China in the Age of Global Capitalism: Jia Zhangke’s Filmic World 9780367367794, 9780429351426

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China in the Age of Global Capitalism

Jia Zhangke is praised as “the most internationally prominent and ­c elebrated figure of the Six-Generation of Chinese filmmakers.” This book provides an examination the content and forms of Jia’s featured films and analyzes their merits and faults. Jia’s films often narrate the lives of ordinary Chinese people against the backdrop of political-economic changes. The author conducts an in-depth analysis of how these changes have ferociously impinged upon the c­ haracters’ living conditions since China integrated itself into the world economy in the high tide of accelerated globalization since the 1970s. The author focuses on discussing the “politics of dignity” expressed by Jia’s allegorical renditions to explore the director’s cultural-political notions. This book maps 10 of Jia Zhangke’s films onto three major subject ­matters: recalling the past, engaging with the present, and narrating national history and envisioning the future. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese film studies, as well as other disciplines, such as political science, sociology, anthropology, etc. Wang Xiaoping is the Chair Professor of Chinese studies at Huaqiao ­University and an adjunct professor of the Institute of Arts and Humanities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research interests include modern and contemporary Chinese literature, culture and critical theory.

China Perspectives

The China Perspectives series focuses on translating and publishing works by leading Chinese scholars writing about global topics and China-related themes. It covers Humanities & Social Sciences, Education, Media and ­Psychology, as well as many interdisciplinary themes. This is the first time any of these books have been published in English for international readers. The series aims to put forward a Chinese ­perspective, give insights into cutting-edge academic thinking in China and inspire ­researchers globally. Titles in arts currently include: Establishment of “Drama” Orientation Transition of the Research Paradigm of Chinese Dramas in the 1920s and 1930s Zhang Yifan Embodiment and Disembodiment in Live Art From Grotowski to 3-D Hologram Shi Ke China in the Age of Global Capitalism Jia Zhangke’s Filmic World Wang Xiaoping

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China in the Age of Global Capitalism Jia Zhangke’s Filmic World

Wang Xiaoping

This book is published with financial support from the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences. First published in English 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Wang Xiaoping The right of Wang Xiaoping to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. English Version by permission of Social Science Academic Press (China). British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-36779-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-35142-6 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgments

vii ix

Introduction: a lyricist of China’s “postsocialist modernity” in the age of neoliberal transformation 1 PART I

1 Recording human affection within social transmutation: portrayal of early reform China in Platform (2000) 19 2 Morality and love in post-revolutionary China: a pickpocket’s being and nothingness in Xiao Wu (1997) 37 3 Hedonism and nihilism in the consumerist wasteland: unknown Pleasures (2002) as a fable of drifters in a market society 56 PART II

4 Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy? New proletariat and the commodity world of alienation in The World (2004) 75 5 Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? Chinese Goodmen in Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (2006) 88 6 Contradictions of contemporary China from an elite’s perspective: sound and fury in A Touch of Sin (2013) 103

vi Contents PART III

7 Orchestrating workers’ memories and Chinese national history: 24 City (2008) as a fake documentary 125 8 A postmodern narrative of historical fragments and elitist historicism: on the fiction and reality in I Wish I Knew (2010) 147 9 “China consciousness” in the age of globalization and its shortage: Mountains May Depart (2015) as a postmodern film 170 Conclusion: The cultural politics of the “poetics of vanishing” 188 References 195 Appendix 205 Index 207

Illustrations

1.1 A musical play, “A Train Travelling toward Shaoshan,” is performed 21 1.2 Cui Mingliang argues that he is a cultural worker and an intellectual laborer 23 1.3 Cui Mingliang and the troupe members discuss the outside world 24 1.4 Cui Mingliang rides a bike with his friends across a narrow alley 25 1.5 Cui Mingliang’s father scolds his son 26 1.6 Zhong Ping performs a Spanish dance 29 1.7 Mingliang and Ruijuan watch a foreign film when Ruijuan’s father arrives 30 1.8 Mingliang and Ruijuan feel bored after getting married 31 2.1 The mise-en-scène of the opening sequence 39 2.2 Xiaoyong expresses his gratitude to the authority 40 2.3 Xiao Wu bitterly complains to Xiaoyong 41 2.4 The elder policeman urges Xiao Wu to emulate Xiaoyong 42 2.5 Xiao Wu is together with the bargirl 46 2.6 Xiao Wu becomes the object of gaze by the crowd 48 3.1 Xiao Wu is extracting money from Binbin 58 3.2 Binbin and Xiao Ji are listless 59 3.3 Xiao Ji is pursuing Qiaoqiao 60 3.4 Qiaoqiao finds that Qiao San has another woman 64 3.5 Xiao Ji drives away with Qiaoqiao 66 3.6 Xiao Ji becomes a desperado 69 4.1 A glamorous show is performing in the park 76 4.2 Xiaotao is seduced by a nouveau riche 77 4.3 Laoniu and Qiuping happily get married 81 4.4 Little Sister, Xiaotao and the plane 82 83 4.5 Anna and Xiaotao take care of each other in the troupe 4.6 The opening scene of The World 86 5.1 Sanming and the laboring people are inside a narrow and 90 sultry room

viii Illustrations 5.2 Sanming and his ex-wife are together 91 5.3 Little Mark is watching a television showing A Better Tomorrow 94 5.4 The last shot shows an adventurer walking through a tightrope on height 95 5.5 A long-shot with the film’s title 97 5.6 The Gods look weary and listless 99 6.1 The opera Lin Chong Escapes to Liangshan at Night is performed on stage 107 6.2 When Dagai crosses the plaza, there is a statue of Mao gesturing to go forward 110 6.3 San’er fires like setting off fireworks 111 6.4 Displayed in a medium shot, ladies in opera dress perform pornographic shows to entertain the new rich 114 6.5 The closeup shows Xiaoyu turning chivalrous 117 6.6 Presented in a long shot, Dahai kills the village head in front of the magnificent, ancient temple 118 7.1 Dali holds high the transfusion bottle and walks past the alleys 128 7.2 Gu Minhua returns home after a performance with her makeup on 130 7.3 Nana appears to be melancholic 132 7.4 Old worker He Xikun tells the story in a decrepit, spacious room without decoration 136 7.5 Guan Fengjiu introduces his experience in an auditorium 137 7.6 A group of peasant-workers in front of a construction site numbly watching the camera 139 8.1 The historical specter, holding a small painting fan in her 149 hand and over her face, walks around 8.2 Zhang Yuansun (right) is dancing in the party attended by 150 the “Ningbo Gang.” 8.3 Wang Peimin looks at a marching team of the PLA, falling 155 into contemplation 8.4 The army chief explains the significance of the revolution to 156 his fellow comrade 8.5 A clip from the documentary film Huang Baomei 162 172 9.1 Shen Tao visits Liangzi who plans to leave the town 9.2 The Chinese teacher urges Dollar return to China to visit 176 his mother 9.3 Shen Tao and Zhang Jinshen are on the shore of the 179 Yellow River 9.4 A young boy carrying a long-handled sword roams silently among the crowd 183 184 9.5 Presented in a long shot, Shen Tao is dancing in the snowfield

Acknowledgments

Chapters 1 to 3 and Chapter 5 of the present book are included in my book Postsocialist Condition: Ideas and History in China’s “Independent Cinema (Brill, 2018). Chapters 4, 6 and 7 of the present book are included in my book I­ deology and Utopia in China’s New Wave Cinema: Globalization and Its Chinese ­Discontents (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018);. Parts of the Introduction are included in the two books as mentioned above. They went through minor revisions before being included here. I would like to thank the two publishers for allowing me to use the published ­materials here.

Introduction A lyricist of China’s “postsocialist modernity” in the age of neoliberal transformation

The Chinese film director Jia Zhangke贾樟柯(1970- ) “has emerged as the most internationally prominent and celebrated figure of the so-called Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers”; critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky passionately exclaims, At once sensitive and patient to the specifically local and generational, and concerned with larger questions of what it means to live in a ­g lobalized world, Jia’s movies are some of the medium’s most striking and complex portrayals of 21st century life, in China or anywhere. (italics mine)1 Vishnevetsky’s appraisal is generally shared by most critics in the world. A representative figure of the auteur’s group of the Chinese S ­ ixth-­Generation directors, Jia emerged in the second wave of the trend of filmmaking; ­however, he has become its most prominent figure. Today, even the official medium in China acknowledges him “a symbol for Chinese movies today, or at least a particular genre within them” and “a heroic figure whose art house films can stand out in a market dominated by commercial films.”2 Taking himself as “an unofficial director from the grassroots of Chinese society” in an interview in the year 1999,3 he often narrates how ordinary persons drag out an ignoble existence against the larger backdrop of the ­political-economic changes, which have rapidly occurred and ferociously impinged upon the life of average people since the late 1970s, when the reform and opening-up policy started, and especially after the country integrated itself into the world economy in the high tide of accelerated globalization. Born in a small, inland town Fenyang, Shanxi province that often ­becomes the locale of the stories in his cinematic works, Jia developed his interest in literature and art when he studied in middle school and published fictional works in journals such as Shanxi Literature. Since he had no ­talents in math, he failed the college entrance exam; therefore, his father sent him to a training class at Shanxi University studying fine arts. Therefore, he often watched movies in a nearby theater. Moved by Chen Kaige’s masterpiece Yellow Earth (1985), he was determined to devote himself to

2  Introduction cinema. He was admitted to the literature department of Beijing Film Academy in 1993 and started to experience filmic art as a sophomore.4 Since then, he joined the production of “independent films,” which in the Chinese ­context means those cinematic productions without the official sanction and ­financial ­support of the state and not allowed to be distributed domestically. It is well acknowledged by film historians that these films endeavor to be “art films because of their propensity for innovation in film language and their audacious treatment of sensitive materials”; they are habitually called ­“exploration cinema.”5

Jia’s filmmaking and China in the era of global capitalism To understand Jia’s works and the preconditions for his appearance in ­China’s cinematic world, it is necessary to learn the history of China’s ­reform and opening-up since the late 1970s. It can be divided into two p ­ eriods. The first half, between 1978 and 1989, is characterized by a shift from a state-controlled economy to a commodity economy under the tutelage of the government, during which average people felt excitement about ­spiritually exploring unknown arenas and experiencing diversified desires physically toward a promising socialist future. The latter half, from 1989 to now, is an era of neoliberal transformation; China has increasingly ­integrated itself into global capitalism by embracing market-driven policies, bringing about serious consequences but also reaping huge benefits and ­becoming the world’s second largest economy. In accordance with this gradual yet drastic transformation, the narrative in Jia’s movies is often documentary-inflected and concerns average folks living in the postsocialist society with a humane spirit. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky thus notes that Jia’s films “often blend documentary with fiction and extreme subtlety with satire”6; Anthony Kaufman appraises him for having a “trenchant view of China’s blind economic expansion,” which renders him “cinema’s foremost poet of globalization and its discontents.”7 Jia’s movies arrived as the second wave of the Sixth-Generation productions. The first trend, starting in late 1980s, mostly “deals with the topic of ‘Who am I?’” Consequently, “many … involve[s] a marked, often irritating, self-centeredness.”8 The second group appears around 10 years later, taking more care of “the ‘margins’ and the ‘weak,’ expressed by the newly fashionable post-class society term of ‘diceng’ (lower strata).”9 Zhang Zhen thus holds that members of the second group, in particular Jia Zhangke, differ from the Sixth Generation, because most of the Sixth Generation directors were born in the 1960s and “share the memory of the intense tail-end of the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath.” Jia was born in 1970 and is accordingly “emphatically a product of the reform era of the 1980s and represents a different mode of filmmaking.”10 However, in my view, the fact that Jia and his group practice “the ‘amateur cinema’ (yeyu dianying), or ‘unofficial ­cinema’ (minjian dianying) … outside of the elite academy in particular

Introduction  3 and the professional branch in general,” and their practice “takes leave of BFA-centered genealogy and its elitism and joins forces with an incipient DV (digital video) movement,” does not necessarily mean that they qualitatively differ from the earlier group, as Zhang Zhen also admits that these latecomers only started “a different phase in the independent movement” and share the similar concerns on the “diceng.”11 The appearance of this new term “diceng” around the turn of the 21st century points to its historicity: the underprivileged groups and individuals are produced by social stratification and class restructuration, in particular because of the state’s pro-market turn. Political scientists have pointed out that since the mid-1990s, Privatization of state owned enterprises has simultaneously produced both the urban poor and the new rich while transforming the character of the cadre elite. Taking advantage of their effective control over the assets of SOEs and ambiguities in the reform measures, managers and local officials have illicitly transferred public property into their own hands on a massive scale.12 In particular, “the commodification of urban and suburban land use rights has become fertile ground for the growth of the new bureaucratic-business elite.”13 Social injustice and corruption have become salient social phenomena, whereas those workers who were fired or unemployed have become the diceng. Accordingly, the term “postsocialism” has become the most-often used term to portray Chinese culture since the end of the Mao era, in particular referring to the Chinese society since it underwent marketization in the 1990s; aside from being a political-economic regime, when pointing to the cultural transformation in this period, it also refers to a “dystopian cultural condition.”14 Most of Jia’s movies, just like the films of other Sixth-Generation auteurs, describe, project and articulate this situation. However, this consequence of the neoliberal transformation is often said by film critics of the Sixth-Generation auteurs to be the outcome of globalization; for instance, Lu Tonglin argues that: globalization has imposed a radical break between them and their parents’ generation in terms of working environment, lifestyle, and value system. Rapid economic transformation combined with the ideological vacuum in the post-Mao era has shaken any cultural basis for the formation of a stable community in contemporary China. As a result, individuals must face alone a world turned topsy-turvy by the worship of the material god, money.15 To be sure, this is not merely the fault of the critics. Rather, in none of Jia’s movies thus far do we do see any portrayal of the lives of laid-off workers, not to mention the exploration of the neoliberal agenda. However, we

4  Introduction need to know that globalization is the spreading of global (namely western) ­financial capital into other parts of the world, mostly the third world, and has been surging forward since the 1980s. China began to embrace this process only after the 1990s, when the state decided to welcome the western market and import its economic model to reconstruct a market economy. Although the state refuses to acknowledge western neoliberal policies, some of its policies, such as large-scale privatization, massive deregulation and rampant marketization, have brought about serious economic and social consequences. In light of this fact, Jason McGrath has trenchantly contended “from the perspective of post socialist states, the term globalization often appears to be simply a label for the rapid, technologically enabled spread of capitalism into areas it had not previously penetrated – or had previously been kicked out of.”16 In accordance with China’s turn to marketization, its film industry ­underwent a profound transformation and its institutional framework was completely overhauled, especially after the mid-1990s. As a matter of fact, as early as the middle of the 1980s, the Chinese filmic world witnessed a drastic transmutation. The so-called “Fifth Generation” unraveled a revolutionary reform in terms of filmic language and the content delivered in their movies. Concerning themselves mainly with rural customs and folk traditions, they departed from the mainstream, propagandist works of socialist realism.17 After 10 more years of development, the innovative moves they showed became somewhat stereotypical representations, criticized as orchestrating pictures of self-orientalism. The Sixth-Generation directors, in this sense, undertake a double rebellion. Like their predecessors, they are against Maoist revolutionary cinema; Jia Zhangke thus argues that “[A] lot of things had been obscured in the revolutionary narratives: private space, daily space,” and the Sixth-Generation auteurs accordingly initiate “a ­return to private and everyday life.”18 They are simultaneously against the fifth-generation, who have “a greater emphasis on the mystique of an unchanging and closed rural communal system that has lasted for thousands of years.”19 By contrast, they cast their camera to the contemporary ­Chinese society undergoing a rapid change, or the nation’s political, social and ­cultural contemporaneity, shown by the transformation of interpersonal relations and the transmuted destiny of ordinary people.

Elitism or populism? Truth claims and political unconscious However, although the Sixth Generation of filmmakers always proclaim the spirit of independence, Jia, like the others of this group, was often under the pressure of financial necessities, if not always the strains of the market. Therefore, while the “early films of director Jia Zhangke … represent an attempt to make art that is independent of both political power and ­market forces,”20 it has been observed that he “soon became dependent upon the transnational market for art films, insofar as his producers expected his

Introduction  5 films to gain success through screenings at film festivals and subsequently in art-house theaters around the world.”21 While his dependence on the market might have compromised some of his artistic and cultural-political visions, the more significant problem lies in the cultural-political ideas and the political unconscious of the director, which over-determine the cultural-political connotations of his final productions. To capture the society in a fundamental transmutation, the Sixth-­ Generation directors such as Jia prefer the documentary-like approach, which is named the aesthetic of “Xianchang” (literally on the spot or on site). For Jia, it is an “adventure on the scene of shooting, which will yield unexpected situations but also possibilities.”22 For critics like Zhang Zhen, it is “the space in which the conventional boundaries that separate ­documentary and fiction, video and celluloid film, and professional and amateur practice are challenged and transgressed” or “an aesthetic grounded in social space and experience – contingent, immanent, improvisational and open-ended.”23 Is Jia’s cinematic vision guilty of a kind of elitist or populist tendency? It is well known that Jia himself opposes the elitist stance of producing the so-called “personal films” taken by some self-styled “independent” cinematic producers and promotes a sort of “amateurism,”24 which “refers to a mind-set in approaching his subject-matter, not to the technical quality” of the film produced.25 Does this aesthetic of “Xianchang” and “amateurism” naturally bring about an authentic world on screen? Curiously, unlike the early practitioners of the Sixth Generation who claim “my camera does not lie,” Jia self-consciously repudiates the realistic tenet. He stresses that realism is not his primary concern. Like the common knowledge literary critics now share, realism to him is the result of meticulously prepared and executed construction. Quoting Krzysztof Kieslowski, he asserts that “the closer you stick to reality, the more absurd and unreal the film becomes.”26 Apparently, by this tenet, either the Xianchang practice or the “amateur cinema” that he joins to promote, which “embodies the spirit of xianchang” by “its emphasis on directness, proximity, and involvement,”27 do not usher in a more “real” world simply out of their documentary impulse and “democratic” move. Jia still claims that, The truth is not presented in front us so blatantly. The truth comes to us through the feelings and the understanding of one person towards another. Only this way we can grasp the truth. Truth or truthfulness does not lay bare in the life. You have to possess a certain degree of sensibility so as to straighten out the logic of emotion and disclose the buried truth. So it is only with the artist’s ability to imagine based on the understanding of the character, that we can convey, by the means of fictionalization, what we feel about the truth and truthfulness. So the purpose of arts is not to fictionalize. The purpose of arts is to understand life and nature of life. But there are two paths to achieve such understanding —— one is through non-fiction, the other is fiction.28

6  Introduction He goes so far as to suggest: Fiction is also a bridge to truth [zhenshi]. Including our understanding of it – how it happens, how it becomes real; what are its levels? Truth itself is a kind of experience, a kind of judgment, not a style of d ­ ocumentarymaking. That is why, in my documentaries there are many arranged shots, I make up a lot, and I use actual people to act.29 In his view, cinematic reality and truth are merely construction, as shown in his acknowledgment that “[t]here is no absolute objectivity, there is attitude, and through this attitude, there is an ideal.”30 However, undertaking an alternative film style as Jia does in order to ­explore the lives of marginal subjects and sensitive subject matters, does not by itself mean that Jia essentially chooses the point of view of ordinary Chinese people. Rather, Jia persistently holds that one has no right to represent the majority but only can work on behalf of himself,31 and he insists on his personal, subjective judgment: he asserts that “The perception of truth may not always come from direct capturing, for it may possibly come from the subjective imagination”; therefore, what is significant is the director’s “rendition of the perception of truth.”32 In other words, for Jia as well as for many others of the group, the stake lies in finding the effective strategy to generate the effects of the real. Yingjin Zhang thus astutely remarks that for many of these directors, “an objective rendition of external reality is merely part of the picture; what really counts is his subjective perception of the real ‘condition of life.’”33 These terms, such as “attitude” and “ideal,” suggest that the filmmaker’s “subjectivity” infiltrates into his/her work to negotiate the perception and representation of the real world. To be sure, the director’s perception might be complex; for instance, it has been widely accepted that Jia’s films are “symptomatic of contending ideologies, of a major transition within China’s contemporary landscape.”34 This is common among many members of the Sixth Generation. How does the director balance and make his judgment on the priorities, advantages and disadvantages of the differing ideologies? Is it possible that he is not conscious enough to differentiate them and merely presents them “as they are”? Could it be that he consciously evacuates all these ideologies from his cinematic productions and just presents reality “as it is,” which seems to be his intention? It seems that we reach a predicament here. On one hand, the members of this group are more or less convinced that their perceptions and versions of reality are more real than the official narratives; on the other, they have an “attitude” based on their own experience, which means their personal ­ideological concepts. In Fredric Jameson’s terms, this “attitude” is closely related to the political ideas and unconscious of the artist him-/herself, when he makes his judgment on social affairs and assumes his personal ­motivations, which over-determine the ways of creating productions.

Introduction  7 If truth is a kind of judgment or a result of an attitude – it recalls the debate on realism in the history of literary theory – then how can we ascertain it is authentic? For this question, Theodor Adorno’s (1903–1969) thinking about the relationship between objectivity and historical content gives us some hints. He contends that authentic art must articulate the truth content (or objectivity) of a society in a particular historical era; but to do so, Aesthetics is under no obligation to deduce the objectivity of its historical content in historicizing fashion, as being the inevitable result of the course of history; rather, this objectivity is to be grasped according to the form of that historical content.35 In light of this teaching, we can further ponder the question, what kind of objectivity is ascertained through “the form of that historical content”? To find the answer, we can glimpse at the social-historical contents of Jia’s narratives. It is commonly accepted that his films “have attempted to fathom the gaping and contradictory schism between the compressed capitalism of Dengist modernization and the worker/peasant state envisaged in 1949.”36 Accordingly, one might ask, does Jia Zhangke’s way of artistic representation intend to critique the incompatibility between reality and ideology? To answer this question, as well as the issue of elitism/populism, a useful method is to examine the way of dealing with the problems of the “other” in cinematic works. In Jia’s case, the “other” is seen in the “new poor” and the subaltern class. Regardless of whatever objective truth may exist, the commonly accepted opinion is that his sense of upholding public responsibility and expressing concerns over the destiny of the lower class has continued unabated. Even though he has been allowed to release his works through officially permitted public channels, his “social consciousness hasn’t faltered.”37 Social consciousness or conscience can be expressed in differing ways and diversified directions. Jia focuses on, as we will see, the “politics of ­d ignity,” expressed in his often allegorical renditions. Applying an allegorical ­reading of Jia’s cinematic productions is therefore the most instrumental way to e­ xplore his inner cultural-political world, and to delve into his cultural-political notions and political unconscious is simultaneously the most effective means to find the allegorical imports of his cinematic works. In terms of this allegorical reading, Ismail Xavier points out that while the traditional conception of allegory as a text to be deciphered implied the idea of an a priori ‘concealed meaning,’ a conception that turned the production and reception of allegory into a circular movement c­ omposed of two complementary impulses, one of concealing the truth beneath the surface, the other of making the truth emerge again;38

8  Introduction Nevertheless, In our period, different kinds of reading can be performed without the old concerns for the degree of consciousness or intention experienced by the supposed subject who is taken as the source of the message. In our cultural process readers are no longer searching for “intended” or conscious meanings, but for what the interpreter can say on the occasion of his or her encounter with the text, an encounter that cannot, however, be seen as only a dual (reader-plus-text) relationship, isolated from all kinds of contextual influences.39 Rather, the contextual information and, furthermore, the subtextual messages, are more important when we engage in the practice of a historical/ political hermeneutics, as Jameson teaches us in his seminal work Political Unconscious.40 For this purpose, allegorical reading fundamentally “tries to reconcile the imperative of ‘fixed truths’ with the acknowledgement that time is an essential dimension of human experience.”41 In another place, X ­ avier makes it clear by explaining what he means by this “time”: “Although set in a changing world and increasingly circumscribed by a globalized market dynamics, allegories maintain their dramatic interest as operative totalities of reference for the fictional works engaged in the production of general statements about our historical moment.”42 In our historical moment, this “essential dimension of human experience” is apparently the conjuncture of the market-driven, neoliberal transformation in the age of global capitalism, in which China has been deeply involved since the 1990s, or even much earlier, ever since the 1980s when the reform started. Allegorical reading is particularly valuable in this context in which differing cultural-political institutions and beliefs intertwine and interact with each other. It “has acquired its preeminence in criticism because the accumulation of historical experience related to cultural shock, slavery, repression, and violence has shown its central role in the interaction of different cultural systems.”43 Thus far, Jia has produced 10 feature films, which can be roughly grouped into three categories: recalling the past; engaging with the present; and narrating national history and envisioning the future. Let us look at the content and the forms of the films in these categories and briefly discuss their merits and faults, which are simultaneously the structure of the three parts of the present study.

