Some Thoughts on Jia Zhangke's Still Life (2006)

 

Inaugural post! 

Having recently viewed Still Life (三峡好人) by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, I suddenly felt awakened to the bright future of Chinese cinema. For something in which I have previously entertained only scarce optimism, this was a moment of exaltation. It has troubled me for a long time that very few domestic Chinese films deal explicitly with problems resulting from China’s rapid modernization. Rarer still are those that touch on the controversial and urgent issues of the present. In a country where there are so many untold stories of the plight of ordinary working folk caught in the derangement of modernization, Still Life captures the essence of just that sort of thing.

Released as a feature film in 2006, the winner of the Golden Lion at Venice that year, Still Life’s depiction of radical economic and social change in modern China remains acutely current as well as assertively political. But what makes this film so important is not just critique. The film itself occupies a political space in the liberalization of Chinese media. Rarely, have Chinese films been given permission to shoot potentially controversial subjects. 

It is quite a feat in itself that director Jia received permission by the State Film Bureau to make a film (the Chinese title of the film translates into “the good people of Sanxia”) about the massive displacement of villages during the massive Sanxia Dam project (The Three Gorges Dam project). It is even more surprising that he shot most of the film on location in Fengjie. At times mildly satirical and at other times uncompromising in its depiction of societal ills, how did it survive unadulterated after rounds of censorship?

It is not the case that there haven’t been any recent controversial Chinese films or recent Chinese films about current social and economic change. It is just that so few have been as effective as Still Life. Very little is not brazenly explored and put on screen. It touches on familial dissolution, peasant laborer migration, the displacement caused by Three Gorges Dam project, societal backwardness, lawlessness, the estrangement of youth, economic growth, economic disparity, the amassing of wealth by those willing to capitalize, illegal coalmines, Chinese pop culture, and more. 

Despite all of the above there is at most reserved finger pointing. There is no attempt at giving the viewer ready-to-serve explanations. Nothing to really indulge one's urge of China-bashing. This is what makes Still Life respectable. The concern is with ordinary people who make a living, acclimating themselves in a world that seems to fly by. A world where modernity is seized by the fetid old life that isn’t ready to subside. Even the manual laborers of peasant stock pull out their handsets, exchange phone numbers and get a good laugh out of their nostalgic ring-tones. For the viewer there is something surreal about this, but it is real. The characters wade through the rubble-covered moonscape of deconstruction and beat at the buildings with hammers. Although they are pulling down memories of a life past, all they care about is the sixty Yuan they are paid at the end of the day. But resignation and apathy are wrong descriptions of those people. When offered with the prospects of a higher paying job in the Shanxi coalmines, they follow knowing very well the risks involved. They follow, turn, and move because this is what life asks this of them.

Although Still Life lacks the artistic flourish of many of contemporary Chinese films (think Zhang Yimou 's films or Lu Chuan’s City of Life and Death), Still Life commands attention because it has grasped on something important. Here is a film that just gets it. Just like how the neo-realist films of post-war Italy got it, Still Life has brought to screen what matters, or at least should matter to viewers who care deeply about the world they inhabit. I will refrain from calling Still Life a great film because it is not quite there. Some of the imagery is simply ridiculous and gratuitous (a UFO, a spaceship … what?!).

For a country that has recently celebrated its 60th birthday, in the usual manner of pomp and spectacle, it is even more pressing that films like Still Life are made. What needs to be captured is not just the testament of spectacular economic growth (not just the glitzy stuff i.e. the Beijing Olympics etc.). It is vital for China, as well as for the whole world, that it glimpses at a slice of Chinese life no one really wants to see.

Hopefully, better Chinese films will be a means to this.

An excellent synopsis of Still Life is available on Wikipedia.