Director: Jia Zhangke
Writers: Jia Zhangke
Starring: Zhao Tao / Cheng Taishen / Huang Yiqun / Wang Hongwei / Liang Jingdong / more...
Genre: Drama
Country/Region of Production: Chinese mainland / Japan / France
Language: Mandarin Chinese / Jin / Russian / English
Release: 2005-04-15 (Chinese mainland) / 2004-09-04 (Venice Film Festival)
Runtime: 143 min / 105 min (Theatrical Version)
Also known as: The World
IMDb: tt0423176
Film introduction
As a dancer in the Beijing World Park Folk Village, Zhao Xiaotao (Zhao Tao) is tired of the miniature world around him, and longs to take a plane with her boyfriend Cheng Taisheng (Cheng Taishen), who is also a security captain in the folk village, to see the real world outside. The visit of her ex-boyfriend reminds Zhao Xiaotao of her unforgettable first encounter with Cheng Taisheng and the mediocre days that the two have lived at present, understanding that the old ideals have long been shattered, and the sudden departure of the Russian girl Anna who has just met at first sight has deepened her doubts about the meaning of real life, and realized that her and Cheng Taisheng's loyalty to each other is the only beauty left in life.
However, the human heart is the most contemplative, and Cheng Taisheng quietly gives his heart to another woman who is about to go to Paris, but he obviously does not understand the rules of the emotional game that are popular in the real world outside the folk village, and can only return to his humble identity.
The films directed by Jia Zhangke always carry an indescribable sense of suffocation, oppression, despair, and powerlessness. "Xiao Wu", "Platform", "Children of the Jianghu", etc., show that people in that era pursued their ideals, from the beginning of the joy, to the final had to end up, accept the cold reality, and continue to live in a desperate world.
It's like the dialogue at the end of the film:
Are we dead?
We're just getting started.
Many films show the characters' tenacious lives after suffering a fatal setback. And Jia Zhangke's is not, the protagonists did not experience any earth-shattering setbacks or tribulations, but a sense of powerlessness that was slowly beaten by life, hope and blood lost.
As Wang Xiaobo said: I was twenty-one years old that day, and in the golden age of my life, I had many extravagant hopes. I want to love, I want to eat, and I want to become a half-light and half-dark cloud in the sky in an instant, and later I learned that life is a slow process of being hammered, people grow old day by day, and their extravagance disappears day by day, and finally become like a hammered cow. But I didn't foresee this on my twenty-first birthday. I felt like I was going to be fierce forever and couldn't hammer me with anything.
Sadly, most of us are hammered, fantasizing about disappearing day by day, and enthusiasm cooling day by day, day after day. When you fantasize about the day when it disappears, the moment when your youth ends, life enters another stage, yes, it has just begun.
The world is very large, as large as 34 provinces and 9.6 million square kilometers of land in China waiting for you to walk, as large as seven continents and four oceans waiting for you to travel around the world.
However, the world is very small, you have seen the outside world, but you find that you can never finish it, slowly, from the joy of the beginning to the same, in the end, your world may still be in the same direction, it is difficult to walk.
In the Internet world of Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., we have seen a different life, seen the vast world, different people, different things, can put down the mobile phone and return to the cold reality. Happiness is someone else's, no matter how big the world is, no matter how beautiful life is, how much can you really grasp in your hand?
The sense of powerlessness brought about by not seeing the way out and not being able to find the direction is that the increment is not found.
Without increment, people cannot create value, they have to act according to their faces, and they have to struggle with their own dignity every moment.
Under the incremental world, everyone is looking forward, just charging, that can take care of what is inward and sad.
In the absence of increments, it is the inward roll and mutual harm. So, we have to always go towards the incremental place.
The sky is high for birds to fly, and the sea is wide for fish to leap.
The young people of Shanxi Town under Jia Zhangke's lens, due to the limitations of the times and vision, were eventually trapped here. What hinders them may be just a train ticket.
Today, these obstacles are gone, the flat world brought by the Internet, as long as you want, you can find what you want, what we lack is only the courage to pursue increments and the patience to persevere.
Even more frightening than not seeing hope is giving up hope.
The World
- 61st Venice Film Festival Main Competition Golden Lion Award (Nominated) Jia Zhangke
- The 41st Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival Golden Horse Awards Best Original Score (Nominated) Lin Qiang