Still Life
by Jia Zhang Ke
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DVD details
Actor: Zhou Lan, Sanming Han Tao ZhaoDirector: Jia Zhang Ke
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Mandarin Chinese (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-11-25
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: New Yorker
DVD Reviews of Still Life
DVD Review: Digging Up the Past, Burying the Present, Building the Future.
Summary: 4 Stars
"Still Life" was written and directed by Sixth Generation Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-Ke, who brings a documentarian's style to this fictional drama inspired by the upheaval that the incredible Three Gorges Dam project has created. Two people from the city of Shanxi travel south to what is left of Fengjie to look for people from their past. Han Sanming (Han Sanming) is trying to find his ex-wife who took their young daughter and left him 16 years ago. Shen Hong (Zhao Tao) hasn't heard from her husband in 2 years and journeys to Fengjie, where he is a manager for the Demolition Authority, to confront him. Fengjie is a 2000-year-old town in the process of being demolished in 2 years, as it is gradually flooded, with much of the Old City already submerged.
"Still Life" is shot and scripted in a "cinema verite" style with a conspicuously slow, contemplative pace. It doesn't ever speed up, but it did eventually lull me into its languid universe. It is a mediation on people's relationship to the past and to life's forward motion. Sanming and Hong have come to Fengjie to either reclaim their past or to let it go. There is an archeological dig across the river, ironically digging up relics from thousands of years ago, as the town of Fengjie is demolished and buried, while the great Three Gorges Dam is constructed. Director Jia Zhang-Ke has delicately highlighted the strange cultural and social implications of China's massive infrastructure project, where past, present, and future meet head-on. It is clear which is winning, but which should win is less certain. In Mandarin with optional English subtitles.
The DVD (New Yorker Films 2008): The documentary "Dong" (1 hour, 10 min) is included on the disc. This is a loosely structured film about the artist Liu Xiaodong which first introduced Jia Zhang-Ke to the Three Gorges region. There is an "Interview with Jia Zhang-Ke" (18 min) in which he speaks about the film's structure, themes, his documentary approach, visual style, and the Sixth Generation emphasis on the personal and individual. There is also a theatrical trailer (2 min) and a Press Kit and interview with the director in DVD-ROM form, which can be accessed on a Windows or Mac computer. The film and bonus features are in Mandarin with optional English subtitles. The white subtitles can be a little difficult to read at times and would have been better in yellow.
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