Still Life (San Xia Hao Ren)
Winner: Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival 2006
Opens Friday 1 February 2008
With Zhao Tao, Han Sanming
109 mins. Cert PG. English subtitles
Winner of the 2006 Venice Film Festival, Still Life is the vivid and absorbing tale of two individuals struggling to keep up with the dizzying pace of change in 21st century China. Its director, the 37-year-old Jia Zhangke, is a leading representative of the 'Sixth Generation' of Chinese film directors and has been hailed in The New York Times as 'one of the world's most important filmmakers'.
Set against the spectacular landscape of the Three Gorges region along the Yangtze River, Still Life intertwines two stories of people searching for their missing partners: Han Sanming, a coal miner from Shanxi province, is looking for his wife who ran away from him sixteen years previously, while Shen Hong, a nurse, is hoping to be reunited with the husband she hasn't heard from for two years. Their respective quests bring them to Fengjie, a town with a two thousand year history, currently undergoing demolition and soon to disappear forever in the flooding caused by the controversial Three Gorges Dam.
Jia Zhangke brings a keen eye to bear on the human cost of the Dam which is a vital part of the Chinese government's plan to provide electricity in a country with rapidly growing energy needs. China's largest construction project since the Great Wall, it entails the destruction of more than 1200 towns and villages, including many significant historical sites, and the displacement of over a million people.
With its long, uninterrupted takes, Still Life feels startlingly real, blending fictional and documentary elements to frequently breathtaking effect. Jia Zhangke subjects the changing landscape to intense lyrical scrutiny, illuminating the relationship between individuals and their environment, and the strange co-existence of man-made squalor with so much natural beauty.
Still Life offers a revelatory, thought-provoking portrait of people adrift in a world they no longer recognise. Yet it also reveals their energy, resilience and ability to reach new understandings.
For more Chinese events in London visit the Asia House website.
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