by Joel Bocko
This is an entry in my Best of the 21st Century? series. Further entries will appear on Wonders in the Dark every Tuesday.
First things first, it’s very hard to capture the life of Still Life in a still. There were numerous images that caught my eye while watching the movie, and when it was over I tried to go back and pause certain moments to create a screen-capture on my computer. No dice, though I finally settled on the enticing image seen above. The problem was that all of these impressive visuals contained the essential value of movement, either of the camera, within the frame, or both. One particular sequence seemed ripe for pictures: a quiet scene in which characters dance on a rooftop at dusk, with the half-constructed metropolis blazing in the background and a yawning, unilluminated bridge stretching towards the hilly horizon. Yet each time I paused the simple panning motion, the still did not capture that visceral pull of the visuals, the interruption of a simple sweep somehow stripping the shot of its power.
Still Life is a Chinese film from 2006, directed by Zhang Ke Jia, a young director with a slew of films on this master list (Still Life is the first of his work I’ve seen). The movie tells two stories, both revolving around characters coming to a submerged valley village called Fengjie – the massive, decades-long Three Gorges Dam project has left the old town underwater, while around the rising Yangtze River a flurry of construction and demolition unfolds. Both characters – Sanming (Sanming Han) and Shen Hong (Tao Zhao) – are looking for long-lost spouses. Both, in their separate ways, are baffled with this strange world, a fusion of the confused fragmentation of modern life and the disarrayed, displaced remnants of the old.
Shen Hong, a woman whose husband lives and works in the area but barely keeps in touch, clearly comes from a comfortably middle-class background. Well-dressed, quiet, guided through town by a vaguely embarrassed young man who seems to be an archeologist and knows her husband, Shen Hong is made uneasy not by any physical discomfort but by a sense of spiritual dislocation. While the landscape seems cacophonous and toxic through Sanming’s eyes (at one point, clad only in slacks and a flimsy undershirt, Sanming pauses while knocking down a building, only to see a troupe of scientists in protective suits scanning the area for dangerous chemicals), to Shen Hong it is the inscrutability, the melancholy mystery, of the place which seems so threatening.
Her story is sandwiched between the two blocks of Sanming’s tale, which the film opens and closes with. This structuring is slightly awkward – when we realize that we’re back with Sanming, Hong’s story seems almost like an afterthought – but it does give us the impression that Sanming’s situation is somehow more stable and universal, and that he and those like him will outlast those like Shen Hong. This conclusion is furthered also by the different outcomes of the two stories. While Sanming initially comes to Fengjie as an outsider, he eventually adapts, finding friends and work. He even tracks down his wife, and faces the prospect of possible reunion with her. Shen Hong, meanwhile, never seems at home in this environment and when she finally meets up with her husband, she informs him that she has another lover and the couple agree to divorce. (It’s unclear if this information is true or if she’s only trying to hurt her spouse, whom she’s recently discovered is unfaithful. If the latter, the plan backfires: Shen Hong’s husband is the one to amicably suggest a formal split).
Throughout both segments, the world on screen is constantly in motion. Sometimes this is due to pans and lateral tracking movements (seldom, that I can recall, to freer movements of the camera within space). Sometimes the viewpoint is still but the objects on screen are moving – one building collapses, another rise off the ground on rocket boosters in a dreamlike aside, as if Fellini’s immobile 8 1/2 set finally took wing. Even if it seems like we might be settling down for a relatively still moment we’re usually surprised. When Sanming and his rediscovered wife embrace in a spare, gutted apartment, the wall knocked out so that we can see the entire cityscape sprawled out before us, the static tableau is suddenly interrupted by the collapse of an entire tower behind them.
Contrast this with Shen Hong’s sad reunion: she and her husband cross under a sort of jetty-bridge on which couples are dancing to music broadcast over a loudspeaker (and while I haven’t mentioned it, this is a movie filled with music, filling the air subtly rather than foregrounding the soundtrack). This couple, whom we presume are materially more stable than Sanming and his wife, are placed in an environment constantly in flux, both the camera and elements within the scene are in perpetual motion. The two central figures come together, dance briefly themselves, and then depart in different directions unable to maintain their footing on the carousel. Meanwhile, the other couple, while face to face with awe-inspiring destruction, are able to view this collapse from a safe distance, their feet on solid if fleabitten ground. Nothing is certain (Sanming goes back home for a year, hoping to earn enough money to buy his wife back from service on a boat, where she is a virtual slave – and he warns his friends, and us, that the mining work he is returning to is very dangerous). But somehow we sense that Sanming is, however tentatively and difficultly, moving forward while Shen Hong’s movement is free of any direction whatsoever.
