Sanxia Haoren (Still Life) by Jia Zhangke 賈樟柯的三峽好人

[skylee]

The film has just got the Golden Lion for best film in Venice. Report -> 賈 樟 柯 《 三 峽 好 人 》 奪 威 尼 斯 影 展 金 獅 獎

威 尼 斯 影 展 最 佳 影 片 金 獅 獎 ， 由 內 地 導 演 賈 樟 柯 的 《 三 峽 好 人 》 奪 得 。

賈 樟 柯 在 內 地 被 視 為 「 地 下 導 演 」 ， 拍 攝 的 都 是 獨 立 製 作 ， 多 部 作 品 被 禁 ， 他 擅 長 平 實 地 描 寫 小 人 物 的 生 活 ， 主 要 作 品 包 括 《 小 武 》 、 《 站 台 》 、 《 任 消 遙 》 和 《 世 界 》 等 。

Another chinese film 《馬背上的法庭》has got the cinematography award.

And Ben Afflick the best actor? What a surprise.

[wushijiao]

I'm happy for Jia Zhangke. They showed his news conference (before winning the award), in which there were almost no reporters present. I can't wait to see this movie, and 馬背上的法庭 as well.

Jia also has a documentary 东, also about 三峡．

[gato]

An interview with Jia Zhangke.

http://www.dfdaily.com/dfchannels/yule/jiazhangke-xingfulaidehaisuanzao/view

贾樟柯：幸福来得还算早

东方早报 2006-09-11 01:59

[wushijiao]

Just watched this. Overall, I thought it was pretty good. Jia has a great sense of irony, and a great sense of portraying how people who haven’t prospered in the modern economy live. There are also a lot of allegorical/symbolic things to mull over. At the same time, I didn’t think it was great. Still, worth seeing.

Anyone else?

[msittig]

It's playing at the Shanghai Film Art Center, RMB 30 a seat.

http://www.filmcenter.com.cn/

My friends were busy, so I picked it up on DVD instead.

[chenpv]

I would say it is in general a nice movie, while on the other hand could be further polished up in many respects.

Jia Zhangke is undoubtedly a very talented director who is able to penetrate into the status quo of Chinese society with very realistic cinematographic finesse. And yet, the more realistic he wanted his work to be, the less distilled and continuous it actually appears, whatever in description of the story or in aesthetics. As in this movie, Still Life, I guess Jia recruited quite a lot of local people (if not all?) as leading characters, which of course contributes to the best of mimicry of real life. But the sense of hesitation and nervousness from movie is as well quite palpable.

Another thing I am not sure about the movie is those four icons of Chinese society - cigarette, spirit, tea (the movie gives out a translation of 'coffee' for ‘茶’, why then?) and candy. Jia devoted specific shooting to each object together with the corresponding character as a hint. So did he have the qualm that people without Chinese background might not be able to understand what he was showing in the movie? Or was there any other reason?

Anyway, as what wushijiao has said, it is worth seeing.

[wushijiao]

Yeah, I wasn’t quite sure what the 烟／酒／茶/ 糖 scenes were about. I think, when I saw the booze (酒) characters flash on the screen, I predicted that he would fix the situation by bribing with booze. And it didn’t turn out quite as I had predicted (for all of those characters) I think those four characters all represent things that are connected with joyous/happy events or ceremonies in China. And in this movie, they didn’t represent happy events.

If you watch “Unknown Pleasures”, which took place in 2001, they show all the major, huge symbolic events of that year, such as Beijing being awarded the Olympics and getting into WTO. These events prove that society is progressing forward wonderfully, so the official storyline goes. But in that movie, Jia showed the disconnect between those events and their impact on the life of an average, uneducated, “no hope”,Shanxi male. I think those four characters in 三峡 was to show the lack of happiness, while, conversely, 拆, a character that usually brings people misery, was actually a source of wealth. I don't know.

I do like the “guerilla filmmaking” technique Jia uses, making it seem like a documentary with lots of local dialects and the like. I think while his other movies were overtly political, this one just showed how people survive in amoral, fluctuating circumstances, while generally trying to stay decent people.

[chenpv]

Wushijiao, that's indeed an interesting point of view. I think, aside from what you have pointed out, Jia might also intend to string together those snippets of life snapped from ordinary people with the aid of these four objects, making the whole story seem like a necklace. Pearls of short scenarios are impeccable, even though they show shreds of crudity. But what he really failed to do, IMHO, was this task of stringing. He left the ought-to-be-shrewdly-hidden four objects way too obvious, and more, invested decorative roles into them, which perplexed me a lot. Additionally, I do expect a scene at the end of this movie, where Jia linked both ends of this necklace together ---- summarized the whole piece of work with all four objects or made the Shanxi male storyline and the Shanxi female storyline converge to some extent. But just my guess though...

BTW, I happened to find these two interesting articles on Xinhua today: (source)

贾樟柯有玩的资本，《三峡好人》获得的金狮大奖是近年来中国电影在世界上获得的最高荣誉，《三峡好人》已经卖出去了40 多个国家的版权———也就是说，《三峡好人》已经赚钱了，国内票房多一点少一点都是小钱。在为《三峡好人》高兴的同时，却没法为贾樟柯骄傲。贾是中国的导演，他拍的片子理应是给中国的电影观众看的。虽然暂时在国内叫好不叫座，贾也不应把希望多数寄托在销售国外版权上，他的根扎在山西汾阳，他的电影属于本土，与票房同样重要的，是如何摆脱困境，在国内赢得更多的观众。

and also this

冯小刚认为大家在贺岁档瞎斗了半天，对中国电影也没有好处，而艺术片导演不必太执著于票房。“人家都说中国的几个导演，凯爷(陈凯歌）是奔形而上的，张艺谋注重细节，是形而下的，姜文是直奔生活中去。我觉得贾爷（贾樟柯）也不必有怨气，威尼斯拿了金狮回来也是一媒体英雄了。其实啊，商业片和艺术片是鼠有鼠道，猫有猫道。艺术片是猫道，奔着拿奖去的，我们是鼠道，就是奔着票房过亿去的。”

[wushijiao]

But what he really failed to do, IMHO

Yeah, I kind of agree with you chenpv. I didn't know if the objects idea was funny, artistic, or just a bit gimmicky.

Well, Jia tried to do battle against Zhang Yimou, saying, for example, when he came to Shanghai, that Zhang didn't have the talent to film blockbuster movies. To some degree, I can understand what he means. But on the other hand, I think he's trying to get famous by insulting the #1 in his field. In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to run his movie against Zhang's at the same time.

[gato]

Interview with Jia Zhangke

China Youth Daily, "Freezing Point" Weekly Supplement

January 10, 2007

http://zqb.cyol.com/content/2007-01/10/content_1637231.htm

An excerpt:

Jia Zhangke: Thus Zhang Yimou, Zhang Weiping (producer of "Curse of the Golden Flower"), and others all of sudden became heroes defending against Hollywood. They say "if we don't make films, big commercial films, then Hollywood will take over and Chinese films will die. I think that's ridiculous. Can it be true that Chinese films will die if they don't make films?

Because of their commercial success, their ambition for fame have become limitless. But the problem is their commercial success isn't really a success on the market in a true sense. From the very beginning, they have worked together with government authorities. Without the government's help, I believe, they couldn't have this great of a monopoly, making Chinese theaters almost as monotonous as during the Cultural Revolution. Even during the Cultural Revolution, there were eight model operas and other performances by smaller troupes. But now we are left with only two, three big films a year.

This kind of concentration of resources, concentration of profit, has seriously damaged the ecosystem of the Chinese film industry. A great number of films by younger directors cannot even get into the theater.

