The next couple posts will highlight the films of the best Chinese director whom you’ve probably never heard of, Jia Jiangke. First a little history lesson: the history of Chinese film in two paragraphs looks like this: Starting in the 1950s, Chinese film was defined by a Communist Realism movement- lots of heroes in Mao-suits, rising suns and long soliloqueys (often sung) about how great life was as a Communist.
Then Zhang Yimou comes along in 1987 and wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival with Red Sorghum (Hong Gao Liang), thereby putting Chinese film and the so-called Fifth Generation Directors on the world map. Zhang follows up with Ju Dou (1990) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991), all three of which are characterized by slow-moving, largely-depressing plots, amazing cinematography, all set in the feudal past but serving as largely anti-Communist allegories. Zhang became Public Enemy Number 2 behind rocker Cui Jian, which even further heightened his popularity amongst Western film critic set.
What’s missing in all that were filmmakers who focus on what China is today- real stories about the Mainland Chinese who are emerging from the Communist primordial soup into the modern world of fat only-children and middle-class television-induced bliss. Jia Jiangke and his 6th generation cohorts are focused on this world. Platform perfectly shows the struggle for modernity of Chinese citizens in the transitional period of the 1980s, when China was opening up to the West but hadn't quite figured out yet the implications of this "development". This transition is most difficult for the hundreds of millions of Chinese rural laobaixing who simply didn't have the skills to do anything beyond the manual labor of farming and mining learned during the Mao years.
Jia tells his story through a rural dance troupe of 20-somethings who desperately want to be modern (one gets a perm, another brings back a cassette tape of pop music to the village) but who are also stuck in the old ways. Their actions are awkward but pure. The slow pace of the film allows for plenty of pause of the viewer to interpret the subtext of the action (and in many cases non-action of the main characters). In one great scene where a boy and a girl are arguing about their relationship and whether they should consider themselves a couple, the characters walk back and forth behind a wall. In another scene, the youths are in a truck and offer to give a ride to the old cadre because its "faster"; the old cadre rebuffs their offer and is shown walking up a steep hill. In both cases, the images are actively supporting the words and actions of the characters.
This film is not for Jerry Bruckheimer fans, or even fans of Jerry Bruckheimer on lithium. But for those with a little patience and an eye for subtely, Platform will give the viewer a bird’s eye view into a China in a gawky stage of adolescence on the growth path to modernity.
And what happened to Zhang Yimou? Well, in the late 1980s, the PRC government started to get PR-savvy and realized that it was a lot easier to make Zhang rich and leverage his power as a film star than to fight him. Since then, Zhang has directed Turnadot, the opera showing in the Forbidden City in 1999, he's directed directed huge budget Hollywood epics Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and today is preparing to direct the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. Wow. How’s that for a symbol of the Modern China?
Then Zhang Yimou comes along in 1987 and wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival with Red Sorghum (Hong Gao Liang), thereby putting Chinese film and the so-called Fifth Generation Directors on the world map. Zhang follows up with Ju Dou (1990) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991), all three of which are characterized by slow-moving, largely-depressing plots, amazing cinematography, all set in the feudal past but serving as largely anti-Communist allegories. Zhang became Public Enemy Number 2 behind rocker Cui Jian, which even further heightened his popularity amongst Western film critic set.
What’s missing in all that were filmmakers who focus on what China is today- real stories about the Mainland Chinese who are emerging from the Communist primordial soup into the modern world of fat only-children and middle-class television-induced bliss. Jia Jiangke and his 6th generation cohorts are focused on this world. Platform perfectly shows the struggle for modernity of Chinese citizens in the transitional period of the 1980s, when China was opening up to the West but hadn't quite figured out yet the implications of this "development". This transition is most difficult for the hundreds of millions of Chinese rural laobaixing who simply didn't have the skills to do anything beyond the manual labor of farming and mining learned during the Mao years.
Jia tells his story through a rural dance troupe of 20-somethings who desperately want to be modern (one gets a perm, another brings back a cassette tape of pop music to the village) but who are also stuck in the old ways. Their actions are awkward but pure. The slow pace of the film allows for plenty of pause of the viewer to interpret the subtext of the action (and in many cases non-action of the main characters). In one great scene where a boy and a girl are arguing about their relationship and whether they should consider themselves a couple, the characters walk back and forth behind a wall. In another scene, the youths are in a truck and offer to give a ride to the old cadre because its "faster"; the old cadre rebuffs their offer and is shown walking up a steep hill. In both cases, the images are actively supporting the words and actions of the characters.
This film is not for Jerry Bruckheimer fans, or even fans of Jerry Bruckheimer on lithium. But for those with a little patience and an eye for subtely, Platform will give the viewer a bird’s eye view into a China in a gawky stage of adolescence on the growth path to modernity.
And what happened to Zhang Yimou? Well, in the late 1980s, the PRC government started to get PR-savvy and realized that it was a lot easier to make Zhang rich and leverage his power as a film star than to fight him. Since then, Zhang has directed Turnadot, the opera showing in the Forbidden City in 1999, he's directed directed huge budget Hollywood epics Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and today is preparing to direct the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. Wow. How’s that for a symbol of the Modern China?