A lyricist of China’s “postsocialist modernity” Jia’s earliest three features are named his “hometown trilogy,” which stand out for their touching “poetics of vanishing”44 and render him “a chronicler or historian of the postsocialist years.”45 They are about Chinese society and townsmen in the reform years of the 1980s through the early new c­ entury and a deepening process of globalization into which China inexorably integrates

Introduction  9 itself. Michael Berry finds that they consist of a trilogy “not in the sense of any true narrative continuity between the stories or characters, but rather in terms of their shared aesthetic vision, social critique and … the common socio-geographic-historic terrain through which they traverse.”46 He also astutely notes that in terms of filmic skills although on the surface they appear as “amateur cinematic exercises lacking in tension, plot development and drama,” what is “hidden beneath that surface is a rich nuanced world laden with passion, power, sensitivity to detail and a meticulously designed narrative arc.”47 This kind of passion also appears in the debut work of some Sixth-Generation directors, which is often the artist’s self-­expression or autobiographical account. The social more of innocence and vitality of the early reform era serves as the intrinsic dynamic for this sort of filmic narrative. It is widely held that compared to other filmmakers of the Sixth G ­ eneration, Jia’s “deployment of the on-the-spot realism” brings about a “temporality of flux, of contingency, maybe even of chaos,” resulting in “an account of postsocialist marketization that is ambivalent at best and quite possibly a vision of Benjaminian ruination.”48 However, there are problems in Jia’s method of narration, in particular regarding the historical content in his narrative. For instance, Xudong Zhang notes that while Jia’s cinematic works “display an almost systematic sociological approach to the portrayal of the problems of contemporary Chinese development,”49 there is a seemingly inalienable defect within these films, for “part of the aesthetic of observation and spontaneity is an absence of any historical ­dimension or logic of change and development that would suggest storytelling.”50 I will explain why there is a shortage of causality here, resulting in a sort of melancholic sentimentalism. Platform (2000), the second feature of this trilogy, is widely regarded as “a cinematic rendition of unofficial history through ‘personal memories.’”51 The film chronicles the ups and downs of a small cultural troupe as it ­transforms from a peasant culture troupe to a break dance electronic band between the late 1970s and early 1990s and transcribes the affection of these amateur performers. It provides a microcosm of the social-­economic and cultural transmutation of China in the first decade of reform and opening-up and ­illustrates the changing destiny of this group of cultural workers.52 The movie then becomes a historical epic portraying the human affection of an entire generation, which is a testimony to the vastly shifting social-economic history within the gigantic societal disintegration and restructuration. On the other hand, due to his ignorance of the shifting political economy, Jia does not sufficiently present the social-political implications of this transformation; his film is thus unable to serve as a political cognitive map of the social totality for this gigantic sea change. The audience is left with a sentimental feeling about the changed façade of social ethos commanding interpersonal relationships, a state of turmoil couched in a moralist – or humanist – discourse. Jia’s first production Xiao Wu (aka Artisan Pickpocket, 1997) reportedly was created out of his will to represent China’s transformation in the 1990s,

10  Introduction following the diegetic time of Platform. It portrays a pickpocket’s life and examines his relations, thus vividly illustrating the influence of the largescale changes brought about by two decades of economic reform and opening-up. The film can be read as an elegy to the past, with its out-offashioned characters. Jia ingeniously catches the pervasive influence of large-scale changes impinging on the moral values and life choices of the populace brought about by early reform. However, the true political unconscious of this “­ outdated” figure is misunderstood, by the director as well as the critics, as the brotherhood of the traditional bond rather than as the socialist concept of equality and justice propagated in the Mao era. This socialist-tinged political awareness has been implicitly shown in this protagonist’s denouncement of ­exploitation and speculation, born out of his deeply ­ingrained, though u ­ nconscious, socialist mentality. These two films record China’s first two decades of reform. Representations of hometown life appear “stable … and in a state of stagnation” but “in the process of being destroyed and shattered amid the process of modernization.”53 Jia’s third work Unknown Pleasures (2002) is different, for it casts its camera on Chinese society and its marginal figures since late 1990s, which fundamentally differed from the earlier years. Here we witness an overwhelming sense of devastation raging among the sound and fury of a spree in the rampant neoliberal transformation. Ignoring all constraints, the youthful delinquents are hedonistic and nihilistic, roaming the postsocialist wasteland in late 1990s and early years of the 21st century. They have no long-term yearnings for the future. On the surface, they arrange their lives and act independently; spiritually, they run amuck and are disturbed by existentialist strain. However, beyond offering a picture of the postsocialist world steeped in a hedonistic atmosphere and showing the omnipresent impingement of western pop culture, the film does not convincingly explain the origins of rampant nihilism and hedonism among the youngsters. At best, it exposes them as leftovers of the ruthlessly market-driven economy. Portraying the social marginals left out by the epochal trends, all three features embody the spirit of humanism by taking care of “the politics of dignity.”

Humanitarian concern over the underprivileged The second category of films more directly expresses Jia’s humanitarian concern for underprivileged people in the era of neoliberal transformation. In 2004, he made The World (世界Shijie), his first cinematic work to win approval and even funding from the Chinese government and to be allowed to be screened domestically. Primarily a social-realist movie, it concerns the fortunes of migrant workers in urban China by exploring their everyday lives in the exotic, metropolitan city. They try to realize their dreams in the harsh environment; however, they encounter an empty and lamentable existence. The film shows the proletariat state of the peasant workers and their gender-related troubles as well as the birth of the primal consciousness of

Introduction  11 internationalism, but the film has to consider the tastes of its audience and does not develop a comprehensive picture of why the characters are unable to escape their socially determined destinies. While Still Life (2006) seemingly follows the same pattern of presenting the subaltern as an honest yet numb “silent majority,” it has a vast qualitative difference, because it shows their wisdom, tenacity and intrinsic goodness, derived from the Maoist concept of laboring people. Its contrast of the subaltern’s insistence on genuine love with the middle-class urbanite’s betrayal of affections implicitly echoes Mao’s judgment of the habitus of differing classes. This contrast has been rarely seen in movies since the end of ­Maoist socialism. To be sure, all of these are perpetrated in an subtle way; as a consequence, the moral naïveté of the laboring people is shown to be a depoliticized, a-historical or “universal” entity of “human nature,” rather than a product of historical formation or political education. In the year 2013, Jia’s new product A Touch of Sin (天注定Tianzhuding) created a great stir. On the surface, it shows the omnipresent conflicts and violence of Chinese society, exposes the direct causes of corruption and increasing social stratification and displays the helpless lives of the lower half of society. Accordingly, the film could be easily mistaken to show progress of the artist’s efforts from critical realism to revolutionary realism. However, a careful analysis of the motivations of the various characters’ suicidal moves reveals that in the director’s mind and plotline, their lethal actions are less a result of the evil forces of capitalism and bureaucracy than of the protagonists’ personal moral defects (extreme characters, individualistic considerations, immoral behaviors or inborn “sins,” etc.), which appear as the most significant elements in bringing about the tragedies.54 This way of rendition greatly weakens the depth and strength of the film’s intended social critique. The reason for this lapse is that the film observes societal conflicts and the underclass from the elitist’s point of view; consequently, it is incapable of delving into the inner world of the subaltern class and the ­social-political over-determinations that account for the characters’ relentless choices. Consequently, it can only present an unrealistic, fantastic picture of the subaltern by displaying and insinuating their eccentric dispositions, petty-mindedness and cultural-psychological idiosyncrasies.

Recording history and envisioning the future Composing an alternative historiography has always been the practice of writers and artists discontent with “official” works, which they see as being filled with unacceptable fabrications. China’s “independent” directors are no exception. Jia endeavors to record an “unofficial history” when he scripts his features; as he claims, “Remembering history is no longer the exclusive right (or prerogative) of the government. As an ordinary intellectual, I firmly believe that our culture should be teeming with unofficial memories.”55 The statement signifies that he holds “the social obligation of

12  Introduction representing unofficial memories in addition to” projecting his own “artistic visions.”56 Out of his roaring success, Jia’s ambition has grown, and he is determined to “re-present” the working class in particular and the Chinese nation in general. Thus came his “fictional (or fake) documentary” 24 City (二十四 城记Ershishicheng ji) in 2008. Aimed at rewriting the national history of China through the historical experience of China’ working class, it blends documentary footage with fictional elements based on his interviews of 100 ex-workers of a factory undergoing unprecedented changes. The mutative destiny of the factory merely serves as the background; in the foreground are the vicissitudes of the lives of the factory staff. Both serve as an ethnographical account of the working class in particular and the nation-state in general. Though it meant to account for China’s macro-transformation and depart from the Party’s official version of the historical narrative,57 the selective interviews present a de-politicized recollection that insinuates the working class’s downfall and tragedy as merely phenomena of certain strata and professions and that the transformation of the fortune of this community is a result of unavoidable industrial restructuration. On the other hand, while it ostensibly chants the spirit of sacrifice of the laboring class in the traditional socialist era, a class now degenerating from the “leading class” of the nation to the “disadvantageous community (弱势 群体ruoshiqunli),” it actually indicts the “inhuman” cost of that period. The heroic contribution and salient class consciousness of the working class in the Mao era is not shown in the diegetic space, whereas the market-oriented transformation is presented as going from a barren, ascetic and implicitly inhuman era to an affluent market economy; this conforms with the officially endorsed, evangelical discourse of modernization. Consequently, the neoliberal deconstruction of the socialist enterprise and re-establishment of the “modern enterprise system,” a euphonious rhetoric for privatization, is sanctioned and eulogized by the complacent manager of the factory. In this way, the film shows a seamless integration with the hegemonic, neoliberal discourse. Two years after 24 City, I Wish I Knew (海上传奇Haishang chuanqi), a movie that can be seen as “documentary fiction,” was released. It narrates the changing destiny of the Republic with a focus on Shanghai and uses interviews of celebrities coming from the metropolis, as well as “wordless footage of the modern city, clips of films set in Shanghai, and the occasional explanatory intertitle.”58 On the surface, as critic Dans Edwards proclaims, it “gives voice to the vanquished as well as the victors, marking out history as an ever-evolving, always disputed discourse comprising a multitude of competing voices.”59 In truth, however, the narration of the interviewees “confuses the already vaguely focused history,” as Daniel Kasman keenly observes.60 A typical depoliticized account of the national history, the movie shows a revisionist version of the history of modern China, which takes the one century revolution as aberrant, or in Wang Hui’s terms, it

Introduction  13 “represents…a negation of China’s whole ‘revolutionary century’ – the era stretching from the Republican Revolution in 1911 to around 1976.”61 In 2015, Mountains May Depart (山河故人Shanhe guren), a seeming ­lukewarm family melodrama, attracted audiences’ attention. The film conveys the director’s knowledge of contemporary China and his prediction of its future, with so-called “Chinese consciousness” running through. Peter Bradshaw finds that the movie is “a futurist essay on China’s global diaspora and its dark destiny of emotional and cultural alienation.”62 Scott Foundas argues that it is “a polymorphous snapshot of 21st-century capitalism and its discontents.”63 Like most of Jia’s films, it also adopts an episodic structure, and Jia says that it is the way he sees the world because he is “interested in people at different times and different situations,” yet he also believes that “all the elements there are combined organically.”64 Again, dialectics plays its trick: the film ostensibly stands on a radical, postmodern position, as shown in its tolerance of a romance implicated by the “Oedipus Complex”; in effect, it not only typifies the discourse of modernization, but also maintains a conservative mindset that pays homage to the neo-authoritarianism that has been reviving in recent years out of China’s robust economy. In 2018, Jia completed his most recent work Ash Is Purest White (江湖 儿女Jianghuernü). Although it again seemingly portrays “ordinary people” from different backgrounds, he now has them “belonging to the same larger group” as the “sons and daughters of jianghu,” which is the film’s Chinese title.65 What is more, this new production shows Jia’s qualitative change. It is committed to exploring the inner moral strength of Chinese folk ­society, yet it is filled with contradictory symptoms of schizophrenia and ultimately experiences self-deconstruction, stemming from Jia’s one-sided and ­problematic understandings of Hong Kong and Taiwan bandit movies and his symptomatic judgment of contemporary Chinese social problems. Consequently, while it unabashedly proclaims to establish a “heartless” but “righteous” personage, this moral character is merely the self-imagination, self-legislation and self-positioning of the cultural bourgeoisie. It thus shows the dilemma of Chinese culture falling into a predicament of infertility when traditional socialist concepts are out of sight.

Notes 1 Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Director Jia Zhangke on technology, relationships, and Pet Shop Boys,” February 13, 2016. https://film.avclub.com/director-jia-­z hangkeon-technology-relationships-and- 1798244155. Accessed August 12, 2018. 2 Wei Xi, “Chinese Filmmaker Jia Zhangke Talks About ‘Ash is Purest White’ and the Evolution of His Career,” Global Times August 30, 2018.www.globaltimes. cn/content/1117675.shtml. Accessed September 12, 2018. 3 Lin Xudong林旭东, Zhang Yaxuan张亚璇, and Gu Zheng顾峥 eds., Jia Zhangke dianying: guxiang sanbuqu zhi “Xiao Wu” 贾樟柯电影：故乡三部曲之《小武》[The Films of Jia Zhangke: Hometown Trilogy, Xiao Wu], Beijing: Zhongguo mangwen chubanshe, 2003, 115.

14  Introduction 4 Michael Berry, “Jia Zhangke: Capturing a Transforming Reality,” in Michael Berry, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 185. 5 Zhang Zhen, “Urban Dreamscape, Phantom Sisters, and the Identity of an Emergent Art Cinema,” in Zheng Zhen, ed., The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, Durham, MD: Duke University Press, 2007, 350. 6 Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Director Jia Zhangke on technology, relationships, and Pet Shop Boys.” 7 Anthony Kaufman, “Generation China: Jia Zhangke Continues to Document His Rapidly Evolving (Self-destructing?) Homeland,” published on January 08, 2008. www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/219553/. Accessed October 31, 2012. 8 Paul G. Pickowicz, “Social and Political Dynamics of Underground Filmmaking in China,” in Paul Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, 14. 9 Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie? Truth, Subjectivity, and Audience in Chinese Independent Film and Video,” in Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, 5. 10 She believes that “the appearance in the late 1990s of Jia Zhangke and his films … inaugurated a different phase in the independent movement that effectively ended the era of the Sixth Generation.” See Zhang Zhen, “Introduction,” in Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent, 15. 11 Ibid. 12 They also note that “In the reform period, China’s ‘socialist land masters’ began establishing development companies. Selling land use rights to c­ ommercial ­developers, they reaped huge fortunes.” Ching Kwan Lee and Mark Selden, ­“China’s Durable Inequality: Legacies of Revolution and Pitfalls of ­Reform,” ­Japan Focus, January, 2007. Available at http://japanfocus.org/-Mark-Selden/2329. Accessed December 18, 2014. 13 Ibid. 14 Paul Pickowicz, “Huang Jianxin and the Notion of Postsocialism,” in Nick Browne, Paul Pickowicz, Vivian Sobchack, and Esther Yau, eds., New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 61–62. Yingjin Zhang points out that it generates “feelings of deprivation, disillusion, despair, disdain, and sometimes even indignation and outrage.” See Yingjin Zhang, “Rebel without a Cause? China’s New Urban Generation and Postsocialist Filmmaking,” in Zhang Zhen, ed., The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2007, 54. For a detailed discussion of postsocialism, see Zhang, “Rebel without a Cause?” 50–54. 15 Lu Tonglin, “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism,” in Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent from Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006, 125. 16 Jason McGrath, Postsocialist Modernity: Chinese Cinema, Literature, and Criticism in the Market Age, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008, 14. 17 They are “associated with rural landscape, traditional culture, ethnic spectacle, grand epic, historical reflection, allegorical framework, communal focus, and depth of emotion.” See Zhang Yingjin, “Rebel without a Cause?,” 53. 18 See Sebastian Veg and Jia Zhangke, “Building a Public Consciousness: A Conversation with Jia Zhangke,” China Perspectives 1 (2010): 58–59.

Introduction  15 19 Lin Xiaoping, “New Chinese Cinema of the ‘Sixed Generation’: A Distant Cry of Forsaken Children,” Third Text 16, no. 3 (2002): 263. 20 Jason McGrath, Postsocilaist Modernity, 10. 21 Ibid., 11. 22 Quoted from Zhang Zhen, “Introduction,” 19. 23 Ibid. 24 Sebastian Veg, “Introduction: Opening Public Spaces,” 7. 25 Ibid. 26 Jia Zhangke 贾樟柯and Du Haibin杜海滨, “Jia Zhangke duihua Du Haibin: ­Jilupian keyi chengxian zhenshi ma?贾樟柯对话杜海滨: 纪录片可以呈现真实 吗？[Jia Zhangke vs. Duhaibin: Can a Documentary Presents the Real?],” ­Mingbao zhoukan 明报周刊[Mingpao Weekly], November 28, 2009, 48. 27 See Zhang Zhen, “Introduction,” 29. 28 Lesley Greytear, “Cinema Spotlight: Interview with Jia Zhangke and Zhao Tao on A Touch of Sin.” www.asiancinevision.org/look-back-in-anger-interviewwith-jia-zhangke-and-zhao-tao -on-a-touch-of-sin/. Accessed March 20, 2014. 29 See Jia Zhangke and Du Haibin, “Jia Zhangke duihua Du Haibin.” 30 Stephen Teo, “Cinema with An Accent – Interview with Jia Zhangke, Director of Platform,” Senses of Cinema, no. 15 (2001). http://sensesofcinema.com/2001/ feature-articles/zhangke_interview/. Accessed March 20, 2018. 31 Cheng Qingsong 程青松 and Huang Ou黄鸥, Wode sheyingji bu sahuang: Xianfeng dianying ren dang’an – shenyu 1961–1970 我的摄像机不撒谎：先锋电影人档案—— 生于 1961–1970 [My Camera Doesn’t Lie: Documents on Avant-Garde Filmmakers Born between 1961 and 1970], Beijing: Zhongguo youyi chuban gongsi, 2002, 367. 32 Jia Zhangke贾樟柯, Rao Shuguang饶曙光, Zhou Yong周涌, and Chen Xiaoyun陈晓云, “Sanxia haoren三峡好人[Still Life],” Dangdai dianying当代电影 ­[Contemporary Cinema], no. 2 (2007): 24. 33 Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie?,” 28. 34 Edwin Mak, “Postsocialist Grit: Contending Realisms in Jia Zhangke’s ‘Platform’ and ‘Unknown Pleasures’,” Offscreen 12, no.7 (2008). www.offscreen.com/ index.php/pages/ essays/postsocialist_grit/. Accessed October 10, 2013. 35 Theodore W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, London; New York: Continuum, 2004, 452. 36 Peter Hitchcock, “The Paradox of Moving Labor: Workers in the films of Jia ZhangKe.” https://cinemastudies.sas.upenn.edu/events/2013/October/ColloquiumPeterHitchcock. Accessed May 17, 2016. 37 Hubert Vigilla, “The Director and Star of A Touch of Sin Discuss the Changing Face of China.” October 9, 2013. www.flixist.com/interview-jia-zhangke-­z haotao-a-touch-of-sin- 216577.phtml. Accessed January 15, 2016. 38 Ismail Xavier, “Historical Allegory,” in Toby Miller and Robert Stam, eds., A Companion to Film Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, 1999, 343. 39 Ibid., 342. 40 Fredric Jameson, Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, London: Methuen, 1981. 41 Ismail Xavier, “Historical Allegory,” 342. 42 Ibid., 358. 43 Ibid., 333. 44 See Xudong Zhang, “Poetics of Vanishing: The Films of Jia Zhangke,” New Left Review 63 (May–June 2010). 45 Chris Berry, “Jia Zhangke and the Temporality of Post-Socialist Chinese ­Cinema: In the Now (and Then),” in Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures, Olivia Khoo and Sean Metzger, eds., Bristol, UK; Chicago, USA: Intellect, 2009, 121.

16  Introduction 46 Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy”: Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 14. 47 Ibid., 9. 48 Chris Berry, “Jia Zhangke and the Temporality of Post-Socialist Chinese ­Cinema: In the Now (and Then),” 113. 49 Xudong Zhang, “Poetics of Vanishing,” 73. 50 Ibid., 117. 51 Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie?,” 25–26. 52 Zhang Zhen also suggests “the ensemble characters…perform the historical process of a momentous change through the interweaving of everyday life (including the changing fashion in dress and hairstyle) and the history of popular culture (including film).” Zhang Zhen, “Introduction,” 17–18. 53 Ouyang Jianghe欧阳江河, ed. Zhongguo duli dianying fangtanlu 中国独立电影访 谈录[On the edge: Chinese Independent Film], Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2007, 268. 54 For detailed analysis, see my article “Tianzhuding: Jingyin yanzhong de s­ hehui maodun天注定：精英眼中的社会矛盾 [A Touch of Sin: Social Contradiction ­u nder the Horizon of the Bourgeois Elites],” Yiyuan艺苑 [Art Forum] 3 (2014): 10–16. 55 Cheng Qingsong and Huang Ou, Wode sheyingji bu sahuang, 362, 370. 56 Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie?” 25. 57 Hubert Vigilla, “The Director and Star of A Touch of Sin Discuss the Changing Face of China.” 58 Andew Schenker, “Film Comment Selects 2011: I Wish I Knew.” February 15, 2011, www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/film-comment-selects-2011-i-­w ishi-knew. Accessed August 12, 2018. 59 Dans Edwards, “Shanghai: Fractured Memories, Contested Histories.” www. realtimearts.net/article/99/10015. Accessed August 12, 2018. 60 Daniel Kasman, “Cannes 2010. Today’s Quiet City: ‘I Wish I Knew’ (Jia Zhangke, China),” May 18, 2010. https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/cannes-2010-todaysquiet-city-i-wish-i-knew- jia-zhangke-china. Accessed August 12, 2018. 61 Wang Hui, “Depoliticized Politics, From East to West,” New Left Review 41, no. September–October (2006): 29. 62 Peter Bradshaw, “Mountains May Depart Review: Jia Zhangke Scales New Heights with Futurist Drama,” The Guardian May 20, 2015. 63 Scott Foundas, “Film Review: ‘Mountains May Depart’,” Variety, May 19, 2015. https://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/mountains-may-depart-cannes-film-­ review-1201501026/. Accessed August 12, 2018. 64 Quoted from Patrick Frater, “China’s Jia Zhangke Plans ‘Mountains’ Trek ­(EXCLUSIVE),” May 19, 2014. https://variety.com/2014/film/news/chinas-­jiazhangke-plans- mountains-trek-1201185965/. Accessed August 3, 2018. 65 Wei Xi, “Chinese Filmmaker Jia Zhangke Talks About ‘Ash is Purest White’ and the Evolution of His Career.”

