07-15-2025, 03:33 AM
Another from Jia Zhangke. This win him the Golden Lion at Venice. I’ve been meaning to post about this for a week because I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around it and do it Justice here but I give up. I need to post about it now while it’s still kinda fresh.
The film is about two separate people searching for their spouses after being apart for work for years. Their searching jn a village that is destined to be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam. Water makes are painted high on the walls of building with the expected dates of when the water will reach that level. It’s as deep in existential dread as it gets.
I love this filmmaker. He captures modern China like no one else, in all its majestic squalor and absurdist juxtapositions. His films are exhausting watches - so emotionally draining from the everyday hardships of daily pedestrian life, yet at the same time intensity beautiful and moving. I need to make space to watch anymore because so far, none of his films have been light undertakings.
The man looking for his wife is dirt poor and takes a job demolishing a building that’s going to be submerged - so a futile labor. The woman looking for her husband is more affluent and is possibly having an affair - they are wanting to divorce.
Jia works at a slow plodding inevitable pace that builds to these moments of despair. It’s bleak. At two points, there’s random cgi shots in this film that if immersed in realism (it was shot in an actual village destined to be submerged). In one shot, a UFO flies over the village. At another point, a building with weird architecture that’s in the background launches into space like a rocket. Neither of these are explained or even elaborated upon. Both was very WTF moments.
If you ever want a hardcore taste of China, this is it.
D00M recommeded.
The film is about two separate people searching for their spouses after being apart for work for years. Their searching jn a village that is destined to be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam. Water makes are painted high on the walls of building with the expected dates of when the water will reach that level. It’s as deep in existential dread as it gets.
I love this filmmaker. He captures modern China like no one else, in all its majestic squalor and absurdist juxtapositions. His films are exhausting watches - so emotionally draining from the everyday hardships of daily pedestrian life, yet at the same time intensity beautiful and moving. I need to make space to watch anymore because so far, none of his films have been light undertakings.
The man looking for his wife is dirt poor and takes a job demolishing a building that’s going to be submerged - so a futile labor. The woman looking for her husband is more affluent and is possibly having an affair - they are wanting to divorce.
Jia works at a slow plodding inevitable pace that builds to these moments of despair. It’s bleak. At two points, there’s random cgi shots in this film that if immersed in realism (it was shot in an actual village destined to be submerged). In one shot, a UFO flies over the village. At another point, a building with weird architecture that’s in the background launches into space like a rocket. Neither of these are explained or even elaborated upon. Both was very WTF moments.
If you ever want a hardcore taste of China, this is it.
D00M recommeded.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse