Life in China through a foggy lens
By: Janos Gereben
Special to The Examiner
July 31, 2009
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| The future is now: “24 City” follows a cinematic trend exploring the struggles of contemporary life in urban China. (Courtesy Photo) |
Along with the enormous changes in China in recent decades has come a flood of varied, unusual, fascinating movies about life in the country.
Yung Chang’s “Up the Yangtze,” Zhao Liang’s “Petition” and Yang Zhang’s “Sunflower” are just three examples among dozens.
After the so-called “fifth generation” of epics from graduates of the Beijing Film Academy in the early 1980s — such as Zhang Yimou (of “Hero”) and Chen Kaige (of “Farewell My Concubine”) — the “sixth generation” emerged in the 1990s, holding up a startlingly honest and fearless mirror to the communist/capitalist, state-controlled/relatively lenient China.
The trend has accelerated recently, as director after director is showing the problems and frustrations — and frequently occurring tragedies — of living in an emerging, unsettled society.
Zhangke Jia, 39, whose “24 City” is opening today in San Francisco, is a prominent member of the new class of filmmakers focusing on contemporary urban life and the struggles of ordinary people. His “Unknown Pleasures,” “Platform” and “The World” have already made their mark at film festivals in many countries.
“24 City” opens with a documentary scene of a mass rally in Chengdu City — complete with speeches, patriotic songs and a huge crowd of factory workers all looking as if caught in the blinding headlights of an onrushing train.
It’s 2007, and after “50 years of difficulties,” Factory 420, a formerly secret military manufacturing plant, is being shut down, costing thousands of the “celebrants” their jobs. Strangely, the movie barely mentions this crushing fact; the story is about the conversion of the factory into luxury high-rise apartments (called 24 City), and the workers’ recollections of their many years spent in the building now being torn down.
No less strange is the film’s mixing of actual documentary interviews of “real people” with actress Joan Chen as one of the interviewees. Five authentic interviews and three written monologues provide the film’s narrative. It is gripping and sad in turn, a modified documentary that feels authentic enough in its portrayal of the new, capitalistic China.
About the mix of documentary and fictional material, Jia has said he integrated them on purpose “in [a] parallel flow because this seemed to me the best way of representing the last half-century of Chinese history. As far as I’m concerned, history is always a blend of facts and imagination.”
MOVIE REVIEW
24 City ★★
- Written and directed by Zhangke Jia
- Not rated
- Running time 1 hour 52 minutes