Part I

1 Recording human affection within social transmutation Portrayal of early reform China in Platform (2000)

Introduction Composing an alternative historiography has always been the practice taken by writers and artists discontent with officially made or sanctioned works, the latter of which, in their view, are filled with unacceptable ­r uptures; ­Chinese “independent” directors are no exception in this regard. The ­representative figure of this group, Jia Zhangke (1970- ), made up his mind to record an “unofficial history” when he set off to write the scripts of his features; as he claims, “Remembering history is no longer the exclusive right (or prerogative) of the government. As an ordinary intellectual, I firmly ­believe that our culture should be teeming with unofficial memories.”1 The statement signifies that he holds “the social obligation of representing unofficial memories in addition to projecting his own ‘artistic visions.’”2 This determination brought out his early three features, which are called Jia’s “hometown trilogy.” Platform is one such example of “a cinematic rendition of unofficial history through ‘personal memories.’”3 A three-hour masterpiece made around 2000 about the ups and downs of a provincial dance and music troupe as well as the fortunes of its members transitioning from late 1970s to early 1990s, Platform has been praised as an epic. Focusing on a group of adolescent performers when they experience personal and societal changes, it portrays the lives of people in a local semi-official cultural troupe, a Maoist institution, which unfortunately is undergoing its most drastic transformation during the decade and finally disintegrates. The destinies of the individuals are then tied in with the fortunes of the socialist “work unit” they are working for, the latter of which becomes the subplot in addition to being the social context. In more detail, an intricate, entangled relationship between the collective and the individual, between the national and the personal,4 is shown by the movie through narrating the love stories of two pairs of lovers (Cui Mingliang and Yin Ruijuan, and Zhang Jun and Zhong Ping, respectively) within the vicissitude of the troupe, through which the movie records ­human ­affections within social transformation and transcribes the social-­ economic ­h istory of early Reform China. In that era of shortage, the people

20  Recording human affection are longing for “modernization” to no avail; in the post-revolutionary society, they recklessly explore secular happiness, yet they do not know how to achieve that objective; their individual adventures are bound up with the social-­political upheavals, which serve to explain both their initial courageous choices and their ultimate resignation. All of these are profoundly conveyed by the c­ inematic texture.

Longing for “Modernization” in the Era of Shortage This “peasant troupe of cultural work” was a “work unit” or a s­ emi-­official institution of the county level which was established in the Mao period to provide cultural education or ideological interpellation for the masses. For the purpose, it often traveled across the country, in ­particular, to poor ­r ural areas, to perform programs, which indicates that one of the key f­ eatures of the Maoist ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) was to ­cultivate the ­political consciousness of the masses, who were mostly illiterate and r­ elied on visual skits to receive messages. When the film starts, the troupe is p ­ erforming a show in a village. Acquarello finds that the show “­ extols the country’s t­ echnological and social progress made possible by the C ­ ommunist ­Revolution and celebrates its principal architect, Chairman Mao Zedong.”5 In particular, the cultural workers are performing a musical skit named “A Train Travelling toward Shaoshan (the birthplace of Mao),” apparently paying homage to the erstwhile supreme revolutionary leader. However, the message the skit sends forth is more than that because the train in modern China has been a symbol of modernization ever since the 19th century, just like the locomotive engine in the West signifies the earliest achievement of the Industrial Revolution. To understand the imagery vicariously h ­ ighlighted here, we need to know that Mao’s revolution, a socialist one notwithstanding, is simultaneously made up of a nationalist movement aimed at modernizing the nation by liberating it from the oppression of i­ nternational imperialists and domestic “feudalist” forces. In the Mao era, the Party had initiated the program of “four modernizations,” the policy of which Deng’s regime enacted and developed further. Cast in this light, we can better understand the connotation of the skit: the peasants, after getting a good harvest, take the modern vehicle to express their gratitude to the “great leader” of the party-state. What this indicates is that the educational program in which these cultural workers engage is intended to elevate the peasant’s consciousness of advancing the productive force as well as to lift their revolutionary awareness. In the early reform years of the Deng era, the government to a large extent still maintained this double mission, although since then, it has put more emphasis on enhancing production force (Figure 1.1). However, at that time, few people had the opportunity to take the train for throughout the Mao era and the early reform period, the nation-state was still backward. The members of the troupe, who can afford to lead a better life than the peasants by living in the town, are no exception in this regard.

Recording human affection  21

Figure 1.1  A  musical play, “A Train Travelling toward Shaoshan,” is performed.

Thus, in the skit, Cui Mingliang can only mimic inaccurately the sounds of a train, which is satirized by the troupe director, an intellectual-like figure, who apparently is the only one to have taken the modern means of transportation. The director’s other remarks are worthy of further note: “Granted you have not eaten pork, did you ever see pigs running around?” His reasoning is somewhat far-fetched; still, it indicates the shortage of materials in the rural area and the country in general at that time: the masses had seldom enjoyed meat, even if they raised pigs themselves. By contrast, his interrogation sounds more acceptable: “(You said you never heard of the sounds of train, yet) haven’t you watched the movie The Son of a Train Driver? Haven’t you watched the film Railway Guerrilla?” The first movie he mentions is a 1976 film made by North Korea, showing the history of its national emancipation; the second is a domestic work of “red classics,” extolling the heroic deeds of the Party-led military group fighting the Japanese during World War II. Many Chinese in that period had watched the two films; ironically, they could only acquire the knowledge of this modern means of transportation from films exemplifying the history of the past, even after several decades of socialist nation-state construction. Even after the members of the troupe set off toward broader society, they can only excitedly yell out at a passing train, not take it. The train, as a recurring image, runs throughout the movie. It is embedded in a narrative scheme, implicitly showing the causes and effects of the national transformation. First, the existence of the “three major disparities or distinctions” which the Party itself has acknowledged is displayed. The first two disparities, namely those between industry and agriculture,

22  Recording human affection town and country, are witnessed in Cui Mingliang’s brief exchange with his cousin, the peasant Sanming, whom he chances upon when he travels around with the troupe to make money. Illiterate Sanming is being made to sign a contract which will absolve the owner of a private coalmine owner of his responsibility to guarantee his workers’ safety. Compared to destitute Sanming, who can only sell his body, Cui Mingliang, who lives in the small town, can afford a relatively comfortable life. The fact that upon departure, Sanming asks that Cui deliver money to his sister (who is going to take the national college entrance exam), and his demand that she stay in town and never return to the village, further reveal the gigantic divergence in living conditions between urban and rural areas. After the reform started, this divergence of life standards was seen in the enhanced vast difference between the interior area and the coastal zones, which is also revealed here. When Zhang Jun makes inquiries of the barbershop boss about the coastal city of Guangzhou, one of the country’s commercial centers, the boss, who comes from Wenzhou (also a coastal city yet far from Guangzhou), informs him that Guangzhou is a nice place. The seemingly casual conversation nevertheless shows that Zhang Jun has strong interests in the life of the unfamiliar city, which is the front line of the national program of “reform and opening up.” He then goes to the metropolis to enjoy stimulation and excitement. When he returns, he brings back radios broadcasting overseas songs and music, which greatly arouse the interests of his partners in the troupe. The third disparity, namely between manual and mental labor, is exemplified by Cui’s relations with his parents. He refuses to be swayed by his mother’s teaching, which urges him to do more family chores, with the pretext that he is “a cultural worker, an intellectual laborer.” Being a young artist fond of chasing fashion, he wears an impractical pair of bell-bottom pants. When his conservative-minded father discovers this, he orders his son to squat down, which humorously leads to the explosion of the pants. When Cui answers his father’s sarcastic interrogation, “Could workers do their jobs and peasants go to the field when they wear this kind of pants?”, which is premised on traditional aesthetic taste, Cui’s answer remains the same: “I myself am an artist laborer and I do not need to take that kind of (physical) job.” (Figure 1.2) Because of these disparities, and because Maoist policy stresses production and pays less attention to consumption, people in the early years of the reform period (throughout the 1980s and early 1990s) whole-heartedly followed the Party’s new orientation of engaging in the project of “modernization” by developing the economy. The national consensus was achieved; a spectacular future is also envisioned for the youthful troupe members. Here, the audience witness that Cui Mingliang sings a song, the lyrics of which he deliberately revises, when they are boarding the coach after the performance: “After twenty years, we would come to meet together (At that time we would have) children seven to eight, and (we would have) a heap of wives.” Compared to the original lyrics, “(At that time) our country would be so beautiful…towns and villages brilliantly shine,” a collectivist dreaming for

Recording human affection  23

Figure 1.2  Cui Mingliang argues that he is a cultural worker and an intellectual laborer.

a full-fledged socialist paradise, the changed words show an individualist fantasy of pubertal indulgence. The jocular episode also reveals that, compared to the hegemonic discourse of “modernization,” the socialist ideal itself had never developed a full-set, concrete scenario to compete with the developmentalist mentality. Accordingly, it is easily replaced by, or taken to be, the modernization discourse itself. Therefore, although the excited cries of the characters convey their longing for the prospects of “modernization,” the altered phrases also reveal a confused vision regarding the material form of the future, demonstrating the de-politicized condition of the society when it was past its ultra-radical Maoist passion. In this time of scarcity, the masses were in great need of spiritual fulfillment. Yet, because of the regretful consequences of the ultra-radical policies of the Cultural Revolution, there was little opportunity for the Chinese to read foreign literary works. Thus, when Mingliang is reading Alexandre ­Dumas’s The Lady of the Camellias, his father mistakenly thinks he is looking at pornography and scolds him for being “spiritually polluted” by western capitalist cultures. This inordinate reaction shows the signature of the residual yet hegemonic Maoist discourse on Cui’s father. People of that time could only watch limited, imported foreign movies, most of which were adapted from classical works of 19th-century critical realism and released by official channels. Therefore, in the movie, the audience witnesses the masses scrambling for tickets to go to the theater. Because of the shortage of reading material and entertainment, the populace at the time welcome the “soft core” songs broadcast by the radio and sung by the famed actress Teresa Deng (1953–1995) from Taiwan, the phenomenon of which is vividly displayed here.

24  Recording human affection People at the time also lacked knowledge of the outside world for they did not have any chance to experience it; the new policy of reform and ­opening-up had yet to provide a feasible channel for it. We thus watch a scene during which the young troupe members are discussing where the city of Ulan Bator is and where the national borderland ends. They have little knowledge of this metropolitan capital of Mongolia. Since they have had little opportunity to travel, their knowledge of the world stops at the border of the “Revisionist Soviet Union,” and they believe that they live in “the north side of the Ocean” (here, probably referring to the Pacific Ocean). The conversation reflects their longing to know and experience the world, but for political and economic reasons (China was blockaded by the West and could only undertake international business with the former Soviet Union and its allies), they know little of the outside world, apart from Taiwan, the Soviet Union and its satellite states. The dialogue implies that they know little of and are curious about the United States; what they refer to as “the other side of the Ocean” is probably that country, which they still cannot openly discuss at the time (Figure 1.3). Since the material and spiritual scarcity of the time meant the deficiency of modernity, traditional forces persisted, displayed by conservative fathers opposing the love affairs of their children. A particular scene allegorically signifies this point when Cui Mingliang rides a bike with his friends across a narrow alley, and one of them opens both of his arms. The image suggests that they all want to get a pair of wings to fly across the town, which is surrounded by high walls. The walls, the icons of traditional China, symbolizing conventional forces and concepts, also obstruct the passions of the men and women living within their confines (Figure 1.4).

Figure 1.3  Cui Mingliang and the troupe members discuss the outside world.

Recording human affection  25

Figure 1.4  Cui Mingliang rides a bike with his friends across a narrow alley.

A Secular Society and the De-Politicized State It is among these scarcities and within an omnipresent atmosphere of depression that new waves breathed in as a result of the opening-up policy. Popular songs and music from overseas Chinese societies (in particular, from Taiwan and Hong Kong) were the first cultural products to be imported. They were taken to be the symbol of modernity as well as a sign of the spirit of rebellion. Out of their influence, indigenous popular songs were also created and welcomed by the populace. “Platform” is one of them, which, in a first-person narrative, portrays one’s experience of waiting for something or someone at a railway platform to no avail. The lyrics, such as “The long and empty platform, the wait seems never-ending. Lonely we can only wait. All my love is outbound. Nothing on the inbound train…”, exude a melancholic feeling of solitude as well as an irresistible yearning for the unpredictable future. The predominant feeling of excitement and expectation, as expressed by the song, was omnipresent in the early years of reform, which explains why it was so popular at the time. Edwin Mak thus finds that there is a collective sentiment of “Jouissance” shown here, which is “illustrated and made sense by the sequence immediately following the musical”: “When the troupe boards the coach after the performance and is counted in a roll call, the troupe provides us with an unusually reflexive moment.”6 Ed Gonzalez also notes that when these troupe members hit the road toward an unknown destination, “the distant mountains signify hope, as does a ravishing, impromptu flame” set off by Cui Mingliang.7 Secularization took place in this post-revolutionary society when the new government set aside its ideological authenticity. Various mise-en-scènes

26  Recording human affection (one of which shows the variegated inscription of the slogan “Long Live Marxism, Leninism, and Mao Zedong Thoughts!” on the wall, while the characters are all hazy and blurry) subtly give the audience this message. However, the nondiegetic voiceover of the soundtrack, namely the omnipresent voice of the loudspeaker, still broadcasts messages filled with the hegemonic discourses: “In the road along our new Long March, Comrade X carries forward the exemplary, leading role of Communists and takes the lead in the work…staying in the production line.” It signifies that the Party still maintains its promise of engaging in “socialist modernization” or that the reform is a self-improvement and development of the socialist enterprise. Correspondingly, the populace still holds its political awareness, though sometimes, it appears dogmatic. When Mingliang tries to wear his bell-bottomed pants, explains to his disgruntled mother that he is an “art worker” and urges her to “emancipate her mind,” his mother calls his words into question by suggesting that if he wears the pants outside, he might be taken for a hooligan and imprisoned. In response, Mingliang murmurs that “if a man does not behave like a hooligan, he would be taken to be abnormal.” His father reprimands him: “Once you have some liberty, you would do the bourgeois sort of things!” These humorous scenes take place at the very start of the movie, unravel the curtain for this drama of secularization and convey the message that the move of “intellectual emancipation” has been distorted to unabashed rhetoric for the pursuit of personal desires in secular society. Men’s physiological drives have been taken to be “natural,” or the so-called “universal human nature” has surpassed men’s class characters (Figure 1.5). Although the characters feel excited and stimulated in the early days of their wandering, they gradually feel bored. The spiritual void compels them

Figure 1.5  C  ui Mingliang’s father scolds his son.

Recording human affection  27 to watch “sex teaching videos” in a crowded screening room, an activity which was popular at the time, showing the relaxation of sexual mores in the once ascetic society. Sexual urges also propel Mingliang to cohabit with his troupe members. The laissez-faire attitude toward sex is symptomatic of the loosening of revolutionary ethics (which once had a strict, Puritanical attitude in this regard). Having shaken off the jurisdiction of their fathers’ generation, these youngsters do not know where to head. Incapable of finding a new spiritual home, they feel perplexed. Around the time, the accelerated process of depoliticization has facilitated the disintegration of the Maoist socialist institutions, into which the traditional socialist ideology incessantly retreated. In the film, Mingliang once plays a joke on his mother: “You do not want to raise me anymore? Then the Party will do that for me.” However, once the government ­decides to initiate the contract system to stimulate economic development, the ­local cultural troupe, which is essentially the Maoist system, is among the first to be dismantled. It has once been an institution of the socialist state’s ­ideological apparatus, cultivating political awareness of the masses; yet under the new contract system, it is assigned to a staff member who, vulgar in his appearance, takes full responsibility for the reorganized troupe. The new manager then inexorably exploits the labor of the members, unlike the former director (who, although appearing rude sometimes, still takes good care of the welfare of the staff). Forced by the necessity of sustenance and stimulated by monetary interests, the members-turned-employees perform vulgarized shows, including emulating uncouth pop songs by pretending to be overseas stars, and undertaking nasty break dancing. The troupe’s ­experience mimics the dissolution of Mao’s cultural institutions, whereas the fortune of the members epitomizes the degeneration of the artistic workers under the new market economy. With this disintegration, the decomposition of the hegemonic ­ideological system is inevitable. First and foremost, the predominant collectivist-­ oriented social more changes to a prevalent individualist mentality. Earlier in the movie, the troupe director has criticized Mingliang with a collectivist discourse: “Do you still have any sense of community and discipline? The men of the whole coach are waiting for you! Are you a spoilt master? Could you have some spirits of collectivism?” Being a dutiful leader of the troupe, the director takes good care of the work unit and the interests of the members (even taking a female member who has gotten pregnant out of wedlock to hospital to have an abortion)8 and faithfully follows socialist ethics by requesting that members reform their value system. However, Mingliang’s tampering with the lyrics shows that he is more concerned with his personal interests. To the director’s Maoist rhetoric, the troupe members respond with a guffaw, which would have been unimaginable in the past. This metamorphosis is also shown in the fathers’ generation. Mingliang’s father has been the conscious moralist of the socialist ideology. Being a

28  Recording human affection worker with salient – though dogmatic – political awareness, he supervises his son in a strict manner. Because he has little knowledge of western culture (which was a common phenomenon among the Chinese working class in Mao’s China), he incorrectly accuses Mingliang of reading improper books. However, after he is unemployed in the reform era and opens a drugstore by himself, he degenerates into a philistine and immorally cohabits with a female assistant, though apparently, he has not divorced Mingliang’s mother. The demoralization and forfeiture of his political consciousness signifies the dissolution of socialist morality among the working class in particular and in society in general. It is also a result of de-politicization, which is often undertaken in the name of “ideological liberation” (or “intellectual emancipation”): as we see, Mingliang has brandished this sort of discourse to tease his mother.9 In tandem with this ideological change, the post-revolutionary society witnesses the fundamental transformation of interpersonal relations. The so-called “bourgeois style of life” is practiced by the “avant-garde of liberalization” Zhang Jun, who longs for the southern special economic zones running in the mode of market economy; goes there to have fun; and brings back a radio, the most fashionable commodity at the time. The youngsters then dance with the pop music broadcasting from the radio. When the troupe travels around, Zhang Jun cohabits with Zhong Ping, a practice still immoral and illegitimate then, given socialist ethics. When they are found by the police, he dares not acknowledge their relations, which belies his insincerity and cowardice. He even makes Zhong pregnant yet is reluctant to take responsibility. By contrast, although Zhong is also pursuing a free style of life – she is the first in the town to have a permanent wave and to wear make-up – she has more guts than her boyfriend. Disappointed with his spineless behavior, she leaves the travelling troupe and disappears. Secularization brings more liberty, but it does not necessarily mean a better society. On the contrary, it could yield more skittish attitudes concerning human affections. The former hierarchical social order now revives to replace the relatively equal relations. Mingliang dares to argue with the director of the troupe; yet after the troupe is sold, none of the newly restructured group, including Mingliang himself, dares to argue with the new manager when he awakens them one by one in the very early morning. The cordial comradeship has transformed into a relationship between employer and employee. To be sure, the cruelest example of exploitation is witnessed in Sanming’s signing of the life-and-death contract with the owner of a privatized coalmine.10 Toward the end of the movie, both the enfeeblement of Mingliang’s garrulous father and the death of Yin Ruijuan’s father show the fading away of the fathers’ generation, together with their ideas and ideals. The younger generation faces a brave, new world in which the elder generation they rebelled against loses its authority and becomes history. How will these youngsters deal with this new era? (Figure 1.6)

Recording human affection  29

Figure 1.6  Zhong Ping performs a Spanish dance.

Cultural Transformation and the Drifters of the Reform Era Regarding these wandering artists, whose experience epitomizes the young generation of the reform period, Acquarello has aptly suggested that “the evolution of the itinerant performers – from disseminators of peasant propaganda, to champions of an eroding, indigenous culture, and eventually, to gauche (and unintentionally comical) assimilators of commercial pop culture – is a poignant articulation of a generation foundering in their own seeming irrelevance and figurative exile from within their homeland, desperately struggling for inclusion and a sense of place in their country’s future.”11 To me, however, this evolution itself witnesses not only the transformation of artistic forms but also the transmutation of the national project of cultural re-construction: the state changed its orientation from committing itself to establishing a socialist new culture that is distinctly Chinese, pro-­ science and people-oriented to giving up the ambition by embracing whole-­ heartedly the overseas bourgeois culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan. The process did not by itself point to the degeneration of the masses’ aesthetic taste. Rather, the change seemed to be inevitable as the populace was eager to enjoy an advanced artistic form. For this purpose, they either went to the theater to watch imported foreign movies, usually dubbed, or practiced foreign dancing. This commonly-witnessed social phenomenon is vividly shown in this movie. The program of creating a “palatable proletarian artistic form that is truly for the workers, peasants and soldiers,” once the core of Mao’s cultural ambition, met a serious challenge in the post-Mao era.

30  Recording human affection After the Cultural Revolution, when the “model opera” which was widely welcomed by the populace was taken to be a form with ultra-leftist ideology and thus thoroughly declined, finding a substitute became a challenging issue. With the new ideology of opening-up, people were fond of overseas fashions and took them to be the signature of “modern.” When Zhang Jun returns from Guangzhou, he wears a pair of sunglasses and brings a tape recorder with him, which attracts a huge crowd that poses questions regarding the coastal zone with a romantic imagination of its sensual pleasures. In the accompaniment of the pop music broadcast by the recorder, these young lads, who are filled with pubertal zealousness, dance in the tatty house. New aesthetic tastes seep in, and alien artistic distinctions win the hearts of this young generation, though they have not yet been aware of the commercial function of this new popular culture. Let us take a closer look at the popular entertainment in the early reform period, as shown in the film. Not all of the entertainment shows were from the West, as traditional socialist programs still maintained their appeal. In the movie, Cui Mingliang and Yin Ruijuan are seen watching the 1951 Indian film Awaara (whose Chinese translation literally means A Vagrant); an episode with the theme song “Song of Vagrant” is presented on screen. The movie itself is a critique of the Indian caste system and an expression of the people’s longing for egalitarianism and genuine love, which is the reason that it was imported to socialist China. The movie was popular in China, and the theme song was sung across the streets of China in the early 1980s. However, when Mingliang and Ruijuan are in the theater, Ruijuan is called on by her father, who firmly opposes her engagement to Cui, apparently out of his misgivings about Mingliang’s economic situation.12 In that era of scarcity, the socialist ideal of full-fledged equality and liberty could not be truly achieved in real life (Figure 1.7).

Figure 1.7   Mingliang and Ruijuan watch a foreign film when Ruijuan’s father arrives.

