Zhang-ke’s film is, like Linklater’s Boyhood, an assemblage, cobbled together from four different eras, four different films. At the very opening, we note that the ratio is 4:3, a ratio from 2001, as women practice songs in an industrial backwater, presumably filmed on a camcorder. The images are disconnected, almost random. Where is the story? What is this film about?
The answers to these questions emerge gradually. The film is a love story, of sorts. It is also an account of the transformation of China over the course of quarter of a century. The love story takes the near mute Qiaoqiao, played by Tao Zhao, on a journey from the north to find her lover in Ganghzou. Theirs is a flawed relationship. He is selfish and obsessed by money. She steps through the ruins of a city destroyed to make way for the Three Gorges Dam, like she could be tiptoeing through the remains of their relationship. China evolves from a deep industrial hardship into a world where a robot becomes your shopping friend and can see sadness in your eyes. The relationship bobs alongside the country’s changes. There’s no happy ending, just various kinds of survival.
It struck me, watching the film, that the China I know, having never visited, is entirely filtered through the lens of Jia Zhang-ke. His vision has not so much shaped mine, as formed it.
No comments:
Post a Comment