Jia Zhangke's Still Life focuses on the construction of the Three Gorges Dam and it's impact on the people of the Fengjie. It follows two non overlapping stories of outsiders to the area; Han Sanming, a coal miner searching for his ex-wife and daughter, and Shen Hong, a nurse looking for her husband. The film highlights the plight of the population displacement as a result of the dam's construction by having the protagonists go through a great deal of difficulty to track down the people they wish to find, due to being uprooted. The films also focuses on the human cost of building the dam, as along the way one of the workers Sanming befriends is killed. The camera also spends a great deal of time surveying the country side full of buildings ready to be demolished, further emphasizing the human displacement taking place.
The plot itself is rather sparse, even with having two plot lines. Most of what tension there is comes from the respective protagonists going from one place to the next trying to get in contact with the people they set out to find. The slow pacing of the plots, combined with the many panning shots of the bleak setting leads to a sense of melancholy. While this may allow for a better ability to relate to the characters, like Platform before it, this does not lead to an entertaining film. Also like Platform, this movie suffers from a similar lack of character development or drama, which makes it very difficult to care about the characters involved, or their problems. For that matter, the main characters don't seem to care much for their own problems; the climaxes of both plots are very anti-climactic, leaving one with a feeling of “So, what was the point of this again?” The plot's slow (almost glacial) pacing for the relative lack of drama does not make for an enjoyable viewing experience. The dialogue itself is also often hard to watch, as, especially in the climactic scenes, there are multiple several second long pauses between the speakers. While this would possibly look and sound natural if the speakers were emotionally overcome, or trying to find the right words to say, this is clearly not the case. The speakers merely stare at each other, facial expressions unchanging and completely emotionless, leading to a very awkward scene that is grating to watch. While one would expect such reunions to be awkward to an extent, the way Jia has set it up is simply to much. An alternate interpretation of these strange conversations is the fact that all parties involved have more on their minds, and the actual plot is really more of a tangential concern to them, in light of being uprooted by the dam's construction.
Where the film really shines is in its cinematography. While the sweeping camera shots, and focuses on buildings ready for demolition may help pad the relative lack of plot, they are by far the most interesting aspect of the film. The sweeping scenes of the desolate city and ruined buildings seem to speak more clearly to the consequences of human displacement than the characters themselves.
The point of the film, showing the consequences of constructing the dam, is most aptly displayed via the film's camera work; the plot itself feels more like an after thought tacked on to make the movie. This, combined with the poor pacing of the plot, lead to a very boring viewing experience, and as a result, I would not recommend this film to any but the most die hard of Chinese film followers, or those more interested in art films.
No comments:
Post a Comment