Recording human affection  31 There are more implications of this inclusion in a brief segment of the Indian movie. The vagrant is a socially marginalized person outside official institutions, who disobeys normal regulations and drifts in society, searching for love and justice. The admiration and emulation of vagrants in a socialist society indicates that the society itself has not been fully developed to fulfill the material and spiritual needs of the people; the problem regarding the relations between individuality and universality has not been resolved. Mingliang himself is the quintessential figure of a vagrant. In the socialist system, his individualist character makes him stand out as an alien member. Filled with rebellious spirit, he refuses to abide by the strict collectivist discipline. When the chance finally arrives, he without hesitation travels around with the troupe, now privatized, to find adventure. Roaming is also part of the process of looking for his new identity, which signifies his dream of living outside the stifling atmosphere. The same is true for most of the members of the troupe. Their quest for love and freedom shows youthful passion and the conscious pursuit of a better future. Yet, in the meantime, this drifting confirms their spiritual homelessness. Near the end of the film, Mingliang returns home when the troupe can no longer maintain its daily business because other commercial products have emerged and superseded these crude forms of entertainment (one scene shows the river transportation of a TV set – which can be read symbolically as the importing of cultural programs). Fortunately, Mingliang can afford to marry Yin Ruijuan and have a child. The last scene shows Ruijuan with the child in her hands, while Mingliang lies idly on the sofa in a dissipated, extravagant manner and gradually falls into a comatose state, with a cigarette still burning in his hand. It implies that he has resigned to destiny and become a philistine. The legendary wandering of the world in the early period of reform ends with nothing for commercialization and marketization bring along westernized entertainment and standardized daily life (Figure 1.8).

Figure 1.8  M  ingliang and Ruijuan feel bored after getting married.

32  Recording human affection This cheerless finale, which brings out a fundamental restructuring of interpersonal relations, contrasts with the romantic beginning, which is filled with robust illusions. Yin Ruijuan has been ambiguous about her engagement with Cui Mingliang in the very start. This is not so much because of the opposition of her father, who, as the guard of the railway station, represents the conservative state’s ideology. Rather, it is probably because she has witnessed the vulnerability of the troupe on the eve of the societal transformation. Therefore, she proposes separation when the troupe is privatized and associates with a dentist who can afford a better life. It is not romantic at all for she has ambitions of personal advancement and has tried to pass the exam in order to work in the provincial troupe. When she is alone in her office, she dances and reads poems aloud. For her artistic pursuit and career goal, she represses her affection and alienates herself from her friends. Declining to go with them and roam the unknown world, she chooses instead to stay in her hometown, working as a tax collector, though she feels lonely and bored. That she unites with the returning Cui shows her compromise with reality. This takes place in the early 1990s, when social life itself falls into a coma, and nothing seems stimulating anymore. The fact that Cui Mingliang can still find this fortune after failing in his adventure is due to class differentiation at the time’s being less apparent than it is ­today. Since he is now the owner of a small private business, his income is not less than those of the state-paid tax collector and the dentist. In this light, the destinies of these individuals are a microcosm of the social-historical transformation.

The Spiritual Phenomenology of “Nostalgia” and Melancholy The verses of “Platform” show that people are longing for unconventional things to take place and for adventures, irrespective of consequence; this entrepreneurial spirit is comparable to the motivation of early reform. Yet in the middle of the film, the excited feelings change; this is conveyed by a sorrowful song sung by the lonely Yin Ruijuan, the lyrics of which read, “Is it that this time I really have to leave you?” The self-interrogation signifies certain skepticism about one’s life choice as well as a feeling of loss and alienation. Furthermore, at the end of the film, as Mingliang and Ruijuan idle away their time in the living room, there is an undiegetic soundtrack in which a conversation between a pair of lovers in a movie is broadcast on the TV behind the couple: a man promises his lover that he will bring her to another place; the girl expresses her wish to move to the seaside. This romantic atmosphere forms a sharp contrast to our protagonists, who are now living in a plain and joyless life, one from which they were initially determined to break away. In this scene, the sound of the boiling water sounds like the train we heard at the very start of the film. The sound of the train symbolizes the enchantment of a new life, which these people wander around to explore and experience. Their passion soon wears down, and they have to

Recording human affection  33 return to their original place after numerous confrontations with the real world. The diegetic time stops around the year 1989, when the reform and opening-up, after their initial sound and fury, fell into a state of chaos and turmoil due to the state’s misplaced policies. Consequently, men’s passions dissipated. As a result of this exhaustion, there appears “an elegiac image of ­unrequited love lost in the expansive and formidable landscape of a silent, unarticulated, and disconnected human history.”13 This “momentum of a ‘lost past’… drives, and haunts, the narrative,” which is “a documentary styled account of the past, embellished with an allegorical commentary on the socio-cultural future of its society.”14 To be sure, this is not a nostalgic movie, though it is imbued with the atmosphere of melancholy. It is melancholic because after the cultural workers of the younger generation become alienated from the ideological concepts as a consequence of the de-­ politicization or re-orientation of the Party’s policy (from the Maoist revolutionary idealism to Deng’s economic pragmatism), they fall into spiritual nihilism and founder in the swamp of intellectual chaos after the initial feelings of liberation dissipate. Their dreams have no clear objective, except for “modernization,” which nevertheless has a conflict with the tardy reality, which is predicated on great inertia. Consequently, when their adventure comes to an abyss after the emergent market economy and consumerism overtakes their low-level shows, their desires are thwarted, and they feel listless. However, they are still implicitly waiting for the next opportunity when coming back to the backwater hometown. Therefore, while the movie is “a looking back to a bygone age and a now-transformed geography,” the era it describes is still “filled with a continuous anticipation of a coming fulfillment.”15 In this light, although the feeling of melancholy is a result of experiencing “the empty duration of the present moment” as “the absence of some future or past fulfillment,”16 and although this nostalgic melancholy is legitimate and understandable, interpreting it as “reflective”17 fails to see that the film ultimately does not show what has brought about the lost youthfulness and led to the forfeiture of idealism, apart from the emergent commercialization, as we cannot find any clues explaining the youths’ mental anguish and sense of exhaustion. Are the younger characters idealists? Do they ever hold any sublime or substantial goal? What gets lost in their negotiation with and final resignation to reality? What kind of reality have they experienced? All these questions remain unanswered. In the movie, Zhong Ping never appears after she leaves Zhang Jun. Where is she going, and what will happen to her? It seems that the film could not figure out her whereabouts because it could not weigh the nature and consequences of this drastic transformation. On the other hand, it is noted that, in terms of the plotline, “the coal mine episode has become a turning point in Mingliang’s journey toward an unknown ‘outside world’ he had been longing for.”18 This is the first time in

34  Recording human affection which dark and merciless reality is exposed to the cultural workers, which seems to cast an ominous light on their fortune (though the fortunes of these troupe members and that of the coal miners are not organically correlated). However, it should be stressed that the authenticity of this episode is debatable, for the privatization of national-owned coalmines only happened after the mid-1990s and consequently, the ruthless exploitation of workers under the state’s pro-market reform agenda started. In the 1980s, when the diegetic story takes place, the government largely abided by the socialist economic principle and maintained the socialist welfare system for its workers. This mistake shows a certain essentialist mentality regarding reform itself, which does not differentiate between the two periods with qualitative differences. What is more, Zhong Ping’s disappearance is not correlated with this episode, revealing that the film cannot fruitfully diagnose the two events outside of the overarching plotline.

Conclusion By narrating the vicissitudes of some men and women in the ups and downs of a small cultural troupe, the social-economic and cultural transmutation of China in the first decade of reform and opening-up, essentially a “transformation from Maoist austerity to free-market confusion,”19 is vividly shown in an unsteady pace in this small world. Recording shifting human affection within this gradual yet gigantic social-political transmutation, popular music, which is heard throughout, implicitly marks the transition. Essentially, these youngsters are searching for their new identities within the exciting yet frustrating circumstance of cultural displacement, yet their efforts do not triumphantly reach a destination. Physically, this younger generation matures during their exploration of unknown areas and their wandering in unfamiliar society, yet spiritually, they are enveloped in strong anxiety regarding the meaning of existence. To show this epochal sentiment shared by their generation, the film utilizes mostly long-shot compositions and long-take cinematography rather than close-ups; the latter highlight individual moods, whereas the former include broad space as the context, allowing the audience to feel a collective agony tied intimately to the eventful era. In this way, the movie becomes “an epic of the lived experience of an entire generation,”20 though unfortunately, it still falls short of the wisdom of ingeniously accounting for the origin and consequence of this gigantic movement.

Notes 1 Cheng Qingsong程青松 and Huang Ou黄鸥, Wode sheyingji bu sahuang: ­Xianfeng dianying ren dang’an – shenyu 1961–1970 我的摄像机不撒谎：先锋电影人档案 —— 生于1961–1970 [My Camera Doesn’t Lie: Documents on Avant-Garde F ­ ilmmakers Born between 1961 and 1970], Beijing: Zhongguo youyi chuban gongsi, 2002, 362, 370.

Recording human affection  35 2 Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie? Truth, Subjectivity, and Audience in Chinese Independent Film and Video,” in Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang eds., From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, 25. 3 Ibid., 25–26. 4 For some critics, the movie is a “deliberately fragmented, unsentimental, and emotionally dissociative first-hand account of contemporary history: an ­estranged and depersonalized chronicle that illustrates the marginalization of humanity under the turmoil of profound national change.” Acquarello, ­“Platform,” http://filmref.com/2017/12/23/platform-2000/. Accessed March 19, 2019. For some others, it is about the conflict “between national collectivism and individual fortune—the former is struggling to stay alive while the latter fights to express itself.” Ed Gonzalez, “Review: Platform,” May 23, 2004, www. slantmagazine.com/film/review/ platform. Accessed October 10, 2013. 5 Acquarello, “Platform,” http://filmref.com/2017/12/23/platform-2000/. Accessed March 19, 2019. 6 Edwin Mak, “Postsocialist Grit: Contending Realisms in Jia Zhangke’s ­‘Platform’ and ‘Unknown Pleasures,’” Offscreen 12, no. 7 (2008). www.offscreen. com/index.php/ pages/essays/postsocialist_grit/. Accessed on October 10, 2013 7 Ed Gonzalez, “Review: Platform,” www.metacritic.slantmagazine.com/film/ platform-3/. Accessed March 30, 2018. 8 It is noted that “the scene is derisively accompanied with a newsreel of Deng Xiaoping inspecting a military parade in Tiananmen Square on October 1 ­(National Day), 1984, on the soundtrack.” Lin Xiaoping, “Jia Zhangke’s Cinematic Trilogy: A Journey across the Ruins of Post-Mao China,” in Sheldon Lu and Emilie Yeh eds., Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politic, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005, 201. This soundtrack is probably deliberately arranged here because the mandatory abortion is requested by the Deng regime after the end of the Mao era. 9 It is observed that these men and women share the lovemaking ‘secrets’ that they have learned from Western advertisements, pulp fiction, and popular Hollywood cinema … this impact of the West on a younger generation of the Chinese is ironically linked to the Party’s call for ‘ideological liberation.’ Ibid., 198 10 This might show the fact that the neoliberal policy has witnessed its predecessor in the 1980s. Again, it is debatable. For throughout the 1980s, workers’ rights were carefully protected as the state at the time to a large extent still abided by the socialist economic principle. 11 Acquarello, “Platform.” 12 The whole sound montage has been studied by Cui Shuqing, which is worthy of quoting in detail: First, the theme music of a popular Chinese film, Little Flower (Xiaohua), emanates from a loudspeaker as we see the space in front of the theater. The music fades away and is replaced by music from Daj Kapoor’s 1951 Bollywood classic Awaara as the film cuts from outside to inside the movie theater. Suddenly, the loudspeaker disrupts the music with a loud announcement that someone is looking for someone. She notes that this sound montage creates an aura through the intertwining of musical, cinematic, and cultural codes. The sound track takes the audience back to

36  Recording human affection the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Bollywood films and romantic domestic productions gradually replaced the revolutionary model dramas on the Chinese cultural scene. Cui Shuqin, “Negotiating In-between: On New-Generation Filmmaking and Jia Zhangke’s Films,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 18, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 118. However, she fails to notice that the Bollywood films imported and the “romantic domestic productions” being made both have their revolutionary imports, which are compatible with the socialist ideology. For instance, Little Flower portrays authentic love among revolutionary soldiers and the subaltern class, whereas Awaara throws a sympathetic gaze to the downtrodden class. 13 This originally refers to “the repeated encounters between Ming-liang and ­Ruijuan among the ruins of a disused ancient fortress.” See Acquarello, “Platform.” 14 Edwin Mak, “Postsocialist Grit: Contending Realisms in Jia Zhangke’s ‘Platform’ and ‘Unknown Pleasures,’” Offscreen 12, no. 7 (2008). www.offscreen. com/index.php/ pages/essays/postsocialist_grit/. Accessed on October 10, 2013. 15 Jason McGrath, “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a Transnational Aesthetic,” in Zhang Zhen, ed., The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the 21st Century, Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 99. 16 Ibid., 99. 17 McGrath contends that since it “neither longs for the lost society that preexisted the reform era nor embraces the ideology of the ‘Four Modernization’ that ­underlay the transformations of the decade depicted,” it is “reflective” rather than “restorative.” Ibid., 100. 18 Lin Xiaoping, “Jia Zhangke’s Cinematic Trilogy,” 200. 19 Ibid., 205. 20 Zhang Zhen, “Introduction,” in Zhang Zhen, ed., The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century, Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 17–18.

2 Morality and love in post-revolutionary China A pickpocket’s being and nothingness in Xiao Wu (1997)

Introduction Jiang Zhangke (1970– ) has been widely acknowledged as the “cinematic poet of post-socialist China,”1 which makes him the representative figure of the Sixth-Generation auteurs. His first production Xiao Wu (aka ­Artisan Pickpocket) reportedly was created out of his will to represent China’s transformation in the early 1990s. It is unusual in several aspects. For one, it garnered the 1998 Berlin Film Festival’s Wolfgang Staudte Award and the San Francisco International Film Festival’s best-film prize, among several others yet was never released in the domestic market and was only available in some elite circles.2 Moreover, there is a drastic difference in terms of the audience reception domestically and abroad.3 Critic Yingjin Zhang takes this difference to be a result of “the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the artist’s vision and its acceptability by the domestic audience.”4 How does the “artist’s vision” not align with the domestic audience’s? Typical of the Sixth-Generation auteur’s features, the film portrays the life of a social marginal, a pickpocket, by examining his interpersonal ­relations. In discussing the thematic concern of the movie, Jia Zhangke says that Chinese people live in a world where they are dependent on interpersonal relationships. Whether they be family relationships, friendships, husband-wife relations, we are always living in the context and confines of a relationship. And describing the structure of these relationships was really what I wanted to express through Xiao Wu…. Of all the radical changes confronting the Chinese people in recent years, I feel the most fundamental and devastating change is in interpersonal relationships.5 For this narrative subject, the central plotline of the story consists of three narrative sections. The first 30 minutes are about the (anti-)hero’s (Xiao Wu’s) betrayal by his long-term childhood buddy; the following 50 minutes delineate his affection toward a bar girl, which is similarly aborted; the last 30 minutes narrate his awful familial relations. Our analysis generally ­follows this triad structure. Yingjin Zhang keenly observes that in the movie

38  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China “an objective rendition of external reality is merely part of the picture; what really counts is his (the director’s) subjective perception of the real ‘condition of life’” or, “subjective perceptions… have produced …a special ‘point of view’.…”6 What kind of “point of view” or “subjective perception” does the director hold and project into the characters? My research intends to provide a new perspective for the aforementioned questions. Through an ideological analysis of the cardinal plotline by ­following the narrative arc, I find that the protagonist’s moral compass still harbors a set of values of the bygone era, which makes him incapable of fitting in with the “new era” that does not belong to him. In this way, the all-around influence of the large-scale changes, brought about by the two decades of economic reform and opening up, is aptly encapsulated in the microcosm of this person of no importance. On the other hand, also because of the limitation of the director’s specific “point of view,” the movie is incapable of undertaking a keen cognitive mapping of the social totality for this gigantic sea change, which renders the social-political implication of this transformation insufficiently presented.

The co-existence of three value systems and their interactions The phenomenon of pilferage has gradually increased since the reform era: due the lack of education and the inability to find a job, some persons lose their self-assurance and rely on this “craftsmanship” to earn an ignoble ­living. More importantly, the rapid increase of theft and pilferage in this period signifies the disintegration of the social fabric, which once held honest labor to be the only morally legitimate work. In particular, the de-­politicized process of secularization and the urge to get rich quickly by any means in the post-revolutionary era brought about a societal climate in which the socialist morality was put aside. “To get rich is glorious” was promoted; by which means to reach the objective was not elaborated on, instead, the popularized tenet taught citizens “Never mind if a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice it’s a good cat.” This social atmosphere is glimpsed in the very beginning of the movie. The first several shots show a boy waiting on the roadside, and then move to a broader picture in which four persons are there, including the boy. We hear a dialogue from a loudspeaker or a radio, a song-and-dance duet (a form of provincial verbal skit) imitating the voice of the famed Chinese comic star Zhao Benshan and his partner Song Dandan. The duet sounds vulgar and uncouth, though witty and saucy, for it contains pornographic implications teasing revolution.7 The voices from the loudspeaker are omnipresent throughout the movie; they often announce official policies but sometimes broadcast this local form of entertainment. This particular arrangement of the soundtrack, as well as the mise-en-scène of the opening sequence delivers a postsocialist setting, where the residual institutions of the old system are still functioning, though not necessarily efficient for the masses (Figure 2.1).

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  39

Figure 2.1  The mise-en-scène of the opening sequence.

After the prelude, the protagonist Xiao Wu appears and boards a bus. He avoids paying the fare by claiming that he is a policeman. The ticket collector hesitates for a moment and then leaves, apparently resigning with reluctance. Such abuse of power by the police was unimaginable in the Mao era and was only increasingly witnessed afterward. This testifies to the relaxation of revolutionary ethics and the disintegration of socialist morality. Following this easy hoodwink, Xiao Wu steals the wallet of the passenger sitting beside him, while the camera cuts to a reverse shot, seemingly from his point of view, of the Mao medallion dangling in the wind at the front window of the car. The close-up shows Mao’s stern look at what happens before his eyes. Apparently, this political icon can no longer exert influence over this post-revolutionary world, though his image is still often taken as a talisman by ordinary people in their daily lives and as a symbol to boost the state’s legitimacy. This sequence allegorically invokes the social-historical experience: in the post1989 era, when idealism (read socialist ideals and ideas) disappeared, Mao fell from the ideological authority to an accouterment in the consumerist age. On the other hand, he was still revered by average men; this reverence became part of men’s political unconscious buried deep in their minds. This political unconscious is seen in Xiao Wu’s dealing with his childhood friend Jin Xiaoyong. Learning by chance that Xiaoyong is going to hold his marriage reception, Xiao Wu feels disgruntled that he is not invited. Having been a petty thief before, Xiaoyong now is a successful businessman, undertaking cigarette traffic and managing karaoke bars. For his deeds of “becoming rich fast,” he is commended by the local government

40  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China as a “model entrepreneur.” Believing himself to be an honorable celebrity, Xiaoyong believes that it is beneath him to keep public relations with the low-life criminal Xiao Wu anymore. Accordingly, when Xiao Wu makes the effort to fulfill the childhood promise of bringing him a nuptial gift, Xiaoyong refuses to accept it and dispatches his henchman to return it, calling it dirty money. Deeply injured, Xiao Wu demands this attendant to bring his words to Xiaoyong, pointing out that the latter’s money earned by smuggling goods and exploiting bargirls is similarly unclean. Shortly thereafter, the lackey comes back with the reply of the trader: “He wants me to tell you, his cigarette business isn’t trafficking. It’s called ‘free trade.’ And he’s never exploited his bargirls. It’s called ‘entertainment.’” (Figure 2.2). In this scene, Xiaoyong’s feeling of superiority is pointedly shown. It is more than clear that the class differentiation between him and Xiaowu is staggering. It is widely acknowledged that “the most distressing result of China’s ‘socialist market system’ has been the frighteningly rapid growth of extreme social and economic inequality. In less than two decades, China has been transformed from a relatively egalitarian society to one where the gap between the wealthy and the impoverished is among the widest and most visible in the world.”8 With this widening division, a class restructuration leading to rising class polarities is inevitable. Cast in this light, Jason McGrath’s comment on this particular scene is understandable, …their relationship…forces us to contemplate the generally suppressed issue of class in reform-era China. When Xiao Wu makes forays from his

Figure 2.2  X iaoyong expresses his gratitude to the authority.

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  41 nearby village to the country seat, he becomes in effect a minor provincial version of the “floating population” (liudong renkou) in the Chinese urban environment – that is, peasants who lack official residence status and legitimate social standing, and who instead are widely viewed as the principal sources of problems such as rising crime rates and prostitution. Xiao Wu is thus at the bottom of the new class structure of urban China in the reform era, while Xiaoyong, an admired businessman and community leader, is at the top.9 While Xiaoyong is not necessarily at the top of Chinese society, given the rapid transformation of China’s class structure in accordance with this class hierarchy, the concept of social status has indeed gradually appeared since the 1990s, challenging the ingrained egalitarian mindset of Mao’s China (Figure 2.3). While the notion of equality is brought out vis-a-vis this verbal exchange, to me, the significance of this scene lies more in the conflict of two value systems, as Xiao Wu in effect discloses the exploitative nature of the market economy and the problem of the slogan “making rich is glorious.” However, we need to go a step further by inquiring into what is at stake in their ­debate. Why is Xiaoyong so self-confident in his righteousness? Why does he not have any sense of guilt? Is it merely because his dealings are legitimized by the state? To begin with, Xiaoyong’s will to be a good man is worthy of acknowledgement: he reforms himself to become rich by diligent work and tries to contribute to the local community, which receives compliments

Figure 2.3  X iao Wu bitterly complains to Xiaoyong.

42  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China from the society. In this light, we can better understand why the elder police officer, who is the “old acquaintance” of Xiao Wu and the faithful guard of the state’s ideology, always expresses his sincere concerns for Xiao Wu by urging the latter to emulate Xiaoyong’s model behavior (Figure 2.4). Indeed, for that audience deeply influenced by the demonization of the Mao era and consequently more or less still entrenched in the Cold War mentality, such a portraiture of a policeman who is “a symbol of state power” yet shows “benevolence, sensitivity and kindness” “comes as a surprise.”10 Yet we need to know that this image of a “people’s policeman” was not only a familiar picture in the Mao era, but is still oftentimes seen in reality in the early reform era. Kind as he is, has this elder policeman been brainwashed by the state’s propaganda and takes the state’s rhetoric as the truth? For the director, it seems so: “nowadays, people have lots of pretexts for what they’re doing; they can use a single euphemism to cover up the reality, which makes their doings legal.”11 However, there is confusion or an anachronism in terms of the emplotment of this episode. In the 1980s, out of the shortage of living materials, people’s necessities could not be fully provided through official channels; thus, to get cigarettes (especially western-imported, upscale cigarettes), people oftentimes relied on smuggled goods; meanwhile, the existing institutions of entertainment (many of which were officially or semi-officially run) could not fulfill the demands of the populace; therefore, singing and dancing halls were welcomed by the youngsters and became popular locales for legitimate (and “healthy”) relaxation. In the meantime, in that era, the state followed the socialist principle of regulating economic

Figure 2.4  The elder policeman urges Xiao Wu to emulate Xiaoyong.

