Wednesday, April 05, 2006

The World

(Shijie)
Jia Zhangke, China / Japan / France, 2004
3 out of 4 stars

This rather arty film depicts the lives of workers at an internationally-themed park in Beijing. It’s actually more focused on two main characters than the chaotic opening might lead one to believe, and the very brief diversions into the lives of others seem mostly to be thematic red herrings, but I don’t know if that’s a fair assessment. There isn’t tons of narrative here, but there is nonetheless a plot and a more sincere attempt to engage the viewer than what I’ve seen recently in other arty, uneventful films like Millennium Mambo and Forty Shades of Blue.

Jia Zhangke does some very interesting things with recurring visual motifs, and he hints (sometimes agonizingly) at things like broader social significance and the most basic of character motivations. Even with some surface plot points, it took me a few seconds to digest what had happened. While I enjoyed it, I couldn’t recommend it because I feel that films like these are even more “in the eye of the beholder” than regular films, because when the director doesn’t guide your experience of the film as much, your reaction is going to be all the more personal.

Source: Zeitgeist DVD
4 April, 8:29

No comments: