Jia Zhangke Tackles History, Memory and Workers

Jia Zhangke's 24 City

Screens Saturday September 27 : 3:00pm

Tao Zhao in Jia Zhangke's 24 City

I should first admit that I adore the films of Jia Zhangke - they provide me with more inspiration than anything I've seen in a long time. His latest, entitled 24 City, is somewhat of an experiment and while it may not immediatley draw one in like Still Life or The World, the film is extraordinary. I'm working on a longer review of 24 City, but with the films NYFF screening being tomorrow I wanted to post something now.

24 City is an incrediably graceful combination of real person interviews, fictionalized interviews, landscape footage, portraits of people, pop music and poetry.    All of these elements come together to tell the story of a place called Factory 420 and it's teardown in order to build a luxury apartment communtity called 24 City. If it all sounds complicated it really isn't. The structure of the film might be complex but the emotion on the faces of people, combined with their words and footage of the factory being torn down is quite simple and beautiful.

Jia's goal with 24 City was to capture a moment, a memory and to capture it in a way that would make it like history (or how we remember history).   He wanted to document China's movement towards a market economy.   I can't help but admire his blending of politcal narrative with personal.   Hearing Joan Chen's "Little Flower", one of the fictionalized interviews that is based on the story of may women, talk of the lack of love in her life is heartbreaking and one of the strongest single moments I have seen in the cinema this year. Likewise I couldn't help but relate to  Tao Zhao's 26 year old woman (my age!) that wishes she could help support her parents better.

24 City may not be Jia Zhangke's best film, but it is phenomenally better than most of what's available in theaters and thus far is one of my NYFF favorites (along with Hunger - review coming soon, The Headless Woman, Wendy and Lucy, RR and Summer Hours).

If you are in New York please do check the film out - it has no distributor, so this could end up being your only time to see it anytime soon.   Also, Jia will be participating in a director's dialogue on Sunday afternoon (I'm going!).

I'll have a more comprehenisve review up soon too along with press conference video! Stay tuned.

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