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  43 activities; many businessmen got rich through diligence and by engaging in honest labor. After the late 1980s, things get more and more complicated. Under the pro-market reform agenda, the socialist principle is put aside; by the principle of “market economy,” contraband traffic is legitimized, and clubs and bars implicitly allow prostitution to prosper. While the law enforcement machines periodically launch “anti-porn campaigns,” prostitution in reality is silently tolerated most times, for the “profession” is structurally conditioned by the national political economy. The film does not differentiate between these two differing periods.12 This confusion is a result of the director’s concept, which takes the two periods with qualitative difference to be one of single entity. To be sure, this stance is shared by many people, as the mainstream propaganda pits the “reform and opening-up era” against the “ultra-leftist Mao period.” What they do not realize are the following facts: after the 1990s, commercial activities meeting the needs of shortage economy and the legitimate entertainment of the 1980s have changed their nature under the new market economy; the premise of getting rich only by honest work has been put aside; materialism and pragmatism have become predominant in business transaction and daily life with the repudiation of socialist ideals and morality. This new situation is exemplified in the following exchange: When Xiao Wu declines the advice of his relative by arguing that he has no talents for business, the latter teaches him a lesson: “What talent is needed in this era? Once you have guts, what things could not be done?” Yet why does Xiao Wu put forward his critique? Is he more orthodox or conservative than the old police? On one hand, indeed he is; for being a social marginal, he has less opportunity than others to be exposed to the state’s ideological machine and consequently has more chances to access the truth of life as it is. As a result, he sees more clearly than others that “trade” and “entertainment” have changed to be contrabandage and exploitation, violating the moral principles of the world he was familiar with. Although now a member of the underclass, the moral concepts in his mind still remain to be those of the socialist consensus of anti-exploitation and honest labor, by which he observes the reality with a critical perspective, though merely intuitively and unconsciously. This is shown in his insistence on the political term to be used in daily conversations. When his relative tells him that Xiaoyong has taken a trip to Han’guo, or South Korea, he corrects the phrase by saying “What Han’guo? It is Bei Chaoxian (North Korea)!”13 This “rectification” confirms that his ideological notions remain in the traditional socialist era. This does not mean Xiao Wu is the true heir of the socialist morality; rather, it indicates that the socialist value system, ostensibly the dominant culture of the society, is in truth merely a residual one and is now better ­displayed in a social marginal than in the model of mainstream society. In the traditional socialist period, Xiao Wu is a “lazy man” largely due to economic ­underdevelopment; yet in the era of the market economy, he is the extra, the

44  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China surplus not needed by society; rather, his existence is necessitated by the economic system as a necessary component out of its structural arrangement. On the other hand, it is well known that socialist ethics stress egalitarian values, taking social crimes as the result of unfair economic structure and class hierarchy; thus, through overturning the old society and change of class structure, the lumpen-proletariat figures such as Xiao Wu could be reformed and receive new life. In this light, what Xiao Wu asks from Xiaoyong is not simply his childhood friendship or that he be faithful to the childhood promise. Rather, what he demands is this equality between differing classes as well as the acknowledgment of the meaning of his being in the world, which is the true import of his sense of dignity. Yet, at this time, Xiaoyong not only has accepted the mainstream reformist ideology,14 but also has subscribed to the pragmatist idea of getting rich by any means fair or foul. What is more, he now refuses to acknowledge Xiao Wu’s idea of egalitarianism, for his highly lifted social status, obtained by his business performance and through his contribution to local education (as shown in his TV shows and his public marriage reception for which the local officials send gifts), has allowed him to become a new social elite, and he takes this as a barrier to accepting Xiao Wu, a seeming good-for-nothing and debased figure. Despite bearing a grudge for the betrayal, Xiao Wu is not conscious enough to apply socialist ideas and rebuke Xiaoyong’s rhetoric, the latter of which is couched in mainstream reformist ideology. Instead, Xiao Wu can only use traditional moral codes, in particular the bond of brotherhood with the imprint of feudalist consciousness, to safeguard his dignity and make his rebuttal. Thus, for the audience, what Xiaoyong has betrayed is seemingly only his loyalty to their intimate friendship;15 the director himself proclaims that, “In their youthful days … Xiao Wu and his buddies shared a kind of code of brotherhood and respected the sanctity of a promise. These are things we’ve lost.”16 For him, this is what the Chinese have lost in the reform era, but he fails to recognize what is truly missing and has been betrayed. Being the key component of the moral codes of traditional, feudal society, personal loyalty or sworn brotherhood raises its head in the reform era, when the socialist concepts of equality and justice are put aside in favor of the cold-blooded principle of commodity exchange. This new trend is also propagated by imported overseas culture, in particular the TV dramas and movies from Hong Kong and Taiwan, where conservative, traditional morality still holds sway. In the movie, this is put in the background as the soundtrack of the police-and-bandit Hong Kong action films shown in video halls, which were popular in Chinese society throughout the 1990s.17 Yet while this code of brotherhood ostensibly is the leading value system in Xiao Wu’s mind, his moral compass is in fact a variation of socialist morality or a product of the interaction between traditional brotherhood and socialist notions. In his daily exchange with the underclass, Xiao Wu holds the simple, plain and “out-of-date” socialist value system as his bottom line to counter the distain of the mainstream society toward the underprivileged.

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  45

The disappearance of love under “socialist market economy” The second section deals with Xiao Wu’s love for a bargirl called Meimei and his unfortunate betrayal by the latter. To dispel his solitude and feeling of loss caused by Xiaoyong’s ruthlessness, Xiao Wu goes to a karaoke bar to have fun, where he finds the girl. Originally, the relations are just like a patron to his client. Cui Shuqin notes that both of them are peripheral to the social-economic order, yet inside the KTV bar, a­ nyone who has the cash assumes the power to take another as a ­commodity. With money gained through his skill as stealing, Xiao Wu can ­temporarily transform himself from a member of the underclass into a consumer.18 However, Meimei, who is not yet used to the “professional codes,” does not give him favorable treatment, for he appears lackluster and clumsy. ­Apparently, they both are unaccustomed to the seedy world. Xiao Wu feels discontented and complains to the hostess. The hostess who receives extra fees feigns to be hospitable and urges Meimei to go out with Xiao Wu for fun. During this stroll, Meimei’s background is disclosed. Reminiscent of the progressive left-wing Chinese films of the 1930s and 1940s, and corresponding to the reality in contemporary Chinese society, we learn that Meimei comes from the countryside and dreams of becoming a movie star in Beijing; finding no way to do so, she helplessly serves as a dancing girl. When she makes a phone call in the street, Xiao Wu stands by and helps eliminate noises emanating from a running machine. Comforting her mother by saying that she just found a director in Beijing and that her dream is coming true, Meimei also sends her love to her brother and father. Moved by her lamentable experience, the sympathetic Xiao Wu engenders a tender feeling. His kindness changes Meimei’s impression of him, and they soon develop mutual feelings. Owing to his full engagement with Meimei, Xiao Wu even loses interest in associating with his buddies (Figure 2.5). Although this romantic atmosphere is broken apart by Xiaoyong’s returning the gift and the verbal exchange between Xiao Wu and the messenger, their relations still develop further. When Meimei is sick, Xiao Wu goes to visit her and buys her the hot-water bag she needs badly; the grateful Meimei lies on his arms, listening to the music of the euphonious music of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”19 In the next scene, a montage shows his singing,20 dancing, drinking and party gatherings, in which he appears excited and intoxicated. Yet this utopian happiness cannot last long. Reality soon arrives to break the rosy picture, and Xiao Wu’s happy time ends the day he buys a ring for Meimei. He finds the girl missing; when learns from the hostess that she has been taken away by some coalminer bosses from Shanxi, Xiao Wu falls into despair. Some critics suggest that what he does not realize is that their relations are established on the basis of commodity transactions.21 However,

46  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China

Figure 2.5  X  iao Wu is together with the bargirl.

this view that there would be no genuine affections under any form of commodity economy is apparently wrong. To me, their separation is due to the principle of market economy and the mindset of “getting rich (by all means) is glorious,” which have replaced any other values and swayed interpersonal relations, rendering their genuine affection groundless and helpless. Within these two sections, there is a subtle subplot. It is about a boy named Santu, who is younger than Xiao Wu and under his patronage. In the beginning of the film, among the group of people waiting for the bus, there is a boy dressed in the same big, western-style coat as Xiao Wu’s, appearing green and naive in the wind. His next appearance is on the street, when he happens to be asked for an interview by a local TV reporter, who makes inquiries on his opinion about the ongoing campaign against petty crimes. He is perplexed and in the next minute is drawn away by Xiao Wu. Yet Xiao Wu cannot always keep the boy in his jurisdiction and guard him from mercenary and snobbish society. When Xiao Wu happens to witness his close relation with a shy girl in the street, which is apparently another r­ endition of Xiao Wu’s own love story (Santu keeps his distance from the girl in the street, just as Xiao Wu has treated Meimei), he pokes fun at Santu, and the latter appears embarrassed. Yet this younger boy does not have the ­political unconscious of Xiao Wu because he does not experience the traditional socialist period, thus his morality, if any, comes from the code of brotherhood advertised in overseas TV dramas, which has no lasting power of binding regulation over his conduct. Accordingly, in the last section, when Xiao Wu is arrested and detained in a room, he sees from the TV program that Santu

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  47 now unabashedly blabs before the camera, accusing him of being a thug and claiming that he should be punished.22 Xiao Wu is betrayed again, now by one of his most favorite “disciples.” Apparently, without any memory of the bygone period, the younger generation has little sense of socialist ethics and morality. Pragmatism holds sway of interpersonal relations; the postsocialist society would soon face a wasteland in which various betrayals would become daily occurrences. Under this gigantic shadow, Santu and his still innocent feelings will fall into a more miserable state than Xiao Wu’s.

The totality of social network in a postsocialist society When humiliated and alienated Xiao Wu experiences double failures in his friendship and affection, the only retreat he can expect is his family. Bodily desires and commodity exchanges are everywhere in the town, might the countryside still have naive customs and familial love? Yet after Xiao Wu returns home, he finds that the logic of the market economy has extended to the remote rural areas; consequently, he experiences more disappointment. When he arrives at his rural house, he learns that his second brother is going to marry a girl from the town; as a result, the family needs money to maintain its honor. He gives his mother the ring that he intended to give Meimei, “a ritualistic gesture for a filial son in Confucian ethical terms.”23 Yet he soon finds that the ring is transferred to his sister-in-law as a gift from the family.24 When he loses his temper to his parents, he is evicted out of his home for his “impiety.” Xiao Wu’s strange behavior should be understood as his feeling that the love token is priceless and should not be transferred, an idea that was a firm belief in the socialist period. Nevertheless, he is “betrayed” again, now by his own parents. The sense of estrangement toward his most intimate family members, brought about by the penetration of the principles of the market economy into every corner of society, makes Xiao Wu completely homeless. The protagonist’s three failures testify to the truth of the following critique of the commodity economy, offered by Karl Marx, Money…appears as this overturning power both against the individual and against the bonds of society, etc., which claim to be essences in themselves. It transforms fidelity into infidelity, love into hate, hate into love, virtue into vice, vice into virtue.25 Here, the director perceives the breakdown of social infrastructure and ­superstructure as being due to the deep invasion of the market economy;26 sometimes he consciously insinuates this great influence.27 Yet we could not fail to notice that generally, the gigantic entity of Mao’s socialist period and the predominant value system in that collectivist social structure, which ­existed between the traditional world and the post-revolutionary era, is missing or simplified to the Mao medallion hung on the window of the bus. To be sure, the absence of the erstwhile hegemonic value system (as

48  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China the absent other) in the movie is warranted to some extent by social reality. When Xiao Wu’s parents chastise him for daring to fight back, they resort to the traditional (Confucian) ethical-moral code of filial piety, which ­demands absolute obedience by the junior to the senior premised on the traditional (feudal) hierarchical family and class system. They know that their behavior falls short of reasonable; therefore, they could only invoke the age-old patriarchal principle to guard their authority, the practice of which is oftentimes seen nowadays in the Chinese society. The rhetoric of this “Confucian moral code and social order” is even witnessed in the briefings of the foreign ministry when it answers the inquiries of the legitimacy of rulership (Figure 2.6). Reluctantly returning to the town, Xiao Wu has nothing to do but try to resume his profession. Yet his pager, which he buys to keep in contact with Meimei, “betrays” him when he is doing his “business.” Arrested, he is temporarily handcuffed alongside the curb. The final scene of the movie is frequently compared to a picture described by the modern Chinese literary giant Lu Xun at the turn of the twentieth century, in which some apathetic Chinese spectators watched the execution of their compatriots by Japanese invaders. Here, the audience of the movie witnesses a gradually aggregated crowd gawking at Xiao Wu who numbly returns their gaze. Ostensible similarities aside, the two spectacles have qualitative differences. The onlookers in Lu Xun’s time were ignorant masses living in the end of the last imperial dynasty; the spectators this time are the crowd in the post-revolutionary era whose political consciousness, once alive in the Mao

Figure 2.6  X  iao Wu becomes the object of gaze by the crowd.

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  49 era, is now dulled by consumerist society. Thus their eyes show an apathetic gaze, vastly different from looks of hatred and caution while watching public trials of criminals in the Mao era. The scene confirms that the Chinese in the 1990s have become a politically apathetic mass under sway of the market economy and rampant materialism. On the other hand, to compare Xiao Wu with the famed literary character Ah Q in Lu Xun’s work “The Story of Ah Q,” which is another frequent practice taken by critics, is also misleading, for our hero’s stubborn political unconscious imbues him with a strong subjectivity and a perceptive vision through the world, though he has no power to retaliate.28 In all, this scene symbolically ties Xiao Wu with the social network. ­Before this, through his association with his friends and family, an interpersonal web was woven. This is a small town, typical contemporary Chinese society with all the characteristics of Chinese customs and ways of living. In particular, the transitional era of the 1990s is visualized through the broadcasting of the state’s policy by loudspeakers on the streets, the dimly lit pool room, video halls on every corner of the street showing shoot-’em-ups and TV programs offering song-requesting service. This postsocialist Chinese world is filled with flippancy and nihilism, also revealed by the popular love songs heard throughout the diegetic space.29 The chaotic scenes are witnessed everywhere. No hegemonic ­consensus can hold together the disintegrated society; rather, pragmatism and ­mammonism take root and become the functioning ideology. The alienated younger generation begins a new round of drifting and searching for identity.30 Holding unconsciously the socialist notions, the social ­marginal, surplus (or outcast) Xiao Wu feels great agony, resisting the u ­ nfamiliar society in his self-expatriation. By correlating this marginal figure with the men and women with whom he communicates, the movie makes an allegorical rendition of the social totality in a synecdochic way. The cinematic techniques serve this purpose efficiently by applying ­on-site shooting, long takes, natural sounds and eye-level shots, which bring out a documentary effect. The real and the imagined here are deliberately c­ onfused, whereas the cinematic images and the genuine life scenes overlap with each other.31 However, this does not mean there is no problem in this rendition. Many scenes of the movie are seemingly shown from Xiao Wu’s perspective.32 Thus, Chris Berry believes that “Xiao Wu’s realism and claim to truth is not grounded in an analytical schema, but in a cinematic rendering of the experience of the main character.”33 For him, this rendition is supported by the cinematic technique of what Deleuze calls “time-image,” shown in the movie as “lack of focus and narrative distension,”34 which is seemingly substantiated by the acknowledgment of the director himself on his frequent use of the long take.35 However, although this way of application can add aesthetic effects with a humanist touch to the movie, it does not necessarily mean the “narrative distension” by long take, as well as the observational angle of the protagonist’s, will naturally yield to a more insightful penetration into the truth of the historical

50  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China experience. In particular, while the strong influence of the overseas cultures of the pan-Chinese world is highlighted, the complete negligence of the socialist conceptions, which were still effectively running to a certain extent at the time, is not warranted, as the Maoist notions in the Chinese society do not necessarily erode so much as to merely become Xiao Wu’s political unconscious and the commercial icon. In this light, the director of this film indeed has his analytical scheme, which comes from his belief that the traditional ethical-moral values have been missing in this new commodity economy; he subsequently laments the deprivation of the “dignity” of the underclass.36 Accordingly, this scheme is shown in his emplotment of the three sections. All three betrayals of Xiao Wu take place with the medium of a gift presented by him to his beloved (the nuptial gift of money to Xiaoyong, the ring as a love token intended for Meimei; and again the ring for his mother). The transactions are not only against his “good will”; they also physically and symbolically violate and break the traditional Chinese concept and practice of the “gift economy.” In studying German cinema from World War I to Hitler’s ascendancy, Siegfried Kracauer pointed out that “The dissolution of political systems result in the decomposition of psychological systems, and in the ensuing turmoil traditional inner attitudes, now released, are bound to become conspicuous, whether they are challenged or endorsed.”37 Here, it is not the “dissolution of political systems,” but the disintegration of socialist cultural systems and values, that leads to the resurgence of traditional customs and mentalities. However, the more essential bereavement in this transformation bypasses the director’s horizon. While he discerns the erosion of the social fabric by the state’s new, pro-market reform, he can only find casualties among the social outcasts and the damage in traditional (read feudal) moral s­ ystems and social customs. He does not realize that Xiao Wu, anti-hero that he is, still has a strong political notion and unconscious that few people around him can compete with, which endows him with insights into alienated reality. In this regard, although in this movie, “the edgy hand-held camera work….complement(s) the overarching vision of the film, with the unpolished images reinforcing the gritty nature of the story and the dark reality,” and while “the sound design …emphasizes this same realist aesthetic” with “the use of non-authentic dialects” producing “the illusion of a­ uthenticity,” this ­employment of various cinematic apparatus still merely “creates a ­documentary-esque mood,”38 rather than ingeniously present a social ­totality with its epochal truth content.

Conclusion In discussing his intention of portraying Xiao Wu as a social character, Jia Zhangke says that “when the entire society is moving ahead to pursue happiness…Xiao Wu is someone who is unable to deal with the changes.”39

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  51 Or,  he epitomizes “those who are not the drivers of China’s postsocialist project but instead, at best, its passengers, and more often onlookers at the roadside, watching as it passes them by.”40 However, it is better to say that Xiao Wu is one of the leftovers of the reform agenda, for not only is he structurally banished by the state’s new market economy, but his political unconscious also remains in the traditional socialist era, which renders him unfit for the new world. In short, his very existence, including his mindset, lags behind the new epoch; his nihilism is thus a voiceless protest against the mercenary age. In this way, the film shows that something has shaken “the spiritual, moral and even physical foundation of everyone” in contemporary Chinese society, which is not merely “an economic revolution,”41 but more importantly, a cultural-political revolution as well. The film in this light can be read as a silent elegy for the past age with its now old-fashioned character(s). From this perspective, some seemingly unrelated scenes, such as a family sending off their daughters in the beginning of the movie, exude a deep feeling of melancholy over what is disappearing. On the other hand, within this “poetics of vanishing,”42 while the director is deeply moved by this inexorable societal change and the vicissitude of ordinary people within, he does not understand clearly the social-political import of this transformation and what sort of ethical-moral value system has been challenged, but only harbors tender feelings for those waiting along the roadside to take on the bus of the “historical trend” and those who are inexorably left behind. With a sympathetic gaze and a humanist spirit, the film illustrates the historical experience of his youthful period, yet it fails to give a poignant analysis of the transformation. Instead, it only offers a somewhat sentimental rendition, though the movie on the surface appears dispassionate and cool-headed, with such oft-complimented techniques as long take or “on-site realism.”43

Notes 1 Chris Berry, “Xiao Wu: Watching Time Go By,” in Chris Berry, ed., Chinese Films in Focus II, Basingstoke: BFI/Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, 250. 2 Lin Xudong林旭东, Zhang Yaxuan张亚璇, and Gu Zheng顾峥, eds., Jia Zhangke dianying: guxiang sanbuqu zhi “Xiao Wu” 贾樟柯电影：故乡三部曲之《小武》 [The Films of Jia Zhangke: Hometown Trilogy, Xiao Wu], Beijing: Zhongguo mangwen chubanshe, 2003, 106. 3 Zhang Yingjin notes that after winning a top prize at the Berlin film festival, the film picked up distributors in France, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, ­Austria, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong. In January 1999, the film showed in four French theaters and reportedly topped the French box office for four weeks. Additionally, Arta Television paid 400,000 francs for the exhibition rights, the French press had positive reviews, and a French foundation granted Jia Zhangke 700,000 francs for the postproduction work on his next project to be done in France.

52  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China By contrast, in China, “a few film screenings in Beijing in 1998 generated mixed but mostly negative responses.” There were “common accusations from his classmates and fellow filmmakers,” which claimed “his film was shot to please ­foreigners and that he was an opportunist whose ‘crude’ style was nothing but a fixed camera taking random street scenes.” See Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie? Truth, Subjectivity, and Audience in Chinese Independent Film and Video,” in Paul Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, 37–38. 4 Ibid., 38. 5 Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy”: Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 130. 6 Yingjin Zhang, “My Camera Doesn’t Lie?” 28. 7 It sings the following phrases, “The affections between brothers and sisters are intense… Let’s have three glasses of wine for revolution.” 8 Maurice Meisner, Mao’s China and After: A History of the People’s Republic, New York: Free Press, 1999, 533. 9 Jason McGrath, “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From P ­ ostsocialist Realism to a Transnational Aesthetic,” in Zhang Zhen, ed., The Urban ­G eneration: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the 21stCentury, Durham, MD: Duke University Press, 2005, 90–91. 10 Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy”: Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 46. 11 See Chris Barden, “Jia Zhangke: Pickpocket Director,” Beijing Scene 5, no. 23 (August 27–September 2, 1999). www.beijingscene.com/V05I023/feature/feature. htm. Accessed April 13, 2013. 12 On the surface, the story took place around the 1990s. Yet the societal atmosphere, as shown in the intense climate of crime suppression revealed in the broadcasting, indicates that the temporal space is largely located between the early and mid-1980s, when there was a “Strike-hard Campaign” aimed to crack down rampant crimes. After 1989, there was also a short-term campaign against crime activities, which was largely the result of the Tian’anmen protests and the subsequent suppression by the state. 13 The term “Han’guo” is used in China only after the formal diplomatic relations between China and South Korea was established in the year 1992. 14 As said, we still need to differentiate the two periods of the reform era. In terms of the early reform agenda of developing socialist economy, generally it has not yet betrayed the socialist principle. 15 Chris Berry notes that Xiao Wu “attempts to insert himself into the new o ­ rder,” yet he retains “an old system of honour and obligation towards friends and ­family.” Berry does not realize that this “old system” is not the old value of bond of brotherhood, but the socialist morality. See Chris Berry, “Xiao Wu: Watching Time Go By,” 252. 16 See Chris Barden, “Jia Zhangke: Pickpocket Director.” 17 In particular, the voiceover of the soundtrack is from John Woo’s classic The Killer, which is an “ode to honor among thieves and nostalgic longing for the good old days.” Ibid. 18 Cui Shuqin, “Negotiating In-Between: On New-generation Filmmaking and Jia Zhangke’s Films,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 18, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 109. 19 The music comes from a lighter, which Xiao Wu steals from Xiaoyong earlier. Xiao Wu steals the lighter probably out of his wish to keep a memory of his ­deserted friendship. Yet this scene also implies that the relationship with Meimei

