The World
by Zhang Ke Jia
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DVD details
Actor: Jue Jing, Taisheng Chen, Tao Zhao, Yi-qun Wang, Zhong-wei JiangDirector: Zhang Ke Jia
Brand: Zeitgeist Films
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Cantonese (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 143 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-14
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Zeitgeist Films
DVD Reviews of The World
DVD Review: Ensemble Drama in Beijing Theme Park: Realistic Slice of Life, Plus Very Very Pessimistic Outlook of Life
Summary: 3 Stars
Newset film from Chinese director Zhang Ke Jia ('Platform' 'Unknown Pleasures') is, some say, most accessible one in his works. True, but the touch of the long film is still bleak and detached, going on and on with almost non-existent story about the workers in the eponymous theme park. Critics would admire the feel and perhaps appreciate its anti-globalization attitudes in it, but many viewers like me would find the film awfully pretentious and tedious. My impression happens to be the latter one (hence my lower rating). But of course, you might find the film and its realistic content differently.
Anyway, I have never been to the place myself, but in the suburb of rapidly modernized city of Beijing, there really exists a theme park World Park, where you can see lots of miniature landmarks of the world such as The Eiffel Tower, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, or The Taj Mahal. The catch phase of the place is `Visit the World without leaving Beijing.'
In this small world lives Tao, young girl and dancer working in the theme park. She has a boy friend, the park's guard Taisheng, but `The World' introduces us to many other characters, all somehow trapped in this small-scale artificial `world.' With the film's ensemble fashion that strongly reminds us of Robert Altman, `The World' shows us the background of each character. One is from Russia, but most of them are from rural parts of the mainland China, and as Tao recollects, they all came to the big city with dreams.
But in the bleak world of Zhang Ke Jia, dream means something that these characters never get, and as many viewers would notice, their lives keep going around the same course like the small monorail car that runs languidly around the theme park. Many things (mostly unhappy ones) happen to the people surrounding Tao, but the director often insists on the emotionally detached tone, making some of us wishing for twist and surprises. But in `The World,' for better or for worse, you don't see them, and you don't even see what you call character development because the story is already told before the film begins.
Excuse me for my vague commentary about the story, but there is no way of summarizing it just like the case of `Short Cuts.' And `Short Cuts' is not my favorite film, which would explain my rather negative review. I just don't like long films (`The World' runs 140 minutes) and I don't like pessimistic films (as you expect from Zhang Ke Jia). I gave a try to this one, but couldn't bring myself to give it a second one.
The film's realistic touch is definitely helped by digital camera and the actors' good acting, and the camera always captures the slice of ordinary life of the ordinary people, letting us see the inside of their hearts. Still, these days I'm getting tired of the attitudes of any director who is always looking for the negative aspects in the things surrounding us. And the film's very ending, of which meaning is still unclear to me, but of which shockingly cold touch is clearly intentional, is only the film's mystification of its theme, which is obvious from the beginning. The problem is, do we really need 140 minutes to know that? Or it is worth?
Description of The World
Acclaimed Chinese writer-director Jia Zhangke (PLATFORM, UNKNOWN PLEASURES) casts a compassionate eye on the daily loves, friendships and desperate dreams of the twenty-somethings from China?s remote provinces who come to live and work at Beijing?s World Park. A bizarre cross-cultural pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center, World Park features lavish shows presented amid scaled-down replicas of the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, St. Mark?s Square, the Pyramids and even the Twin Towers. From the sensational opening tracking shot of the young performer?s backstage quest for a Band-Aid to poetic flourishes of animation, clever use of text-messaging and a rapturous electronic score by frequent Hou Hsiao-Hsien musical collaborator Lim Giong (GOODBYE SOUTH GOODBYE, MILLENNIUM MAMBO), Jia pushes past the kitsch potential of this surreal setting?a real-life Beijing tourist destination. THE VILLAGE VOICE called Jia Zhangke "the world?s greatest filmmaker under forty," and THE WORLD is his funniest, most inventive and touching work to date.One of the year's most highly praised pictures, Jia Zhangke's ravishing epic opens in a rush of color and sound. Here's young China in action, optimistic and bursting with life. First there's yelling (for a badly-needed Band-Aid), then music--gurgling synths atop a pan-ethnic beat--as the sequin and feather-bedecked performers of the "Five Continents" company take the stage of the real-life World Park. As the ads say, "See the world without ever leaving Beijing," and 106 of the globe?s major sites are recreated in miniature, like a third-scale Eiffel Tower and mini-Lower Manhattan--complete with Twin Towers. Doll-faced Tao (Tao Zhao), ever-present cell phone in hand, is at the center of the maelstrom. Her boyfriend, Taisheng (Taisheng Chen), is a security guard with a sideline in fake IDs (and infidelity). When some Russian guest workers join the troupe, Tao's increasingly insular world briefly expands. She and Anna (Alla Shcherbakova) don't speak the same language, but do what they can to communicate. Tao envies her new friend?s "freedom"--she's never been beyond China's borders--unaware that Anna's nomadic existence is by necessity rather than choice. When she finds that Anna has become an escort, Tao's world snaps back to its previous dimensions, ultimately shrinking down to nothing. The World is unambiguously ambitious, with elaborate dance sequences, animated text messages, and tragic subplots. Unlike 2000's Platform, Zhangke's fourth feature isn't set in the past or the provinces, but he surpasses that success with his finest--and most cynical--film to date. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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