Distant Voices, Still Lives: The Decade in Jia Zhangke
By David Liu November 22, 2009 | 8:40 pm
Posted in: Film, Retrospective
No less renowned a publication than New York City’s Village Voice has called Jia Zhangke “the world’s greatest filmmaker under 40.” With only six full-length features to his name and relatively little support from government officials, Jia nevertheless built a formidable reputation for himself in the international film community beginning in the late 1990s, establishing himself as one of East Asia’s most important contemporary auteurs and a leading light of the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers.
As the current helmsman of a film culture that constantly seeks to break free from the shackles of creative repression, Jia has been instrumental in crafting a rich portrait of post-Cultural Revolution China for audiences around the world. Exploring the effects of globalization on contemporary Chinese society through a unique blend of humanistic candor and poetic verve, his works are as spellbinding in the emotions they insinuate as they are poignant in the images they convey.
In the wake of socio-economic reforms that emerged in the 1980s, China and its sons and daughters began to experience progress on an unprecedented scale—but to what ends, and at what cost? Jia offers nary a straightforward answer; instead of politicizing art, he transforms it into a canvas of human vitality. Permeating his films are the joys, pains and inner cries of a new generation, waxing nostalgic for a not-so-long-ago past even as it struggles to come to terms with the mercurial present.
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Platform (2000)
Following on the heels of his 1996 feature debut “Xiao Wu,” “Platform” catapulted Jia Zhangke to the forefront of Asian cinema, and rightfully so: At 154 minutes, this quiet, subtle epic captures China’s flawed progression from the end of collectivization to the beginnings of privatization through stately long takes, realistic compositions and steely performances by an ensemble of non-actors.
The film spans the rough period between 1979 and 1990, following the lives of a vaudeville performing group in dusty Fenyang, Shanxi Province as they perform propaganda-tinged theater for local peasants. Before long, Western influences arrive and cultural confusion takes over, and the principal character’s lives undergo unprecedented changes. Musical cues emphasize the passage of time as the troupe’s performances gradually segue from traditional opera ballads to upbeat electronic rock.
One of the greatest cinematic achievements of the last ten years, “Platform” captures a decade of social and cultural transition in quietly magnificent fashion. If Wang Xiaoshuai’s 1993 “The Days” laid the foundation for Chinese underground cinema, “Platform” marked the movement’s most fully realized masterwork, bringing Jia’s singular brand of sparse, socially conscious filmmaking to stunning fruition.
Unknown Pleasures (2002)
“At first it was the bleak and lonely buildings [of Datong, China] that attracted me. When I saw the streets filled with lonely, directionless people, I became interested in them.” (Jia Zhangke)
Jia’s next film after “Platform” is comparatively smaller and more contemporary, focusing on the disaffection of youth and the growing influence of globalized mass media in the year 2001. “Unknown Pleasures” focuses on small-time hoodlums Bin Bin and Xiao Ji as their aimless lifestyle degenerates into violence and crime. In its quiet condemnation of materialism in modern society, “Unknown Pleasures” inevitably recalls the films of Robert Bresson and Hou Hsiao-hsien in their masterful veracity.
The World (2004)
As the first film for which he received official sanction from the Chinese Film Bureau, “The World” marked Jia’s modest entry into government-approved filmmaking after nearly a decade of writing and directing independently-produced films. It was also the first of his works not to be set in his hometown province of Shanxi, relocating instead to the metropolitan sprawl of Beijing as its primary setting.
The departures would prove to have little effect on Jia’s directorial sensibilities, however. His story of the complex love affair between two workers in Beijing’s World Park touches on both the exuberant and tragic, and stands as one of the decade’s most finely crafted cinematic explorations of globalization.
Still Life (2006)
Contemplating misplaced families and the nature of human alienation caused by the ambitious Three Gorges Dam project, “Still Life” offers a somber portrait of a China that is modernizing (flamboyant concerts, cell phone ringtones) as enthusiastically as its sons and daughters are reminiscing (old villagers waxing nostalgic, estranged spouses seeking redemption). Shot on location, the Three Gorges Dam is a tour de force combination of natural wonder and synthetic power, yet its inhabitants’ lives are changed forever when their homes are inevitably torn down for the sake of grand progress.
24 City (2008)
This quietly stunning quasi-documentary sketches the lives of three generations of individuals living in Chengdu City, Sichuan, near the site of a state-owned factory about to be replaced by a modern apartment complex. Interviewing both actual and fictional denizens (portrayed by a handful of China’s A-list actors), Jia stretches his own artistic boundaries in fascinating directions. A scene in which Joan Chen’s character explains the origin of her nickname (“they called me ‘Little Flower’ back in ‘79 because I looked like the film’s protagonist, Joan Chen!”) is both jarring and cleverly meta.
By concentrating on the faces of his subjects more than ever before, Jia’s visual signature reaches a humanistic high point in “24 City.” By contrast, graceful images of classrooms, households and empty, torn-down warehouses paint China’s progression away from its Communist roots in bold strokes. The end result is an impeccably composed ode to China’s working class that both educates and enlightens, bringing the cross-generational richness of Jia Zhangke’s body of work this decade to a remarkably poignant conclusion.
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Jia winning the Venice Golden Lion for “Still Life” in 2006 (left); on the set of “24 City” in 2008. (right)
The Decade in Jia Zhangke (Features):
Platform (Zhantai) (2000)
Unknown Pleasures (Ren xiao yao) (2002)
The World (Shijie) (2004)
Still Life (Sanxia haoren) (2006)
24 City (Er shi si cheng ji) (2008)
Quote: J. Hoberman, The Village Voice; Jia Zhangke, Cannes Film Festival
Images: Xinhua, Getty Images, New Yorker Films, Zeitgeist Films, Empire Pictures
Links: YouTube, Zeitgeist Films, Internet Movie Database
