Jia Zhang Ke's “Platform” portrays a unique view of the commercialization of China with the story of a traveling performance troupe almost as a background. Of course it is hard to tell which side of the story is the major focus. The cinematography usually calls for wide distant shots of the various characters which tends to emphasize the stark environments around the characters even when they are indoors.
The pacing of this film reminded me of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Many long stretches of silence exist throughout and the human side of the story could have easily been shrunk down to an hour and a half or so of screen time or maybe even less. Of course like 2001, the stark environment is meant to be a character in and of itself. As the years in the film go by we see the rural towns slowly change and take on more commercial appearances as the influence of Mao fades away. The troupe itself adopts a pseudo rock and roll personality to its performances upon the ascension of Deng Xiaoping and the rise in popularity of Theresa Teng.
The human story of the relationships between the various members of the troupe usually takes a backseat to the environments they occur in. The various young people become increasingly more independent and break away from the old ideological ways. As the film progresses they become more and more westernized. By the end at least one of the couples looks like a very western nuclear family as the screen finally fades to black.
This film asks for a lot of patience from its viewers. Critics seem to love it by default, by virtue of its unique artistic style. However, if you can pay close attention to the various depressing looking landscapes throughout the almost three hour run time and pick up on all of the subtle hints of change occurring as the film progresses than Jia Zha succeeded in his artistic vision.
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