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`The World' of a `vagrant generation'
7/4/2005 8:45

Shanghai Daily news

The first three movies of internationally acclaimed director Jia Zhangke were not screened in Chinese cinemas because he failed to apply for government approval to make them. Xu Wei talks to the director about his fourth movie, one he did seek approval to shoot Jia Zhangke, a ``sixth-generation'' Chinese movie director, is in Shanghai earlier this week to promote his fourth feature film but the first to achieve public release in China.
``This is the first time I've attended such a big press conference in China to talk about a movie I have made since 1998 when I began filmmaking,'' the 35-year-old director says with a grin. Before its first public screening in the country which starts tomorrow, Jia's latest movie, ``The World,'' has already garnered several international prizes including Best Screenplay at the Deauville International Film Festival in France last September, the Grand Prix at the Vesoul International Film Festival, also in France, and Best Feature Film and Best Cinematography at the Las Palmas International Film Festival in Spain last month. Critics say ``The World'' looks at the problems of globalization and individual daily lives and touches people's interior world. Although ``The World'' is only the first of Jia's movies to be screened in Chinese cinemas, he has never been considered a ``small potato'' in the domestic film industry. Eight years ago, his first film, ``Xiao Wu,'' won awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival. His next two movies, ``Platform'' (2000) and ``Unknown Pleasures'' (2002) -- which completed the ``Hometown'' trilogy Jia had started with ``Xiao Wu'' -- also won critical acclaim overseas. The quietly spoken Jia says his first three movies missed public screening in China because ``the approval system is too complicated'' and he simply decided he didn't want to apply for approval. ``Public screenings are the wish of any film artist who intends to reach the widest audience and have his work shared and enjoyed by others,'' Jia says. ``In those gloomy days when people could only see my movies in movie clubs or even on pirated DVDs, I felt like a loitering guy who was making little contribution to Chinese culture and film. Luckily, the fate of `The World' will be different.'' Yes, it's now a different ``world'' for Jia and his loyal fans. His ``Hometown'' trilogy revolved around the lives of young people who live in the countryside of Fenyang County in Shanxi Province. ``The World'' leaves the countryside to give an insight into the lives of migrants who have moved to the city and a lot of the action is set against a background of bustling urban life. ``I've wanted to make this film for a long time, ever since I left my hometown to study at the Beijing Film Academy in 1993,'' Jia says. ``I wanted to make a film that reflects the influence high-paced urban life has on individuals.'' The story is set in Beijing's World Park where artificial landmarks from all over the world -- an Egyptian pyramid, the Eiffel Tower and the White House -- combine to create an imaginary world. The migrants in the movie have come to Beijing to find work. Zhao Xiaotao (Zhao Tao) is a girl from Shanxi Province who puts on dance shows in World Park every day. Her boyfriend Tai Sheng (Cheng Taishen), another migrant, works as a security guard in the sealed-off environment of the park. Day after day, the two are either performing in or patrolling around the park. Feelings of depression, emptiness and anxiety seem to be the common condition among all the migrants in the movie -- from the young couple who work in the park to a shrewd tailor from Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province to the hardworking construction workers. ``The character I played is proud and decisive in the park but outside he would be despised by others as a migrant,'' says actor Cheng Taishen, a graduate of the Central Academy of Drama. ``When night falls, he wanders around the park with a white horse. His deep loneliness and helplessness in trying to live in a big city life bubble over in this hyper-realistic scene.'' The migrant workers are all typical members of ``a vagrant generation,'' explains Jia. ``They are floating like leaves and have no place to take root. They are working hard on the bottom rung of urban life but feel it will be impossible to fit into urban culture. The movie tries to show what could happen if migrants' psychological condition can't keep up with the rapid pace of urbanization.'' As with his previous movies, Jia doesn't offer a definite explanation of the meaning of ``The World.'' ``What I am able to do is to put forward a question to the audience and arouse their awareness about the living conditions of others, about life and the real world,'' Jia says. Jia continues his documentary style of filmmaking in ``The World'' with frequent use of long shots, pop music, natural sound effects and local dialects. And the cast once again features amateur actors. Zhao Tao, who plays the heroine, is a dancing teacher at Taiyuan Normal University in Shanxi Province. ``It makes his works more true to life,'' says Steven Qian, one of Jia's local fans. ``The farmers with their strong accents act themselves naturally in the movie. However, behind the gritty realism there is also high artistry.'' Jia is adept at controlling the rhythms of the story. He abandons the use of dramatic narrative plots, commonly part of Hollywood blockbusters, and he attaches great importance to details. Some new elements have been added to ``The World.'' For the first time Jia employed a fully professional crew and he also enlisted Taiwanese composer Lim Giong, who composed the scores for many of Hou Hsiao-hsien's (a famous Taiwanese filmmaker) movies. And Jia himself wrote the lyrics for ``Ulan Bator Night'' which features in the movie. The floating music of the tune perfectly matches the living conditions of the characters. The use of flashes as interludes is another creative highlight of the movie. ``This can better emphasize people's confusion about modernity and the rapidity of change caused by the opening up of the economy,'' Jia says. ``Plus, this fashionable Internet language will make the movie more digital, stylish and young.'' Growing up in the countryside -- his father was a school teacher and his mother a shop assistant -- Jia saw in his childhood the poverty that used to be pervasive in rural areas. He helped his family bring in the wheat harvest and one year had the experience of living on a diet of sweet potato for a whole winter. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy in 1997, Jia raised some 200,000 yuan (US$24,000) for his first film ``Xiao Wu,'' a story about a pickpocket. ``Platform'' focuses on the years 1979 to 1992 and ``Unknown Pleasures'' is a story about teenager bank robbers. All three movies enjoyed international success but none of them had been approved for shooting by the Chinese government simply because Jia didn't want to follow the procedures necessary to gain approval. ``When I shot `The World,' the pressure I was under in production was greatly reduced as I didn't have to worry that something would interrupt the shooting because this time the movie had been approved,'' Jia says. ``Another good change was that we had a much bigger budget (about 12 million yuan) and could shoot in more sensitive places -- like public spaces, train stations, bus stations.'' Now Jia is busy making a documentary entitled ``Still Object'' and is planning to write a sequel to ``Xiao Wu'' in which the pickpocket has become a middle-aged man. ``A director cannot count on miracles,'' Jia says. ``The process of accumulating and learning knowledge is the most essential and important thing and that is the way I take and follow.'' And perhaps Chinese movie fans should cross their fingers for Jia in the future because as long as he follows the rules, there will be more public screenings of his films.