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  53

20 21

22

23 24 25 26

is problematic, as what he does is but offering an illusory euphoria to the girl with equipment not belonging to himself. The first time he meets Meimei, he refuses to sing out of his lack of self-­ confidence; this time, he stands fully unclothed and alone in a public bathhouse, starting to sing gleefully though off-key. Cui Shuqin, “Negotiating In-Between,” 110. Chris Berry echoes this point; see Chris Berry, “Xiao Wu.” Lin Xiaoping also argues that “Xiao Wu’s ‘purchase power’ with a little stolen money counts for nothing if compared with that of the ‘post-Mao’ Chinese bourgeoisie who can ‘buy off’ the prostitute herself.” See Lin Xiaoping, “Jia Zhangke’s Cinematic Trilogy: A Journey across the Ruins of Post-Mao China,” in Sheldon Lu and Yueh-Yu Yeh, eds., Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2005, 195. Santu appears earlier in the film when he is perplexed and bewildered in face of a TV reporter’s inquiry; the scene is set side by side with Xiaoyong’s natural and voluble appearance before the reporter’s microphone and TV camera; Xiao Wu also appears in the mise-en-scène shortly later, which objectively presents a contrast of the three characters. Apparently, Santu finally adapts to the opportunistic social atmosphere and eventually becomes a man just like Xiaoyong with political pragmatism as his conviction and moral standard. Jason McGrath, “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke,” 195. It is noted that the mother does this “because she has no ‘betrothal money’ to buy any gifts for the bride’s family.” Ibid., 195. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Communist Manifesto, New York: Prometheus Books, 1988, 140. The situation is reminiscent of Marx’s classical description of the early burgeoning of capitalist relations of production, All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

Karl Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto, trans. Samuel Moore, Maryland: Wildside Press LLC, 2008, 12. To be sure, what is evaporated is not merely the traditional ethical-moral code that had been bombarded since the May Fourth movement of the early 20th century, but also the socialist principles and value system that had been seen as sacred in the Mao period. 27 Lin Xiaoping notes a particular scene that ingeniously presents the director’s attitude. When Xiao Wu and his sister return home in one night after a show, The sister accidentally steps over a metal object on the ground. Using a flashlight, the girl finds a discarded red can of Coca-Cola, and in blank dismay she kicks it away. From such explicit montage, we discern what is entailed in this young farm girl’s symbolic gesture. In her mind, global capitalism – or ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ – is to blame for all the tragedies – real of ‘staged’ – that her brother and the family are living through. (Lin Xiaoping, “Jia Zhangke’s Cinematic Trilogy: A Journey across the Ruins of Post-Mao China,” 196) 28 Thus, although Michael Berry believes that “the true urtext for Xiao Wu” lies in Lu Xun’s story, he also acknowledges that “it is even more instructive to ­pinpoint how Xiao Wu stands unique from the prototype of Ah Q.” And he honestly ­enumerates these differences,

54  Morality and love in post-revolutionary China Xiao Wu stands as a far more self-conscious character, keenly aware of his surroundings and predicament. With this awareness comes a bleak defeatist outlook that stands in sharp contrast to Ah Q’s ‘ignorance-is-bliss’ ­mentality…And unlike Ah Q, who is always submissive to power, Xiao Wu is markedly more subversive, consistently challenging engrained power structures while struggling to adhere to his own romanticized moral core. In short, Xiao Wu is “imbued with a strong self-awareness…the faint dreams of an idealist pushed to the very margins of society.” However, Berry does not realize that this “idealism” and “strong self-awareness” come not from “his notion of ‘brotherhood’” but from the deeply-ingrained Maoist concept of social equality. See the discussion in Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy”: Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 41–45. 29 When Xiao Wu goes to interrogate Xiaoyong as to why he is not invited to the marriage reception, we hear the song “The Conqueror Bids Farewell to His Concubine” in a hysterical tune; in the singing hall, Meimei takes Xiao Wu as her sugar daddy, and she sings the song “Love the motherland but love ­beauties deeper.” In Xiaoyong’s marriage, a funeral service, street corners, dancing halls, TV shows, and a song with exaggerated sentimentalism named “Rains in the Heart” arise again and again, filled with the sense of alienation, coldness and solitude. See the comment by the netizen named “Yakuizi”, “Xiao Wu: The Identity Card of the Small Town.” http://i.mtime.com/dongzhao324/blog/1553932. Accessed March 31, 2013. 30 Michael Berry notes that “of his spoils, the single items that Xiao Wu consistently dispenses with are these ID and residence cards – signatures one’s identity and place in the world, precisely what Xiao Wu seems to lack as he blindly drifts.” Michael Berry, Speaking in Image: Interview with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers, New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, 39. 31 It is noted that in the movie “the divergence between the priorities of ‘on-thespot’ cinema verite realism and those of fictional realism” is “largely sutured… with somewhat more preference now given to the latter.” See Jason McGrath, “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke: From Postsocialist Realism to a Transnational Aesthetic,” 95. 32 Chris Berry notes that in this occasion, the camera turns to “take up a position mimicking Xiao Wu’s own gaze”; numerous similar scenes observed from Xiao Wu’s horizon appear throughout the movie “when defeats encourage introspection.” Chris Berry, “Xiao Wu: Watching Time Go By,” 253. 33 Ibid., 253. 34 Chris Berry summarizes the distinction between “the movement-image” and “time-image” as delineated by Deleuze, the former is the way time is apprehended in what we call ‘classical’ Hollywood ­cinema and other montage-based cinema. Here, time is rendered as m ­ ovement: ­camera movement or physical change within the diegesis marks and m ­ easures time in a manner that is logical, linear and corresponds to ­narrative motivation; whereas the time-image “designates cinematic tendencies that break down that logic in various ways.” To him, “lack of focus and narrative distension in Xiao Wu can be…seen as a dismantling of the movement-image and a drift towards the time-image.” Chris Berry, “Xiao Wu: Watching Time Go By,” in Chris Berry, ed., Chinese Films in Focus II, Basingstoke: BFI/Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, 251. What Berry calls “narrative distension” is that “the lack of narrative progress produces an effect of distension…Time passes as they are deadlocked,” 253. See also Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement Image, trans. Hugh Tonlinson and

Morality and love in post-revolutionary China  55

35

36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Barbara Habberjam, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986; Cinema 2: The Time-Image, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. Jia Zhangke says, “What I like most in a long take is that it preserves real time, it keeps time intact…In that long and tedious passage of time, nothing significant happens…Only through time can you convey this.” Quoted from Stephen Teo, “Cinema with an Accent – Interview with Jia Zhangke, Director of Platform,” Senses of Cinema no. 15 (2001),  www.sensesofcinema.com/2001/ featurearticles/zhangke_interview/. Accessed March 23, 2013. Teo thus suggests that Jia’s “­ fundamental approach to mise-en-scène is to keep “real time intact (his ­fondness for the long take.” Ibid. Jia says, “(After learning the pickpocket’s philosophy), I gradually feel that even pickpockets have their dignity. No matter what shackle he takes in terms of his morality, he is still musing upon the life, and this is his dignity.” Lin Xudong et al., Jia Zhangke dianying, 195. Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the ­G erman Film, edited and introduced by Leonardo Quaresima, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004, 9. All are quoted from Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy,” 26–28. See Chris Barden, “Jia Zhangke: Pickpocket Director.” Chris Berry, “Xiao Wu,” 251. Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy,” 48. See Xudong Zhang, “Poetics of Vanishing: The Films of Jia Zhangke,” New Left Review 63 (May–June, 2010): 71–88. Jia Zhangke himself has echoed Krzysztof Kieslowski’s words that “the closer you stick to reality, the more absurd and unreal the film becomes.” And he has indicates that “Truth itself is a kind of experience, a kind of judgment, not a style of documentary-making.” See Jia Zhangke and Du Haibin, “Jia Zhangke vs. ­Duhaibin,” Mingpao Weekly, 28 November 2009, 48. Sebastian Veg thus concludes “repeated stylistic references to Bazin’s cinema-verite realism and Deleuze’s ‘time-image’ don’t highlight what makes independent film different from its predecessors.” See Sebastian Veg, “Introduction: Opening Public Spaces,” China Perspectives 1, no. 81 (2010): 7.

3 Hedonism and nihilism in the consumerist wasteland Unknown Pleasures (2002) as a fable of drifters in a market society Reportedly, the idea for producing the third feature of Jia Zhangke’s “hometown trilogy,” Unknown Pleasures (2002), emerged when he made the short documentary In Public filmed entirely in digital video and chose to take part in the 2001 Jeonju International Film Festival.1 He admitted later that when he witnessed the derelict factories in Datong “at first it was the bleak and lonely buildings that attracted me. When I saw the streets filled with lonely, directionless people, I became interested in them.”2 In the production notes of Unknown Pleasures, he further elaborates his thoughts, That year, reality was more theatrical than anything we could see at the movies. It even leaned toward surrealism. The entire population got worked up. This strange excitement gave me a worrisome feeling. The anger of society’s inner layers was beginning to come out and show itself.3 For Jia, the year was particularly significant; this could also be seen in the film, when newscasts and other media in numerous instances tie in the characters with the sensational social-political events taking place that year. In retrospect, it is the first year of the 21st century, in which the Chinese populace had entrusted much hope, but various social contradictions – such as unemployment, corruption, crimes and moral degeneration – brought about by the marketization of society, aggregated and began to explode. The city Datong itself at the time was a microcosm of the nation-state entrenched in this vehement trend of marketization; as Jia himself notes, The entire city exists in a state of desolation. All of those old industrial factories have stopped production, leaving a cold, abandoned feeling that permeates the city. Datong left me with all kinds of feelings of desperation and devastation. In one sense it is truly a city in ruins, and the people that inhabit it very much live in a spiritual world that reflects their environment.4 Jia meant to record this phenomenon in the movie, where an overwhelming feeling of devastation rages amidst the sound and fury of a spree. But what is the thematic concern of the film? Hoberman contends that it was “Jia’s

Hedonism and nihilism  57 most concentrated evocation of contemporary China’s spiritual malaise.”5 However, David Rooney disparages the film as being “diluted thematically, touching on a number of interesting points but failing to bring them together in any cohesive way.”6 Apparently, this confusion comes from his incomprehension of “the motivation of the characters.”7 These protagonists do seem to be wandering around aimlessly all day, yet Edwin Mak believes that “we can find in depictions of their squabbling, boredom, desire and ineptitude vehicles for allegory.”8 He does not elaborate on what kind of allegory it is. On the surface, the movie is a “teen’s film,” examining the lives of the delinquents; yet in reality, it contains more messages of contemporary Chinese society and culture in the globalized, consumerist era. Jia has elaborated on his directorial intention by arguing that, The process of globalization is closely related to cultural values. Youngsters in Unknown Pleasures have lost faith in their cultural system. At the same time, they live in the information age; they receive more and more information on everything else in the world, except for that on their own lives and on their environments; in short, the information that matters to them the most. In this context, how should one position oneself vis-à-vis economic development? Who truly benefits from the outcome of this development? What should one say about globalization? … These questions preoccupy me tremendously.9 Judging by what he says, it seems that Jia believed that the problems of these youngsters are caused by globalization, in particular, by their severance from their “cultural system” and their shortage of information about themselves, their lives and the environment. However, by studying the three social derelicts portrayed by the film, I suggest that they present a picture of some Chinese youngsters living in the postsocialist world of the neoliberal age, engulfed by a deep feeling of ­depression, with hedonism and nihilism as their living philosophy. H ­ owever, the movie does not sufficiently explore the political-economic matrix to find the social contradictions that contribute to the malaise and lead to this ­lamentable spiritual state.

Three social derelicts in the era of globalization Although the film is generally taken to be a “haunting follow-up to ­Platform,”10 thematically it is better viewed as the sequel to the director’s first feature Xiao Wu, for they focus on two generations of kids with continuity in terms of their ages and educations received. The correlation of the two movies is shown in the character of Xiao Wu, who appears in both films, as the titled anti-hero in the first feature and a minor character in the present story. A small-time crook, Xiao Wu appears at the beginning of the movie attempting to hustle some money from the two male protagonists − a 10 yuan “introduction fee” for the information of a job opportunity he “­ offers” to

58  Hedonism and nihilism Binbin and Xiao Ji. Shortly later, he is arrested and taken away by two policemen dressed in plain clothes. Later on, we witness him selling pirated DVDs and loan sharking to Binbin. Departing from his life philosophy expressed in Xiao Wu, which criticizes unfair social phenomena with his political awareness of socialist ethics and morality, Xiao Wu now seems completely nihilistic; whereas those street-corner kids, who are ten years younger than he, make good use of their time because they want to die young; they have few moral concepts other than hedonism.11 The differences show changing social mores.12 Indeed, as Xiao Wu is arrested, the loudspeaker is broadcasting the news of the arrival of a new lottery game, and some wandering urbanites are venturing in the hustle and bustle of the bazaar: apparently, this is a world rampant with opportunistic materialism in the early stage of the market society (Figure 3.1). This observation points to a new stage of developmentalist reform. At the end of the 1980s, the destruction of old blocks and the r­ ebuilding of new houses started; as a necessary result of economic growth, it ­i mproved the ­living conditions of the populace. Since the 1990s, in line with ­pro-­market policy, realty has gradually become an important (and in the new ­c entury, the most significant) mainstay industry of the country, and it led to another round of “enclosure movement.” The state became a rising star ­internationally because of its economic booming, yet since the state put aside the socialist principle of justice and egalitarianism, the nation as a whole followed ­pragmatist law, and the populace fell into nihilism. The phenomena of i­ ndulgence in hedonism were witnessed everywhere. The youths of this era are the “birth-control generation,” due to ­China’s one-child policy at the start of the reform era. Since they rarely have brothers or sisters, they are “confronted with an existential crisis of individuality,”

Figure 3.1  X  iao Wu is extracting money from Binbin.

Hedonism and nihilism  59 13

as the director states. Consequently, they are often detached from reality and acquire knowledge and experience mostly through TV programs (and since the late 1990s, by surfing on the Internet).14 Differing from Xiao Wu, who was still subject to the influence of Maoist socialist culture in childhood and thus intellectually inscribed with its value codes, the protagonists of Unknown Pleasures represent a new breed in China who, now living in the postsocialist, depoliticized society, are influenced mostly by western and overseas Chinese pop cultures. Like Xiao Wu, they are disaffected toward reality, yet now they can only react with blind impulses and anarchistic inclinations emulating the western anti-heroes shown on screen. In this light, the movie is about the wandering and raging libidos of the two unemployed, disenchanted teenagers, Binbin and Xiao Ji, together with a minor character Qiaoqiao, Xiao Ji’s lover. All three social derelicts struggle against the antagonistic society with their unbridled desires (Figure 3.2). Wearing an oversized shirt all the time, the skinny 19-year-old Binbin is always burdened with a sense of depression. He maintains a strained relation with his nagging mother who, having a traditional mindset, often urges him to find a regular job and lead a normal life. Binbin tries to follow her advice by joining the army but is rejected because of hepatitis. He always shows tender feelings to his girlfriend, Yuanyuan, a high-school student. A boy of puberty, he restrains his desire when he associates with her. When he invites her to watch television in private bars, they merely exchange mutual feelings, for he knows that their relations will not last long. After he learns that she has done well in the national entrance exam and will go to college in Beijing, he realizes that the date of parting is approaching. To show his deep love and bid farewell to his youthful memory, Binbin borrows money to purchase a cell phone as a gift for Yuanyuan.

Figure 3.2  B  inbin and Xiao Ji are listless.

60  Hedonism and nihilism After she departs, the film insinuates that he sleeps with a bargirl to release his desire and despair. Binbin appears reserved and self-constrained; by contrast, Binbin’s buddy, the long-haired Xiao Ji, looks more decadent and reckless, idling away his time by riding his motorbike around the city. Without alternatives for making a living, they finally decide to rob a bank. However, they are too naïve and clumsy to implement the plan. Binbin’s fake bomb attached to his chest is immediately discovered by the security guard, who ridicules him for not getting a better costume. Inexperienced Xiao Ji is greatly frightened and flees away from his buddy, driving his motorcycle toward an unknown destination. Earlier, Binbin chances upon Qiaoqiao, a singing and dancing girl and model slightly older than he is, and he is immediately infatuated with her. Working for a liquor company, Qiaoqiao is subject to exploitation by her boss, who is reluctant to pay her. For her daily maintenance, she maintains an amorous relation with Qiao San, a moneylender and her former ­m iddle school gym teacher; she knows that he no longer loves her, and he often abuses her. Attracted to her beauty, Xiao Ji flirts with Qiaoqiao and is ­unafraid of the threatening warnings from her powerful and dangerous patron. Qiaoqiao initially does not think highly of Xiao Ji, who appears weak and has the stature of an opium addict. Yet her abandonment by Qiao San and Xiao Ji’s persistence finally facilitate their affair. It is not romantic at all, to be sure. Partially to impress Qiaoqiao, Xiao Ji plans and perpetrates the bank robbery,15 which means that their vulnerable relation cannot last long. The film implies that Qiaoqiao soon leaves Xiao Ji; some scenes even suggest that she yields to the material lure offered by Xiao Ji’s father. Since Qiao San is knocked to death by his business rival, and Xiao Ji runs away, Qiaoqiao apparently loses all her patrons and she can barely maintain a respectable life (Figure 3.3).

Figure 3.3  X  iao Ji is pursuing Qiaoqiao.

Hedonism and nihilism  61 While Qiaoqiao’s predicament is easy to understand, what leads the two social derelicts to take hopeless and lethal action? This issue of motivation, which is rarely presented in the movie, is crucial for us to understand the psychological world of the characters and the narrative causality, the exploration of which yields to a depleted picture of the postsocialist wasteland.

An Anarchic state and impinging western pop culture The “background” of contemporary society is mainly introduced in the first several scenes of the movie, in which Xiao Wu appears to extract an ­“introduction fee” from the two protagonists and is arrested amid the noise of the announcement of a new lottery game. In addition to informing the audience that this is an era of “naked monetary exchange,” these scenes also show that with “increasing unemployment and desperation setting in, new ‘cures’ for society’s ills have been introduced, booze to provide escape from the pain and gambling to provide false hope for the dreamers.”16 This omnipresent atmosphere of opportunistic consumerism, a phenomenon fundamentally missing in most of the 1980s, appears side by side with an indifferent attitude to public affairs, a symptom of political apathy, which is demonstrated by the crowd’s numbness when they witness Xiao Wu being arrested. Some other messages are conveyed by subtle information throughout the film; for instance, Michael Berry finds the phenomenon of “infiltration of corruption and greed into the remnants of state enterprises” (“as Qiao San…an official from the mining bureau, uses his connections to become a thug while the factory head rents out rooms to a ‘hair salon’, which serves as a thinly veiled cover for a prostitution house”) as well as the rampant privatization of public enterprises for commercial purpose (such as “the bus station waiting room converted into dance hall and a public bus converted into restaurant.”)17 The much more clearly delivered message, however, is that the frustration of these youthful characters is a consequence of their unemployment, a distinct feature of society since the late 1990s when market reform sent ­m illions of laid-off workers to the job market. It is easy to neglect that ­Binbin and Xiao Ji are both from workers’ families, which in the Mao era could have provided a robust education for the value system and a decent job for daily sustenance. However, the fact that they are from single-parent families, as well as their ways of dealing with the elder generation, shows the irreparable loss of the patriarchal authority. Binbin’s nagging mother, a retired textile-mill worker, still upholds the work ethic of the traditional socialist era. Accordingly, she often urges his son, who takes her job in the factory, to work hard and be on time, without knowing that the factory has been bankrupt and Binbin has lost his job. The fact that she is a follower of the Falun Gong, a religious group banned in China, shows that her spiritual world is also depleted in the postsocialist wasteland.

62  Hedonism and nihilism There are two father figures in the movie. Xiao Ji’s father is now working as a bicycle repairman; judging by his work clothes, he probably is an unemployed worker and now self-­employed. He mistakes a single U.S. dollar from his friend to be a big fortune and makes an exchange in the bank; thus, he is seriously reprimanded by his son for “shameless” greed. His disgrace shows the immoral façade of the older generation’s s­ uccumbing to material seduction and the humiliation of traditional patriarchal authority. Qiaoqiao’s father, probably also a retired (or unemployed) worker, becomes gravely ill and is sent to the hospital; he is incapable of affording the treatment. Qiaoqiao pays the fee, which pushes him to cry, because he feels guilty that his daughter needs to take care of him. The fathers’ generation loses power and enchantment – they do not have faith in society, now rampant with consumerism, pragmatism, materialism and the developmentalist mentality. When revolutionary and socialist notions have been put aside, only the robust nationalist feelings hold sway; the audience witnesses the hedonistic enjoyment of the nouveau-riche amidst ubiquitous scenes of destruction and ruins.18 This social phenomenon is revealed in a bar scene, in which people are gleefully dancing. In another sequence, Xiao Ji passes a crowd of ­p eople gawking at a television, waiting for the results of Beijing’s bid to be the host city of the 2008 Olympics. When the successful message is announced, the crowd bursts into cheers. The passionate sentiment has nothing to do with the life of this social outcast, who appears apathetic. The film offers an ­i mpassive picture, with a sharp contrast, to deliver its message of reflection. Binbin’s girlfriend, the would-be college student Yuanyuan, however, can afford the dream. She tells Binbin that she wants to take international trade as her university major and talks about China’s recent membership in the World Trade Organization. Apparently, she is filled with dreams of her ­g lorious future, which set her apart from the other protagonists. Since she is admitted to college, she can afford to fly high and leave the provincial town. This new life will establish her elite status and differentiate her from Binbin, which gives a grim view of class restructuration. Upon learning her major choice, Binbin pokes funs at her: “I heard that international business is just about buying rabbits and pigs and selling them to Ukraine.” His knowledge is limited and his horizon narrow. He and the other people around are outside the nation-state’s running toward a seemingly rosy future. At the time, China had steadily involved itself with globalization, intending to get the most out of it. It also gradually implemented market-driven policies to facilitate its integration into the international market. This reform included wholesale privatization of many state-owned enterprises and the dismissal of many workers without proper compensation. The parents of these drifters and the rest of that generation are mainly workers; they are among the victims of this ferocious trend and essentially constitute an

Hedonism and nihilism  63 ­estate of social destitution. Those who benefit from this process usually have nepotistic relations with authorities. Qiao San is probably one of them. At the end of the movie, he is mercilessly killed in a “car incident,” probably a murder by his adversary. This is a typical and “normal” event in contemporary China, reported in the newspapers, oftentimes without any further investigation; this shows a merciless world dominated by Social Darwinism and following the jungle law. The grim consequences of this barbaric world are alluded to in the movie with optical and aural references. In addition to the raucous broadcasting on the street promoting lottery games, the many incidents of the eventful year 2001 are insinuated in the movie, indicating the unusual domestic and ­international circumstances China was entrenched in at this ­particular ­juncture. From the TV news briefing that Binbin is watching, the ­audience learns of several sensational incidents taking place, one of which is the Hainan Island incident.19 Binbin does not show any specific feelings about the international strife. As he carelessly listens to the report, he hears a tremendous explosion. Later on, we learn that it is caused by a desperate unemployed man, who blew up a whole residential building to release his resentment to the society. The incident indeed happened that year in China, an extreme example of numerous such events taking place among the desperate groups of the newly unemployed. Binbin responds to the sound of explosion by casually wondering whether the United States is invading; this subtly conveys the message that domestic contradiction is greater than the conflicts of national interests. The clips of the news, apparently deliberately arranged by the film, also broadcast such incidents as the self-­i mmolation of the Falun Gong members in Tiananmen Square and the arrest of a ferocious robber, revealing the hollowing-out of the spiritual world of the masses now besieged by rising crime rates. When neither socialist ideas nor patriotic propaganda can affect these aimless adolescents, what can fill their spiritual world? Pop culture. ­Qiaoqiao is a performer with a local traveling commercial group working for advertisement purpose, an example of China’s vulgar, commercialized “art form,” in which kitsch becomes the popular form of promotion. ­Furthermore, the film illustrates that when neither traditional nor socialist culture is witnessed, American pop ethos infiltrates the provincial landscape through techno clubs and black markets, offering an opium-like anesthetic for these depressed characters. In particular, the protagonists refer to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction as their favorite movie and are excited over the reckless and carefree lifestyle shown there. After the three derelicts become acquainted, the movie quickly cuts to a scene in which they are dancing in a club with the diegetic music sampled out of that film, which also signifies that postmodern (essentially postsocialist) Chinese society is not much different from the capitalist wonderland. It leaves the critics with the impression that “the attitudes of these kids are almost completely derived by the electronic mass media that they consume and that consumes them.”20 Yet

64  Hedonism and nihilism although the penetration of the western pop culture into the Chinese society is comprehensive and its repercussions full-blown, this illustration of its function – in particular the characters’ last desperate action of robbing a bank – becomes cliché, or kitsch, and cannot provide convincing explanations for their degeneration (Figure 3.4). Among the three derelicts, the only one who has “subjectivity” seems to be Qiaoqiao, whose choice of love object is not explained. Upon scrutiny, the only reason to be found for this choice is her yearning for freedom: “In search of freedom, she is prepared to leave Qiao San for her teenage suitor, even it means enduring the physical violence inflicted by her jealous owner.”21 Nevertheless, her destiny is emblematic of the experience of ­low-class women in the society. For her sustenance, she “has to sell her body to the worst possible customer, the father of her teenage suitor, for one American dollar, a symbol of global wealth.” Critic Lu Tonglin keenly observes that Both the dollar bill and Qiaoqiao circulate as objects of desire for the townspeople, and the two finally meet each other and merge into one entity. Qiaoqiao and the bill mirror each other as both engender ­illusions of freedom associated with sexual pleasure and with expectations of unlimited wealth.22 All three protagonists are the lowest subaltern class and share the same ­unfortunate destiny; according to the film, they all long for “freedom.” This utopian longing becomes an ideology ingrained in the characters; the film cannot eschew it. Essentially, their life trajectories compose an ironic

Figure 3.4  Qiaoqiao finds that Qiao San has another woman.

