely tries to convince his incompetent colleagues of the merits of forensic investigation. Presented with the support of China Institute.