Q: Even if they get into the theater, the result is disappointing. I saw a report noting that Wang Chao's "River Town Summer" (《江城夏日》) only had 402 yuan of ticket sales in all of Nanjing.

Jia: Is that true? They control all the resources, then they come back and say, "Oh, you see you can't make any money. We can see this in many cases from the past. For example, when Zhang Yimou's "Heroes" came out, the relevant government departments ordered that no Hollywood movies can be released during the same time. This is the kind of naked assistance from government authorities that I am talking about.

Q: In other words, the theaters belong to the government. The government can directly intercede in the theaters' commercial plans.

Jia: Right, because they shared the same interest!

Q: Do you feel that the change of course for these directors was inevitable?

Jia: I think it was inevitable. As directors, they don't have their own souls, their own self-identity. Thus, in a era of diversity, they can't express themselves. Actually those movies of theirs that we admired are not products of independent thought. They don't represent those directors' thoughts or ability. They were riding the boisterous cultural currents of that time and depended on the philosophical, literary, and aesthetic thinking of the time.

So you find in the era of "Hero", a director we admired, when he enters into the commercial arena without the aid of literature, he has lost all of his culture DNA. We see in their films that they feel the weight of the authorities. They follow power. They submit to power. So you see a director of "Qiu Ju Goes to Court" can rise to defense of power in "Hero."

[Lu]

烟／酒／茶/ 糖

According to Jia Zhang-ke:

-Those four things are things people use when they get together, they are shared with friends when having a good time

-Even people who are poor, and have a hard time getting by, feel that they are still not totally despondent when they have these four things

-During the time of the 5-year-plans, there was a government bureau whose task it was to make sure all people had these four things.

(I interpreted 5 interviews between Jia Zhang-ke and journalists, and several of them asked about the yan/jiu/cha/tang. I'm quoting his answers from memory, hope it makes sense.)

[gougou]

I saw it at Yugong Yishan two days ago, and I liked it a lot. While I agree with the above that it is not tying everything up nicely, my guess would be that Jia Zhangke is not trying to do that. As a matter of fact, rather than trying to make one statement or the other, I found this to be a very balanced movie, that almost objectively examines the effects of a nation moving forward.

At the same time as depicting the losses such a migrant nation endures, it also shows strong characters that make a living in their ever-changing environment. I think that San Hanming is a wonderful portrayal of that Chinese endurance, that will calmly take whatever life throws in his way (just look at the scene on the boat in the first few minutes), but at the same time unflinchingly will make his way.

Next to individual fates, the movie also examines society as a whole. The conversation between San Hanming and his newly won friend over lunch is symbolic for that. "We don't fit into today's society", his friend quotes Chow Yun-Fat, "we are too nostalgic."

The trade-off between progress and preservation is one of the big challenges China has to find an answer to these days; this movie provides food for thought. I for one am sure to watch it over and over again.

Jia Zhangke was supposed to be present at the screening, but regrettably couldn't make it at the last minute. He sent Zhao Tao instead, who took some questions in his place. The 烟酒茶糖, she explained as being common forms of Chinese courtesy. While places like Beijing have advanced beyond that, and you now give mobile phones and computers (do you? I've never gotten any), they still are important parts of the simple life in places like Fengjie. I am not too sure of that explanation, and neither seemed she: "我好像记得导演是这么说的。“

She also commented on the in-your-face symbolism Jia uses: the high-rope artist represents the pitfalls modern life holds for each one of us, while the building-cum-rocket came about after a conversation they had had at that scene. "This building is so ugly, you should blow it up", Jia is supposed to have said, and while that was impossible in real life, he was free to do so in post-production.

Another thing I noticed once again during the Q&A session was the difference between questions foreigners ask and those Chinese people ask. For the foreigners, it's "Did you have any problems with the government when shooting?", "What do you think about the low box office returns?", while for the Chinese, it is "How did you feel when you proposed divorce to your [onscreen] husband?"

That, too, is food for thought.