Much more could be said about Still Life, but it appears to be a film which grows with familiarity – both with the film itself (there’s a lot to take in on just one viewing) and with the film’s context (no doubt the history of the area and the project which the movie documents add a great deal to its understanding). And yet there’s also something to be said for experiencing it as a “stranger” – a position which echoes that of the main characters. In this film, one can distinguish the “strangers” – in town for a purpose, sensitive to their surroundings, with fleeting connections to the place despite a governing unfamiliarity – from the “tourists” whom we glimpse briefly in the opening and occasionally throughout. Jia positions us as strangers in this film, giving us a rarely privileged yet distanced view, which is one to savor. We are reminded of this fact when we step back and, like tourists, try to take a snapshot only to discover that this dynamic, ever-shifting world cannot be captured so easily. A single image will not do it justice; Still Life must be experienced with the benefits of time and motion.
“Throughout both segments, the world on screen is constantly in motion. Sometimes this is due to pans and lateral tracking movements (seldom, that I can recall, to freer movements of the camera within space). Sometimes the viewpoint is still but the objects on screen are moving – one building collapses, another rise off the ground on rocket boosters in a dreamlike aside, as if Fellini’s immobile 8 1/2 set finally took wing. Even if it seems like we might be settling down for a relatively still moment we’re usually surprised. When Sanming and his rediscovered wife embrace in a spare, gutted apartment, the wall knocked out so that we can see the entire cityscape sprawled out before us, the static tableau is suddenly interrupted by the collapse of an entire tower behind them.”
Beautifully written and typically insightful observations here Joel, and this is certainly a msterful work of cinema that belong sin any discussion gathering up the best films of the period. It’s a film about dislocation and alienation, hence there’s an existential level here worth exploring. The filmmaking focuses on people and landscapes, and the once-beautiful backgrounds have been replaced by industrialized ugliness. Of course there’s the political underpinning, which was also the essence of the excellent documentary UP THE YANGTZE from two years ago, that does far more than broach the clash between tradition and modernization. I think STILL LIFE basically implies that narratively there’s really a thin line if any between the feature film and the documentary, and that the humanism rises way above the form.
Great post here Sam, Great Essay by Joel, and another great post below from Tony. Greatness abounds!
I have seen the fantastic ‘Up the Yangtze’, but not this ‘Still Life’, I will now be seeking it out.
Thanks very much for that Jamie. If you loved UP THE YANGTZE, you will surely feel the same way here, methinks.
Aside from the lip service that most will throw out here noting the obvious superb writing and gift for describing a very visual film, I have it to say that the best I can compliment is the enthusiasm that’s on display here. Unlike other writers here at WITD that prefer to magnify what annoys them about films they love, you rejoice in the things you love. I have not seen STILL LIFE, matter of fact is I’ve not heard of it till I read this essay. To tell you that I now DESIRE a viewing of this film can lay itself as testiment in your faunting review. The thing I like most about Joel’s work is he’s not afraid to say straight out; I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Well, your love here is infectious and I will now annoy Schmulee to no end to screen this one for me. Look forward to it. Thanks for this, Joel. Nicely done. Your Pal, Dennis
While I have not seen Still Life, Sam the connection you have made with the excellent Up the Yangtze is canny.
Chinese cinema is so strong because of this grounding in social reality – talented and adventurous film-makers drawing stories from the social dislocation arising from untrammeled economic growth and the underpinning corruption, environmental destruction, and emerging inequalities.
In Up the Yangtze, there is a marvelous scene where the Chinese MC on the river cruise ship tells a political joke (from memory): the US President is in China on tour with the Chinese Premier in car, and he asks the Premier what direction he will take – the Premier replies we will turn right but indicate left.
The dearth of such films in US cinema is a striking contrast. Where are the movies about the fallout from the toxic debt debacle, the real reason for the Iraq quagmire, what the hell is happening in Afhganistan?
Tony, sadly in American mainstream cinema ‘Up in the Air’ is seen as a serious film about life in America 2009-10.
Urgh.
