‘Luz’ gets lost in its futuristic virtual reality premise

During the Q&A portion of her movie premiere at Sundance last month, director Flora Lau mentioned that she had a vision of a young father trying to find his daughter through virtual reality that ultimately inspired her sophomore movie Luz. It took her a while to develop the script, as production took place across a few different countries. Post-production finished right as COVID-19 struck, forcing people to quarantine and connect through technology—an almost apt parallel to the movie where its protagonists connect through a virtual reality game. Altogether, it took Lau eight years to finish the film and have it ready for audiences to see.

Enxi Deng as Fa in "Luz."

Courtesy of Sundance Institute

At its surface, the film is a formidable entry for Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Competition given the festival’s strong North American presence. With world-renowned actress Isabelle Hubert leading the cast, the film moves between Paris and the city of Chongqing with a virtual reality game as its connector. The neon-laden imagery of the cities interspersed with the pixelated world-building of the game blurs the film as the characters opt to spend more time with the gaming console. At its heart, the movie purports to be about connection and losing a sense of reality in its pursuit. But the film’s aesthetics prove too distracting and inadvertently more appealing than the characters and their journeys.

Wei (Xiaodong Guo) works as a henchman in Chongqing and when free, watches his estranged daughter Fa (Enxi Deng) on a live streaming channel. There is a painting of a deer that sits on the wall of the karaoke club that Wei’s boss owns, and herein lies the connection with Ren (Sandrine Pinna), a young Hong Kong art dealer who is the daughter of the man who created the painting. Ren gets a call to head to Paris immediately as her stepmother and artist Sabine (played by Hupert) is ill. Fa and Ren both play a very popular virtual reality game called Luz where the goal is to catch a translucent deer—mirroring the one in the painting.

As Wei reveals himself to Fa only for her to reject him, Ren faces a similar dismissal from Sabine, as the artist does not want to come to terms with a difficult medical prognosis. Wei downloads Luz so that he can run into Fa and meets Ren in the process, actualizing Lau’s vision that sparked the film. Unfortunately, the web of connections that Lau creates does not sustain the narrative. It is hard to root for any of the characters, which is a shame because the film has such opportune moments where it tries to show the power and essence of communication across languages, countries, and realms of reality. The audience sees Hupert’s acerbic retort in French to Pinna’s urging in Mandarin, and the actresses do show an impressive level of chemistry for a script that prioritizes the virtual reality game more than their relationship.

From left, Sandrine Pinna as Ren and Xiaodong Guo as Wei.

Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Lau also mentioned during the Q&A portion that, during the making of the movie, the game became far too complicated, as it was becoming its own film. She then parsed it down to have it be a simple game about chasing the deer. In Luz, the protagonists are chasing their own metaphorical deer or illusions as they attempt to reconcile the past and make amends in the present. But the resolution of each relationship is too abrupt for it to be impactful, making the deer chasing sequences more enjoyable to watch—a perhaps inadvertent effect that Lau did not want.