I loved this thrashing Slate gave it recently:
http://www.slate.com/id/2246901/
I think the most accurate American films (tackling current issues) from last year (non-documentary) were ‘A Serious Man’ and ‘The Girlfriend Experience’. Even then ‘A Serious Man’ isn’t as pointed in the hear and now as I think your post is asking films to be. All I can say is, “I agree, where are the movies about the fallout from the toxic debt debacle, the real reason for the Iraq quagmire, what the hell is happening in Afhganistan?”
Also, I saw you make reference to Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism: A Love Story’ the other day. Seems you thought it was so-so, I haven’t seen it yet.
Yes Jamie, a fair effort by Moore but the viewer is left with no clear understanding of how it happened, the ending was lame, and the street antics may work but they seem silly and ineffectual to me. Still worth a look.
Thanks, all.
Tony, I think every national cinema has its own voice. The strong point of American film has never been direct social commentary, which is NOT to say that this strain isn’t present at all or that it wasn’t more pronounced in the past. But what American films do best is, to a certain extent, fantasy. This doesn’t have to mean Star Wars type mythology or escapism – even the grittier films of the 70s were couched in a kind of mythic, romantic sensibility, one which had a rich imaginative quality and drew upon a history more deeply and deliberately fantastical. Same is true of noirs, I think – they have a lot to say about society but it’s usually indirect and cloaked in the conditions of genre and a highly stylized aesthetic.
As for films of the past decade, I’ve often been as critical as you – while not necessarily looking for leftist critiques to the same extent, I very much wanted to see works engaging with the zeitgeist from any perspective. This didn’t seem to happen but now, looking back, I can see that there were actually a number of films (far more than in the 60s) which did grapple with the times, in manners both direct and indirect, allegorical and specific. This is not to say I was completely wrong to take American cinema to task (nor that these films were entirely successful in their attempts) but perhaps I was a bit too harsh. Just look at the Oscars this year, about as mainstream as you can get without treading in Entertainment Tonight box-office-tally territory. A film dealing directly with the Iraq War, another doing so allegorically, three films about race (two explicitly, from quite different perspectives, another disguised as a genre piece), and a war film which broached topics of torture and revenge without dealing with them directly – tossing the ball which critics eagerly picked up and ran with. Again, not to say that these films got it right (Avatar’s take on Iraq was astonishingly facile & some feel District 9 got its apartheid analogy backwards – of course that’s not strictly an American film, but I digress) or were primarily political (Hurt Locker eschewed ideology, at least on the surface, and did not engage the Iraqi POV at all; Blind Side buried social commentary in feel-good tropes). Just to point out that the situation is more complex than you – or I, at many points – have acknowledged.
I also think this was less true in the Bush years but is was a pronounced trend in 2009 and will probably continue to be so as the demons in the closet continue to spill out and the economic tensions become more and more impossible to ignore.
Apropos, has anyone seen Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone? It opens here tomorrow?
Looks like it opens here in about 2 days. Don’t know anything about it but maybe I’ll review it for the new site…
What I enjoy most here is learning about films that are growing on a list of “to watch” at some point.
It also seems, that films as you suggest like this seem to crop up in bad times.
Seeing the best times in work/pay now behind me (ending in the early ’90s) and seeing everything people before us worked so hard for disappearing and the new generation being kept, or rather allowing them to be kept from interaction on so many levels with others, well, hope you get my drift.
Thanks once again for your reviews!
Cheers!
MovieMan,
“Yet each time I paused the simple panning motion, the still did not capture that visceral pull of the visuals, the interruption of a simple sweep somehow stripping the shot of its power.”
Oh yes, I know that frustration.
Maybe not ‘Still Life’ as a study or as a portrait but ‘(there is) Still Life’ here in this changing place. I liked one or two bits of the film but I didn’t feel those characters were actually characters living there. It felt like fictional people on a flat documentary stage. The ‘beautiful’ shots were too self-aware (the film lacks vitality) and the slow, sad-sack nature of the film and its protagonists wore thin.
Some lovely turns of phrases in your review MovieMan and a film worth seeing if only as an educational piece on what is happening in parts of China. As a tale, it goes nowhere.
Coffee and Stephen, thanks. I thought the film had vitality, but in the backgrounds rather than the foregrounds. While I don’t think the people were especially fleshed-out (their significance did seem to be largely symbolic) I’m surprised you saw the “stage” as “flat” – what was most compelling to me about the film on first view was the physical layers on display. It will be interesting to revisit it later in light of Jia’s other films, and also more Chinese films from the decade – neither of which I am currently well-versed in.
[…] Still Life (2006, Hong Kong/China), dir. Ji […]
IS THIS REALLY A FICTIONAL ACCOUNT OF THE SAME EVENTS IN ‘UP THE YANGTZE’?
[…] Previous entries: The Hurt Locker and Still Life […]
Joel — I’ve had this bookmarked to read for the last week and am just now getting around to it. Needless to say, it’s a great write-up, encapsulating much of what is fascinating about this film. I especially like your ability to enthusiastically pull out those individual scenes from the film and describe what makes them so great.
I watched STILL LIFE back-to-back with UP THE YANGTZE and it gave a certain added power to both films, providing a context for a situation that I had no idea about, the mass displacement of a huge swath of people by government edict (which as an American sadly brought to mind the movement of Native Americans from their lands). As I head to China in the next few weeks, issues like this are rolling around in my head as I look towards interacting with the people there.
As for STILL LIFE itself, I found it to be great, but it took some time for it to simmer in my head before I came to that conclusion. Being unaware of Jia’s style, I felt it was too much of a slow burn at first. But then looking at the way he paints a scene on the screen and, as you mention, let’s the background move, while keeping the foreground grounded, I came to realize much more was going on than I noticed at first blush.
Plus, the story has a deeper element to it that really has resonance with the modern Chinese experience (from my understanding via reading/watching other documentaries). Sure, there is a physical displacement at work, but there is also a shift from the old ways of China, to the new modernity that they are trying to usher in, and a certain number of people are going to get left in the cold on this. The Three Gorges project is a perfect macro-level example of this, but there are other smaller ones in the film as well (I can only think of the old, unusable currency that San has, but I know there were more).
Anyways, I wrote a not as great review last year on my site on this (my #7 film of 2008) and you have me wanting to revisit the film again and rewrite everything. An outstanding job here, Joel.
I know Joel will respond Troy to your extraordinary comment here (wow!) but I can’t help but joining in as cheerleader. He is on quite a roll, and his last half-dozen reviews at WitD have really been wholly masterful, especially for those who have seen his subjects.
Thanks, Sam – looking forward to the rest of the series too. I think next week’s will most likely garner a lot of comments, just because the film has attracted a lot of attention in the past.
Thanks, Troy – and glad I caught you write before you head off to China! Enjoy your trip.
It was a bit of a slow burn for me, as well, at least during the watching but by the end I was convinced I had seen something very impressive. I’ll check out your review – indeed, I’ll bookmark it as you said you’ve done with this one. Really I should do that more often, I’m like a snail when checking out the blogosphere and always lose track of older posts which is hypocritical of me since I’m always trying to get people to read my older stuff! Your approach is duly noted, and mimicked.
Hey, I fully understand not being able to have time to read everything. I’m sure I’ve missed many a good conversation and review due to not having time. My bookmarks of “to read” do grow quite large and I still end up not reading a lot of them, but my heart is in the right place.
If you read my review, I’ll note there are two of them, the first being a combo with UP THE YANGTZE, and the latter being a bit of a refined go of that same review (in my best of 2008 post). I’d love to re-write the review as I now feel I have a better idea of how to write things, but I know I’ll never do it, so there it sits.
I’m obviously going to have to see Up the Yangtze, as it keeps coming up in these conversations and I wasn’t even familiar with it beforehand…
At the end of my very first blog post (back in August 2008) I left a note saying I was dissatisfied with how it came out and I’d go back to rewrite, but of course I never did. Though I still link up all my reviews together for easy reference (in case someone wants to know what I thought of a given film, etc.) I think my writing has definitely come a long way since I started, and could go a lot further still. Nothing to sharpen your skills like keeping it up!
Needless to say, I will be looking ahead to Troy’s full report on his Trip of the Lifetime (in more ways that one) Best wishes as always to you and Trisha and your new bundle of joy!
Thanks Sam — fingers crossed right now on an update today…
(Sorry to hijack the comments section) – It looks to be official Sam, we’re off to China on April 1st or 2nd. More details at my “family” blog 🙂
Troy: You are NOT remotely “hijacking” this section, and even if you were, I would say “Go For It” as this upcoming trip is a million times more important than a film a film review or a blogsite!
This is extraordinary news!!!