Hedonism and nihilism  65 ­picture contrasting the leitmotif of the movie, “to freely roam (in the sky and on the earth).” They seek freedom and pleasure in an anarchic state, holding nothing but nihilism, yet they are also consumed by a feeling of depression and lack of direction.

Hedonism, nihilism and the ideology of freedom The youths of the film, most of whom are derelicts abandoned by society, live in a state of bewilderment. Jason McGrath notes that “there is an extended scene of rapturous dancing…in a techno club throbbing to the strains of a dance mix of the mid-1990s Chinese rock song ‘My Love Is Stark Naked.’”23 Populated by “middle class” urbanites, nouveaux riches and hopeless ­delinquents, the techno club is a popular place in contemporary Chinese society for releasing desires and anxieties that are “stark naked.” Hedonism and nihilism are at the core of this dissipated carnival. A sense of sadness accompanies this orgiastic binge and envelopes the movie. Just as the false feeling of exhilaration overwhelms people who, immersed in nationalist sentiment, are looking for glory and a better life (often in the form of consumerism), the drifters yearning for a state of freedom. This yearning is symbolized by Binbin’s fondness of the Chinese traditional icon, the Monkey King, and Qiaoqiao’s fascination with Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi’s philosophy elaborated in the fable “Dreams of a Butterfly,” which she shares with Xiao Ji. Although articulating similar hopes, the two ideas mean different things or are put in different ways. Binbin says to his girlfriend Yuanyuan that the Monkey King has no parents and no burdens and thus is freer than he is, implying that his mother’s love prevents him from having adventures. For the director, the story of the Monkey King “reflects the fatalism” of the film, in that these characters “struggle desperately … pull themselves out of difficult situations, but they always fall back into new problems because no one can escape the rules of the game”; for him, “true freedom doesn’t exist in this world.”24 This opinion does not differentiate the concept of freedom on the philosophical level and the idea of doing things freely in the real world. There are few opportunities for these downtrodden characters lacking knowledge and skill; they fall short of freedom in real life and metaphysically. Still, they try to achieve freedom from all constraints. While Binbin complains that he cannot behave like the Monkey King, Qiaoqiao expresses her desire more directly to Xiao Ji when they sleep together in a hotel. She informs him that according to the philosophy of the Taoist Zhuangzi, people should pursue absolute freedom and pleasure, “we should do what we feel good.” (Figure 3.5) This is a false understanding of Zhuanzi’s thoughts, expressed in his fable “Dreams of a Butterfly” and in the chapter of “Xiaoyao You” (A Carefree Journey). The chapter tells us that a man should follow the order of nature

66  Hedonism and nihilism

Figure 3.5  X iao Ji drives away with Qiaoqiao.

(rather than let his desire fly unconstrained) to attain the free state. In other words, Zhuanzi asks for the restraint of one’s physical desire in the secular world in order to lead a peaceful life and to avoid agony and vexation. By contrast, we are informed that the script of the film was inspired by Zhuangzi’s idea of enjoying the (unknown) pleasures of life, which is a hedonist pursuit. This is impossible in the secular world, yet it is exactly what these characters chase in their daily life – they are the leftovers of society and thus have plenty of time to hang out in the streets. However, since “in the Chinese and the English titles of the film, freedom and pleasure are ­interchangeable,”25 the shortage of freedom means that their pleasure comes from ­nowhere, or is merely an “unknown” fantasy. Paradoxically, at the end of the movie, when Binbin is arrested and in custody, he is unexpectedly ordered by the police to sing the pop song “Ren Xiaoyao” (Unknown Pleasures, or literally Plaisirs Inconnus). The ironic twist is arranged (though not convincingly made, as we are not sure how the police would make that request): he desperately longs for freedom even when he loses it. Thus, the lyrics speak about fantasizing about spiritual freedom through engaging in unrestricted love, articulated by a hero from a humble background. The song title is the title of the movie and runs throughout the film. It first appears as the background music when Qiaoqiao is dancing to promote Mongolian King Liquor and reappears when Binbin sings it in an attempt to please Yuanyuan and keep their relations. As Kin-yan Szeto aptly analyzes: Here Jia has made the popular love song resonate with Binbin’s life story and allude to the powerful forces in contemporary China that

Hedonism and nihilism  67 interpellate individuals – macro forces of capital and state power – into succumbing to fantasies of success. The song, which could have remained a sentimental cliché that whitewashes with empty promises the cruelties of economically driven social relations becomes, in Jia’s hands, both a means to cope with the system and also to protest against it.26 However, without the political awareness of socialist ideas held by the older generation, the youngsters of the consumerist age have nothing to rely on and fall prey to the market machine of consumer hedonism. Moreover, the allusion to the “macro forces of capital and state power” cannot be clearly felt and may be just a groundless speculation. By fantasizing about spiritual freedom from all constraints in the real world, the song typically exemplifies the mechanism of escape and wish fulfillment. However, while the analytical object of the Frankfurt school is western mass culture, which propagates a “happy consciousness,” in the Chinese context, this popular culture is mainly imported from the West, the East Asian capitalist bloc (Japan and Korea) and overseas Chinese communities (such as Hong Kong and Taiwan) and extols an individualistic heroism, as the lyrics champion. In Platform, we witness the gradual retreat of socialist culture and the intrusion of overseas pop culture; in this movie, we find the near total dominance of this culture with its intractable ideology (of individualism and “freedom”). In the moment, Binbin laments that he cannot attain the freedom he desires, yet he does not know how he arrives at this pre-determined predicament. Likewise, the movie does not give us any clue as to why these characters fail. Who or what kind of social force constrains the characters and prevents them from realizing their dreams? The cinematic texture ­suggests that the first scapegoats are fathers or mothers, who cannot offer better alternatives. Binbin’s mother asks her son to consider joining the PLA in order to have a reliable job in the future; when his son wants to borrow money, she is reluctant to lend it, although later on she consigns to him all of her lifetime deposits; Xiao Ji’s father is wretched and immoral; Qiaoqiao’s father only knows crying when he cannot pay for his treatment. Is this delineation of the indignity of the downtrodden fair or not? In any case, we are sure that the “true villain” in the movie is Qiao San, who was Qiaoqiao’s gym teacher in middle school but now treats her badly. On the other hand, since he taught Qiaoqiao the Chinese traditional idea of freedom, he should not be all bad. In other words, the movie presents this change revealing either the chameleon nature of men or the erosion of human nature by the insatiable desire for lust and money. If Qiao San is not exactly responsible for the tragic life conditions of these subaltern, then who is? Toward the end of the movie, we learn that Qiao San pays horribly for his degeneration, as he is annihilated by a force of still greater evil. In this light, the latter seems to be the true culprit, powerful enough to conquer anything and eradicate any man that hampers

68  Hedonism and nihilism its success. It should be noted that this concealed force is the incarnated form of contemporary China’s political-economic complex resulting from pro-market restructurations, which the film fails to explore further. Aside from highlighting the plight of people relentlessly left out of a ­society raging forward with humanist spirit and humanitarian concern, the film was not able to delve deeper into the crux of the cause and effect of class division in present Chinese society. The grim consequence of the pro-­ market restructurations is alluded to but not integrated into the cinematic texture to provide a coherent picture with explanatory power. Propelled by its unconscious conviction of a universal human nature, the film arranges a final scene for Xiao Ji. Witnessing the failed robbery and Binbin’s arrest, he runs away, driving his motorbike down the highway. On the road, the motorcycle breaks down, and he hitches a ride. It looks like he is fleeing the film’s suffocating milieu. Earlier, he struggled to ride his motorcycle up a desolate hill, but the modest scooter engine cuts off at each attempt. The camera steadfastly focuses on the banality of his job. On the eighth attempt, after nearly three minutes of screen time, he finally succeeds. The episode seems to imply his feeling of desperation and his persistence. Apparently, in this way the film encourages the audience’s empathy with his persistence, and also arouses their sympathy with the hopeless situation the socially marginalized people face. In reality, Xiao Ji becomes a desperado. Where is he heading? This question urges us to ponder the alternatives for the fugitive. In this regard, the film offers a contrast to the grey and clamorous industrial city Datong (i.e., Beijing). The metropolis is shown as a fancy dream world, as Yuanyuan, the only character with clear ambition and a goal, strives to go there to study “international trade,” dreaming of becoming a businesswoman. Near the end of the film, there is a news announcement that the Datong-Beijing Highway will soon be completed, which might signify a bright future. According to the director, this movie intends to highlight “the gap between the rich and the poor” and the gap between the prosperous Shanghai and Beijing as shown on television and the lives of those who live in cities like Datong.27 However, the tension between the rosy metropolitan Beijing and the vacant spiritual world of the subaltern figures is not sufficiently presented, as in the absence of a correlation between living the philosophy of nihilism and hedonism and the ideology of freedom, apparently both a utopian longing and a “false consciousness” vis-a-vis the domination of consumerism in this age of global capitalism (Figure 3.6).

Conclusion Declining all constraints, the youthful delinquents do not have dreams for the future. On the surface, they arrange their lives and act independently; spiritually, they run amok and have few dreams. They are the victims of the time, living in a state of existential strain due to economic marginalization

Hedonism and nihilism  69

Figure 3.6  X iao Ji becomes a desperado.

and social alienation; their exposure to the mass-mediated youth culture only brings about a false sense of hedonism, whereas cynicism and dissipation dominate their daily activities. How does one explain their listless and hopeless lives? Apart from offering a depleted picture of the postsocialist world enveloped in a hedonistic atmosphere and surrounded by the omnipresent western pop culture and a source of “unknown pleasure,” the film does not convincingly account for the origin of their nihilism and hedonism. It is also doubtful that the prevalent nationalistic sentiments fail to attract the underprivileged. In any case, those who wildly cheer for the announcement of Beijing’s bid for the Olympics are shown to be some mill workers, whose fare no better than the teenagers.

Notes 1 Kevin Lee, “Jia Zhangke,” Senses of Cinema, February 2003. www.sensesof cinema.com/ contents/directors/03/jia.html. Accessed August 20, 2013. 2 Yu Sen-Lun, “Director Aims Lens at China’s New Generation,” Taipei Times, May 26, 2002. www.taipeitimes.com/ news/2002/05/26/story/0000137751. Accessed August 22, 2008. 3 See “Unknown Pleasures Presskit,” New Yorker Films. www.newyorkerfilms. com/ Unknown-Pleasures-(2002)/1/273/. Accessed on August 23, 2008. 4 Michael Berry, “Jia Zhangke: Capturing a Transforming Reality,” in Michael Berry, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 201. 5 J. Hoberman, “New Dawn Fades: The Young and the Breathless,” The ­Village Voice. March 25, 2003. www.villagevoice.com/2003-03-25/film/new-dawn-fades /1/. Accessed August 20, 2008.

70  Hedonism and nihilism 6 David Rooney, “Unknown Pleasures Review,” Variety, May 22, 2002. www.variety .com/review/VE1117917856.html. Accessed March 10, 2014. 7 C.W. Nevius, “Unknown Pleasures,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 11, 2003. 8 Edwin Mak, “Postsocialist Grit: Contending Realisms in Jia Zhangke’s ­‘Platform’ and ‘Unknown Pleasures’,” Offscreen 12, no. 7 (2008). www.offscreen. com/index.php/ pages/essays/postsocialist_grit/. Accessed on October 10, 2013. 9 Quoted from Tonglin Lu, “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism,” in Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang eds., From Underground to Independent From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006, 124. 10 Ed Gonzalez, “Review: Unknown Pleasures,” Slant Magazine, September 27, 2002 www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/unknown-pleasures. Accessed November 19, 2013. 11 Michael Berry also compares the differences between the two generations of social derelicts, The rift…lies in the simple fact that stealing is only a means to an end for Xiao Wu. His actions are dictated not so much by money, but by his relationships; hence the steep increase in thefts just before Jin Xiaoyong’s marriage… or when courting Hu Meimei…For Binbin and Xiao Ji, the pursuit of money has become the end in itself, their desire a product of a pervasive commercial culture and pop-culture gangster fantasies; Meanwhile, Xiao Wu was a thief … desperately holding on to his own moral codes and notions…; but Binbin and Xiao Ji seem to lack these traits, often ­appearing petty, jealous and selfish as they blindly pursue their own ‘unknown pleasures’. Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy”: Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 97. 12 Michael Berry aptly notes that, “this is no longer a world revolving around guanxi or ‘relationships and favours’ (which were symbolically destroyed in Xiao Wu), but a world that revolves around naked monetary exchange.” Ibid., 98. 13 “Unknown Pleasures Presskit.” 14 Michael Berry, “Jia Zhangke: Capturing a Transforming Reality,” in Michael Berry, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 193. 15 Lu Tonglin finds that Binbin’s act is “to emulate Qiao San, his hated rival … through acquiring money and possessing Qiaoqiao’s body;” and his inspiration comes from Pulp Fiction, “if Qiaoqiao represents American glamour in the teenager’s eyes, the Chinese equivalent of his ideal ego, Marcellus Wallace, cannot be anyone else but Qiao San, Qiaoqiao’s sugar daddy, an illegal money lender.” Lu Tonglin, “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism,” 131. 16 Michael Berry, Jia Zhangke’s “Hometown Trilogy,” 98. 17 Ibid., 97, 115. 18 This false sense of hope and exhilaration is shown in an opera-singing man, played by the director, who sings alone unabashedly in public throughout the movie, apparently indulged in his own fantasy. 19 On April 1, 2001, a United States Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals intelligence aircraft and a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) J-8II interceptor fighter jet collided in the air, which resulted in an international dispute between the United States and China. The incident is called the Hainan Island incident. It is generally seen as a result of the United States’ misgiving toward China’s rising and its corresponding strategy of containment.

Hedonism and nihilism  71 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Kevin Lee, “Jia Zhangke.” Lu Tonglin, “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism,” 135. Ibid., 135. Jason McGrath, “The Independent Cinema of Jia Zhangke,” 105. See “Unknown Pleasures Presskit.” Lu Tonglin, “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism,” 135. Kin-Yan Szeto, “A Moist Heart: Love, Politics and China’s Neoliberal Transition in the Films of Jia Zhangke,” Visual Anthropology, 22 (2009): 101–102. 27 See “Unknown Pleasures Presskit.”

Part II

4 Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy? New proletariat and the commodity world of alienation in The World (2004) When miniatures of famous architecture from all over the world exist in one single park, does this necessarily mean that Chinese laborers working and living in it can freely live a cosmopolitan life while China enters the “global village”? In Jia Zhangke’s 2002 movie The World, most of the stories occur in a theme park named “The World Park.” Although there are many kinds of amusement parks (such as Disneyland), the one shown in the film is most likely only observed in China. It shows the fanatical urge of the country, ever since the reform and opening-up that started in late 1970s, to explore Western countries and catch up with the “international community.” Today, there are two amusement parks in China, one located in Shenzhen called “The Window of the World,” the other situated in the unglamorous Beijing suburbs of Tongzhou. Although most of the movie was filmed at Shenzhen’s Park, the movie fictionally “transplanted” this park to Beijing, which could be due to the belief that Beijing would be a better location for revealing the Chinese fantasy of foreign countries. Ironically, the film is reluctant to show native Beijing residents in its diegetic space. On the surface, the setting of the film is a paradise of a cosmopolitan postmodern world. The park’s slogan indicates the possibility of touring the world without leaving one’s home country, which was exactly the dream in the “high culture fever” of the 1980s in China. However, just as Fredric Jameson informs us, “At the cultural level, globalization threatens the final extinction of local cultures, resuscitatable only in Disneyfied form, through the construction of artificial simulacra and the mere images of fantasized traditions and beliefs.”1 Thus, the form belies itself by virtue of its own illusory fantasy. What is more, the happiness and sorrows of the characters in the film show us that China’s postmodernism is not the fragmented phantasmagoria of the post-industrial West; rather, it is the postsocialist centrifugal network. There are many worlds and many dreams in contemporary China; this constitutes a sharp contrast to the picture of “one world, one dream” propagated by the Chinese official propaganda for its 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (Figure 4.1).

76  Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?

Figure 4.1  A  glamorous show is performing in the park.

Fragmentation and differentiation of the underclass First and foremost, the space of the park itself is allegorical. Cui Shuqin noted that this world is divided into underground and aboveground spaces and between o ­ nstage and backstage spaces. On the theme park’s performance stage, singers and dancers play various roles as world citizens. ‘Backstage’ – in [the] basement dressing room, on construction sites, and in nearby garment factories – tangled life stories unfold.2 In the underground powder room filled with pipes, the actors and actresses hurriedly prepare themselves and rush to the stage. On the stage, as they display their bodies, electric music and fantastical flickering lighting accompanies their performance. However, after they retreat from the stage, they remove their makeup and change clothes in the narrow room, returning to their real identity as migrant peasant-workers. Every day, they alternate between the real and the unreal, which makes these youthful girls feel the anxieties of life more and more heavily. Thus, the film’s overarching storyline revolves around emotional ­entanglements, which is in line with the director’s past creations concerning people from the bottom of society. By showing the gradual fragmentation and differentiation of the under-classes, The World also exemplifies the deep impingement of globalization In this world, females abound but they are “marginalized and victimized by a sexually commercialized society.”3 Xiaotao is one such woman, having

Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?  77 coming to the city from the countryside. She takes a job as a performer in this song and dance troupe. In comparison with Qiaoqiao in Jia’s previous film, Unknown Pleasures, she is not searching for a man to provide financial assistance in return for sexual gratification; therefore, she on one occasion rejects the advances of a businessman in the bar. Instead, she is attracted to the character Taisheng, who comes from her hometown and works as a security guard at the park (Figure 4.2). Xiaotao become bored with her mundane and routine life at the park, telling her girlfriends that she wants to experience life outside. In one shot in the form of animation, she is flying in the sky, indicating her dream of ­leaving the alienated world. She also often emits huge sighs, complaining that it still has not snowed. Here, the snow is symbol of breaking free from her alienated state. The illusory, virtual world does not bring about a postmodern feeling of liberation and detachment; rather, China’s real world is far more exciting than the illusory one, even though the real world has also been filled with technological gimmicks; entering the real means facing the real world and its potential negative consequence. In the latter half of the movie, when Xiaotao is taken by her sisters in the troupe to a nightclub, she is immediately tempted by a rich businessman; she also runs unexpectedly into a past dance group member, Anna, who appeared at the very beginning of the film. When she finds out how Anna has been forced to work as a ­prostitute, the two hug and cry. Xiaotao gains the impression that it is impossible to live within “the real” in a dignified manner. However, there is not much characterization of Xiaotao’s personality in the film. Rather, her image is established only through her relationship with her boyfriend Taisheng, who becomes the major character later on. He is the most noteworthy, for his transmogrification shows the trans-signification of the underclass, appearing the first time in the works of the Sixth Generation of auteurs.

Figure 4.2  X  iaotao is seduced by a nouveau riche.

78  Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy? Coming from the bottom of society, Taisheng was initially an honest and upright character. Pursuing Xiaotao, he follows her from Shanxi to Beijing and, over the next three years, he remains constant for her. The film shows him talking to Xiaotao on his walkie-talkie whenever they are apart. In one scene, he is eating lunch and hears that Xiaotao has left the park with another man; he follows her to a restaurant and straightens her hair in front of the man – Xiaotao’s ex-boyfriend Liangzi – insinuating his intimate relations with her. Later, he drives Liangzi to the train station, which is meant to demonstrate his strong ability to be sociable. However, he demands that Xiaotao permit physical intimacy to confirm her feelings for him. When Xiaotao refuses, he chastises Xiaotao and displays his moral degradation, “What time are we living in now? You are still pretending to be a virgin?!” Xiaotao, infuriated by this outrageous insult, slaps his face. Eventually, although Xiaotao begins to doubt that Taisheng is in love with her, she gives in. In that moment, she entreats to Taisheng, “Do not trick me! This is all I have left.” She knows that her body is her only capital for lifelong happiness and security in a relationship. Chinese society gives her no security whatsoever, for she is just an ordinary girl from the countryside. However, Taisheng does not give her any promises; he replies, “In this world, there is no one you can trust. You can only trust yourself.” Like many literary works dealing with similar subjects, the movie hints that Taisheng’s metamorphosis is a result of his experience in the city. He helps his boss make counterfeit ID cards to earn extra income, and he is entrusted to escort his boss’s relatives. Taisheng’s morals have degenerated and his values distorted. This is made clear when he admits to Xiaotao that during the first night in Beijing that he has promised to earn a livelihood by whatever means necessary. His decision to “make his livelihood count” turns into a kind of wild ambition. Becoming the security chief at the park, he orders all security guards to salute him. A scene that shows him patrolling the recreation of Stonehenge on horseback suggests a self-entitled authority figure. His professional ambition has surpassed that of his peers, which eventually produces contradictory personality traits. On one hand, he has not forgotten his humble upbringing and does what he can to help his villagers. With a strong sense of pride, he takes these people around the scenic points in the park like an expert – these people who have left their village for the first time and are touring “the world.” In one scene, his fellow-villager Little Sister – who now becomes his subordinate – has an accident, and he immediately sorts the incident properly. Apparently, Taisheng’s way of dealing with the world is a byproduct of the era. When a person from the bottom of society tries to exert his will to ­succeed, his perspective experiences a clash between old and new – the new being the outside world dominated by the logic of capitalism. While Xiaotao ­p ersists with her moral principles, Taisheng follows the jungle laws. After three years of living in the city, he has acclimated to the usual way of doing things. Accepting the advances of the wealthy lady Liao Aqin, he prostrates himself underneath her pomegranate-colored skirt.

Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?  79 Taisheng’s degeneration is not in isolation. Xiaotao’s friend Liu Youyou, another performer, sells her body to attain an opportunity for professional promotion. The logic of commodity exchange in the commercial era ­reduces relationships to transactions in the purest sense. In this environment, ­m igrant workers have become objects of exploitation and domination, ­living in the most debased position. Little Sister’s will indicates that various debts are to be repaid, ranging from 3 yuan to 50 yuan, a small sum for many people yet unimaginably significant for his daily sustenance. His parents, coming from their hometown, appear silent and senile while picking up the compensation offered by the company, demonstrating the seediness of the Chinese countryside.

Different worlds, differing dreams When Taisheng escorts his boss’s relatives to their hometown, he gets to know a businesswoman from Wenzhou named Liao Aqun. After she returns, she invites him for a date and begins flirting with him. She tells Taisheng that her husband was willing to die in order to go to France; while most of his compatriots perished in the ocean while trying to illegally immigrate, he was one of the few who survived; but he has not returned to China for ten years. Her description reveals a popular phenomenon during the 1990s when many Chinese, especially those from the coastal areas, stowed away illegally in an attempt to achieve a better life in other countries. Liao is running a clothing factory, which makes money by producing fake name brand items. Her line, “Craftsmen rely on their hands to make a l­ iving,” reminds the viewer of a similar statement by the pickpocket Xiao Wu in Jia Zhangke’s film Xiao Wu (1997), which suggests their similar nature. When Taisheng invites her to the park, he boasts: “We there have all those French things you’re looking for.” Mrs. Liao smiles and brushes the remarks aside by saying, “But it doesn’t have the place where my husband lives.” Taisheng does not understand what she means and responds, “So where does your husband live?” “Beleville,” Mrs. Liao answers back. “Beleville” in all actuality is a Chinatown in Paris, France. While Taisheng’s proud comment merely indicates his narrow horizons, Aqun’s protest proves that although some Chinese have never been abroad, they always imagine foreign things to be better. The exchange shows different dreams for people living in different worlds. Taisheng’s ambiguous relationship with her continues until she succeeds in immigrating to France. Although globalization has seemingly promoted the globalized circulation of commodities, what is not circulated is the free flow of labor. Those who can “join” the global circulation in China are entrepreneurs who blindly envy the West. In the end, Aqun makes her wishes become r­ eality and leaves for Paris. However, her future prospects are undetermined. While this exchange delivers “the blurring of rural and urban dichotomies and of commitments torn asunder by a global economy marked by travel

80  Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy? and migration,”4 we witness her factory workers busily engaging in their employment. After Aqun departs, how will they make a living? We see the fragmentation of people living within and outside of the park. Critic Chen Xihe thus aptly notes: The film exposes two worlds. One is represented by the park, which is an artificially structured world. It looks like a magnificent theater. Yet, when Jia Zhangke shows this world, he also deconstructs it. For example, on the screen we can see someone passing by, and the a­ udience knows this is only a performance but not the real world. When the tourists are taking pictures in front of the Italian leaning tower, we also see workers passing by lifting bundles of items, which immediately brings us back to reality. There are two worlds: one a beautiful, splendid world, and the other the real society and the people on the edge. Thus, Jia Zhangke casts his camera to this group of people and he represents their excitements and sorrows as well as their living conditions. They come to the city from the countryside and they are struggling at the edge of this society, which are among the many phenomena inevitably arising in this era of economic transformation. Actually, we should ask who is paying the bill for the modernization? It is the lower class of farmers and migrant workers … We can see this very clearly from the destiny of Little Sister in the movie.5 Little Sister is an introverted boy who has just arrived at the park. He is envious of the security position at the park, which pays 200 yuan a month. He even goes so far as to ask whether the salary is 210 yuan or 290 yuan and whether the uniform is free. After he dies of fatigue while working a night shift, the audience learns that his entire debt does not exceed 200 yuan. He worked overtime to repay the money as quickly as possible. When the boss sends Little Sister’s parents away by paying them a small sum of money that Taisheng negotiated, he puffs smoke into the air, feeling as though he has resolved a minor inconvenience. However, the audience witnesses Little Sister’s father stuffing the money into his breast pocket and patting it several times, as though he is patting his son to his chest. Little Sister’s destiny is an extreme case, but it is representative of the unfortunate experiences of many Chinese migrant peasant-workers. The plight of the performers in the troupe is more usually seen in daily lives, which show that within “the world” (the park) different types of people have different dreams. Among them, there are characters dependent on rich men in exchange for sexual favors, as well as others directly working as prostitutes. The destinies of Laoniu and Qiuping, a couple in the opening of the film, make a stark contrast to those of Xiaotao and Taisheng. However, the portrayal of their love seems overly idealistic. Laoniu is crazy about Qiuping and, throughout, he only says two things to her: “Where are you going?” and “And then?” This may show his determination, but it can also be understood

Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?  81 as displaying egocentrism. After Qiuping decides to break up with him, he sets his clothes on fire. This behavior unimaginably brings Qiuping back to him. Eventually, there is a satisfying conclusion in which the film shows the couple holding a party celebrating their marriage (Figure 4.3). Laoniu’s insistence on love poses a contrast to another group member named Youyou, who devotes all her attention to becoming the mistress of the manager in order to get a promotion. The third couple’s story involves a male performer Erxiao and an elevator operator named A Fei. They have an emotional connection. However, before the two can express their ­feelings for one another, Erxiao is implicated in embezzlement and is fired. His ­degeneration reveals the moral failure of the migrant workers who, just like Taisheng, lose themselves within the market-oriented society. However, ­although Taisheng reprimands him, Taisheng himself has collaborated with the powerful boss undertaking much bigger illegal acts. Many characters in the film are thinking about a particular place, ­Ulaanbaatar; this is reminiscent of Jia Zhangke’s early film Platform (2002), when two protagonists discuss the same location. The dialogue takes place in an era when scarcity of recourses greatly constrained people’s knowledge of the outside world. Ulaanbaatar was the most exotic place they could think of – a place that can be linked with the so-called “social imperialism” of the former Soviet Union.6 They knew nothing of the other side of the ocean – the United States and the European countries of the capitalist bloc. Twenty years after economic reform and after globalization has seeped into every major city of China, youngsters can superficially discuss western metropolitan cities such as Paris, London, New York and Rome. In reality, many ordinary citizens are limited to touring virtualized reconstructions.

Figure 4.3  L  aoniu and Qiuping happily get married.

82  Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?

Figure 4.4  L  ittle Sister, Xiaotao and the plane.

They have been bombarded by advertising and believe that they can “travel around the world without leaving Beijing,” but the reconstructions are merely a “kitschy mimicry of architecture”7 of the Eiffel tower, The White House, Big Ben and the Egyptian Pyramid. In more exact terms, while the simulacra of World Park tantalizes tourists, their imagination of the world is still a Chinese version of the American Dream, or a Chinese fantasy of the capitalistic world, which is uniquely demonstrated in elaborate fashion shows (Figure 4.4). Before economic reform, many Chinese dreamed about the “big family of socialism (or internationalism)” under Mao’s idealism; now, baptized by the gospel of globalization, they have fallen into a kind of illusion, enjoying worldwide materialistic welfare while being fully integrated into the global market. This phenomena points to the ideological features of the concept of being modern: after forsaking the Marxist methodology of class analysis, as well as the ideal of undertaking an international socialist movement, the idea of being modern gradually moves from the notion of establishing a strong socialist country in which people can enjoy socialist welfare to outrageous consumerism and hedonism. However, these migrant workers are unable to travel to the West, although they can go to Ulaanbaatar engaging in small business ventures or hard labor. One scene in the film shows Little Sister and Xiaotao chatting together when they hear the booming of a plane. They lift their heads and see a plane whizz by at low altitude. Little Sister asks Xiaotao: “Who is aboard on the aircraft?” Xiaotao responds, “Who knows? In any case, none of those I’m familiar with has ever taken the flight.”

Emergence of the bud of internationalism The revelation of the impossibility of globalism or cosmopolitanism indicates that China lies at the bottom of the world’s production chain.

Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?  83 This impossibility has brought out the bud of a new internationalism, which is mainly articulated through the foreign performers appearing in the film, especially Xiaotao’s Russian friend Anna. Their friendship goes well beyond the bounds of language differences; they communicate through body gestures. Anna speaks out the tenet of cosmopolitanism, “We speak different languages but are still friends,” and we witness a male member of the troupe taking Anna’s telescopes the first time they meet and looking out over the surroundings, earning himself the nickname Columbus. Anna and Xiaotao’s relationship runs through the plotline. When Anna and the other three Russian actresses are taken to meet the dance group, her passport is confiscated by human smugglers in a security scam. She is then forced to sell her body to earn money for her captors. Her tragedy is discovered by Xiaotao when she sees the scars on her back, and Xiaotao begins to realize the dark social reality for these women. In the hotel, Anna tells Xiaotao that she has to do “another kind of job” and that she hates doing it. Anna also informs Xiaotao that her little sister is living in Ulaanbaatar and that she must earn enough money to visit her. The last time Xiaotao sees Anna is in a nightclub. The two meet each other in the bathroom; Xiaotao sees Anna’s dress and immediately knows the situation; the two hug to vent their grief. Anna’s experience provides the audience with a perspective into the neo-liberal circulation of global labor. She plays the role of “the other” through which we can view the social environment. She leaves her home, Russia, in search of wealth or happiness; however, ultimately she realizes that it was nothing but an illusion and she finds herself trapped in the dim reality of the underground sex-world (Figure 4.5). In this way, with a genuine class feeling, the picture of the collective destiny of the subaltern is imprinted with an ideological overtone of ­i nternationalism. This, without doubt, is still a sort of unconscious and half-hearted internationalism (which essentially still merely shows

Figure 4.5  A nna and Xiaotao take care of each other in the troupe.

84  Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy? a humanist spirit and humanitarian concern), just as China’s neo-­ proletariat classes have not yet formed their political awareness. In the film, the peasant-­workers have almost shed their traditional consciousness; none of the ­p olitical class-consciousness found in Mao’s era is seen here. In their minds, the new mainstream values are consumerism and hedonism. When they i­ nitially ­a rrive in Beijing, they are, for the most part, blindly optimistic. They do not know that the job market into which they must throw themselves is manipulated by capital. They appear numb and confused: although they experience hardships, being atomized individuals, they lack organization and theoretical guidance to revolt. Their destiny is doomed. This social class’s inability to establish its self-awareness is ultimately shown in the sudden climax of the film. Taisheng and Xiaotao, who are ­temporarily staying in their new wedding home owned by Laoniu and ­Qiuping, succumb to death by gas poisoning. We do not know whether this is an accident or has been arranged by Xiaotao who finds that she has been betrayed in love. The viewer only witnesses the two characters fading into darkness while their bodies are lying in the snow – a uniquely eerie scene. In the darkness, two people’s voices are heard. Taisheng asks, “Did we die?” and Xiaotao responds, “No, we have just begun.” As one Chinese saying goes, “Confront a person with the danger of death and he will fight to live.” At this point, Xiaotao has just begun to take up a new consciousness against the mainstream logic of commodities. She is unable to endure her alienated state any longer. When she realizes that the last “capital” of her body as an exchangeable commodity has been used up, she is left without any hope and, ultimately, has to fight back with her life. This is a tragedy; it is the symbolic failure of both a particular social class and a particular gender. Is she cowardly or heroic? For Walter Benjamin, the choice of suicide is the product of passion existing in the era of modernism, showing one’s solemn attitude toward life in general. Xiaotao’s decision is a tragic way of fighting back and breaking away. In this light, Jia Zhangke does not “fail” “to realize that the local finds little space to establish its own identity and experience,”8 as Cui Shuqin suggests. Neither does he become “mesmerized” by the park “like a besotted tourist,” as Manohla Dargis contends.9 Rather, the film reflects upon the class ecology and gender state of China’s migrant workers in the neo-liberal age of globalization. For these people in the bottom of society, the world in World Park is unreal but within reach. By contrast, the world in reality is real but full of false hopes. This confirms that the park’s slogan (the false promise provided by the authority) that “Never leaving Beijing you can still experience the entire world” is a lie or the illusion of globalization. In the meantime, while the use of animation throughout the ­cinematic space shows the director’s efforts “to get closer to the mainstream c­ ommercial

Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?  85 culture,” Jia probably also hints that “When the local is plugged electronically into the global, local identity and experience give way to an image-­ making system controlled by computer technology,”10 which ­provides us with a critical message. However, the film shows less class oppression and exploitation. Apart from a possible self-censorship (due to the director’s compromise for the sake of public release) and the director’s estrangement from class analysis, it exemplifies a social reality in which the consolidation of class structure is one side and the conscious and unconscious suppression of any discourse of class analysis the other. Moreover, none of the feminist connotations here point to the issues of commodification, commercialization and consumerism; neither do they tie in with class discourse. Sexual exploitation of migrant workers receives weak representation in the film; sometimes it only shows females actively throwing themselves forcefully into the arms of “power.” Therefore, the last resistance is merely a revolt at the anatomical level, which inevitably encounters death and failure. Presenting the characters with no details of their past, and weaving a “narrative of unfulfilling love, spiritual desolation and apprehension,”11 the film documents their fragmented existence, in which the newly internationalized world in China is explored. Everyone is entrapped in destiny, lost within the epochal currents of the era and forced to fight to survive. Critic Shi Xiaoling thus aptly comments “by juxtaposing the gay festivity of the park with the gloomy real life of migrant workers, Jia acutely expresses a dismal view of present-day China.”12 This situation calls to mind the maxim articulated in Walter Benjamin’s imagery of “Angelus Novus” (Angel of History), …a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.13 This famous entry was originally a response to the encroachment of ­modernity. In China, which is flooding with all sorts of postmodernist fantasy, there exist different worlds, worlds whose intersections have inexorably blurred China’s form of modernity/postmodernity. In the opening sequence, Xiaotao is looking everywhere for a Band-Aid for her wounded thumb. In this postmodern amusement park, the underclasses experience all kinds of injuries. Where can they find their “Band-Aid” to save themselves from being harmed? We are left with no answer. Therefore, while exposing the illusion of “China’s dream,” the movie does not show the struggles of the lower classes; neither does it offer any kind of solution (Figure 4.6).

86  Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?

Figure 4.6  The opening scene of The World.

Conclusion After the opening sequences, which are intended to lure the audience to “marvel at the sheer audacity and kitsch beauty” of the performers at the park,14 the camera cuts to a long shot, in which the towering Eiffel Tower in the background is callously placed with a peasant-like figure holding a garbage-can on his shoulder with a passive expression in his face. He passes by without noticing the spectacle while turning his face to the audience for a few seconds. The image of this garbage collector is reminiscent of the famous essay by Charles Baudelaire entitled “Scavenger.” Is the man indifferent, or is he mesmerized by the postmodern simulacrum? He takes a glance at the skyscrapers and leaves; everything around him is beyond his concern. Yet, Baudelaire has put a great emphasis on the function of the role of this ragpicker/trash collector), [The ragpicker] is responsible for gathering up the daily debris of the capital. All that the city has rejected, all it has lost, shunned, disdained, broken, this man catalogs and stores. He sifts through the archives of debauch, the junkyards of scrap. He creates order, makes an intelligent choice; like a miser hoarding treasure, he gathers the refuse that has been spit out by the god of Industry, to make of it objects of delight or utility.15 For Baudelaire, the trash collector is an allegorical figure that delivers the essence of consumer capitalism, which provides much inspiration for Walter Benjamin, who takes it as a recurring motif in his writings. Indeed, the essence of trash collecting re-imagines and reinvests new value in what is treated as rubbish. By reorganizing the material, the trash collector dreams of a better world. A social critic similarly sifts and searches through the pile of debris that the “storm of progress” trails. Thus, Benjamin takes it as

Postmodern paradise or postsocialist fantasy?  87 the objective of an authentic cultural critique, which redeems objects and people repudiated as worthless by dominant value. In this sense, the image of the trash collector has a revolutionary edge. It is known that Benjamin called Siegfried Kracauer “a rag-picker, early, in the dawn of the day of the revolution” …Kracauer was a rag-picker because he paid attention to the scraps, both the abandoned treasures and the acknowledged detritus, of civilization. These rags, these fragments that he collected, would, he sensed, reveal more about his age than the haute couture and grand self-estimations of the snobs. … Along with Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, Kracauer perceived early on that his was an age of momentous social, political, and cultural transformation and … the “revolution” that this change implied…16 When he set up the particular screen shot, Jia Zhangke probably thought of Baudelaire’s poetic sentences, but Baudelaire’s meditation of a revolution probably never comes to mind.

Notes 1 Fredric Jameson, “Globalization and Political Strategy,” New Left Review 4 (2000): 56. 2 Cui Shuqin, “Negotiating In –between: On New-generation Filmmaking and Jia Zhangke’s Films,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 18, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 112. 3 Kin-Yan Szeto, “A Moist Heart: Love, Politics and China’s Neoliberal Transition in the Films of Jia Zhangke,” Visual Anthropology 22 (2009): 102. 4 Ibid., 103. 5 Ma Ning 马宁, Ni Zhen 倪震, et al., “Xuezhe Shanghai duihua Shijie 学者上海对 话世界 [Scholars from Shanghai are Discussing The World],” Dongfang Zaobao 东方早报 [Oriental Morning Post], April 7, 2005. 6 Soviet Union was regarded as the epitome of “social Imperialism” in the Mao era through 1960s to 1970s. Mongolia was the ally of the Soviet Union at the time. 7 Shi Xiaoling, “Between Illusion and Reality: Jia Zhangke’s Vision of Present-day China in The World,” Asian Cinema 18, no. 2 (September 2007): 221. 8 Cui Shuqin, “Negotiating In –between,” 114. 9 Manohla Dargis, “Caged in Disney in Beijing, Yearning for a Better Life,” New York Times, October 11, 2004. 10 Cui Shuqin, “Negotiating in-between,” 116. 11 Kin-Yan Szeto, “A Moist Heart,” 103. 12 Shi Xiaoling, “Between Illusion and Reality,” 220. 13 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, New York: Schocken Books, 1969, 257–258. 14 Robert Koehler, “The World,” Cineaste 30, no. 4 (2005): 57. 15 Charles Pierre Baudelaire, Artificial Paradises, trans. Stacy Diamond (New York: Citadel Press, 1996), 7. 16 Modris Eksteins, “Ragpicker: Siegfried Kracauer and the Mass Ornament,” ­International Journal of Politics Culture and Society 10, no. 4 (1997): 609.

5 Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? Chinese Goodmen in Jia Zhangke’s Still Life (2006)

When the Three Gorge Dam project was completed around 2001, Jia went there to make a documentary. Witnessing what occurred, he realized that “this is a 2,000-year-old city that just vanished overnight… as if it [was hit by] an alien invasion or nuclear fallout.”1 Immediately, he decided to make a theatrical narrative of the lives of men and women amidst the monstrous change. Because of this emphasis, the social-economic transmutation was the backdrop, and the foreground the shifted interpersonal topography and the human toll of spiritual depletion. The ultimate product is Still Life (Sanxia haoren三峡好人), which received wide acclaim from domestic audiences and western critics and reaped the 2006 Golden Lion award and the “best director” award in the 28th Durban International Film Festival. In this movie, Jia’s characters roam through the crumbling town being demolished in anticipation of the engineered inundation of the national dam project. It is composed of two unrelated stories narrating a man and a woman searching for their spouses. This fable shows the rootless ­physical as well as spiritual situations of men and women. By analyzing its cinematic structure and textual architectonics, this chapter suggests that with its ­critique of social illness and extolment of the innate goodness of the subaltern class, the movie comes close to the tradition of revolutionary realism and even socialist realism in modern China. It thus shows a resuscitation of the spirit of critical realism. However, its conviction in certain un-political, a-historical and universal human nature constrains its deeper exploration of the social contradiction.

Contrast of affections between the “middle-class” urbanites and the underclass The first thread traces the experience of a peasant-cum-coalminer Sanming, who arrives in the town from a faraway countryside looking for his wife, as well as his sixteen-year-old daughter, whom he has never met. His experience in this unfamiliar world is split in two by the second narrative, which is about the other protagonist named Shen Hong. Shen comes from a remote town to find her husband, who is also her erstwhile comrade-in-arms. The

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  89 film ends in a dramatic contrast: Sanming is planning to redeem his “wife,” who had been purchased by him illegally and had run away, whereas Shen Hong is to divorce her legal husband who married her as a result of free love. In contemporary Chinese cinema since the reform era, this is the first time we witness the parallel demonstration of the under-privilege strata and the “middle class” urbanites. In the first story, the rural resident Sanming is a fireplug. Two decades ago, he spent a large sum of money buying a woman from a trader in human beings. After the woman gave birth to a daughter, she was rescued by the police and returned to her hometown with her baby. This is a staple of films and stories of the 1980s that aimed to be “cultural reflections” of Chinese tradition, endeavoring to expose the ignorance and cruelty of the Chinese peasants entrenched in a traditional mentality and calling for intellectual enlightenment. Some of the movies produced by the Sixth-Generation auteur deal with this subject, such as Li Yang’s Blind Mountain (Mang Shan, 盲山). Yet we need to note some divergence. The works in the 1980s called for cultural education by showing the backwardness of the peasants in the decollectivized era, whereas the film Blind Mountain demonstrates the degradation of people’s morality within the market economy and the suffering of women who were taken as fetishized commodities. Although having different foci, all of these works are narrated from the intellectual elite’s point of view and none from the perspective of the peasants themselves. Therefore, one of the merits of this movie lies in its peculiar way of ­observation and narration, ostensibly from the perspective of this reticent peasant Sanming. This unusual move is exemplified in the first scene, which is a pan-shot lasting three minutes that sets the tone of the whole narrative. It scans the passengers on the steamboat to the Three Gorge area. Changes of focus, composite motions of the camera and a sound effect that mixes local voices with the chanting of the boatmen in the distance provide these passengers, almost all under-privileged passengers in the second-class cabin, with a sort of sculptural quality and intensity. Like a still scene, it shows the daily routines of this group of subaltern, whose bodies emit natural odors and sweat from their faces and shoulders in the sultry summer. Here, the camera’s angle, the audience’s perspective and the Sanming’s point of view are identified as one. Afterward, again seemingly following Sanming’s point of view, we witness both his numbness and stiffness due to his honesty and naïveté and his cleverness and slyness born from wisdom earned from a difficult life. On one hand, he is resigned and compromised; on the other, his persistence and tenacity shine. After the establishing shot of the panoramic scene, he is invited – or rather, pulled and dragged by a thug – to watch a performance on the steamboat, in which some rogues are swindling the audience’s money by playing magic tricks, mainly by force. A mobster frisks Sanming for money but finds nothing; later on, Sanming mysteriously takes out a large sum of money just like a real magic show, which shows a life wisdom. When

90  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? the unsatisfied thug tries to threaten him, Sanming pulls out a switchblade, making the rogue, who has called him “country bumpkin” and “pauper” shrink back; a humorous effect is thus produced. After landing on the shore, Sanming chances upon an aggressive local boy, who calls himself “Little Mark,” the name of a modern swordsman in a Hong Kong police-and-bandit film. The boy, emulating this romanticized triad member, says impolite and provocative words to Sanming. Sanming remains calm and cold, because for him, the teenager is merely an innocent greener. Because of his concession and kind-heartedness, they soon become bosom friends; Little Mark naively promises help to Sanming whenever he needs. However, blindly devoted to a triad fight, Little Mark tragically dies; Sanming finds his body in a heap of rubble and arranges the return of his corpse to his hometown. Similarly, when Sanming faces the noncooperation and verbal abuse of his former wife’s relatives, he demonstrates forbearance and even humbly offers wine from his hometown to please them, which successfully softens them. Sanming finally finds his “wife”; he does not excessively express his grief over her betrayal, but rather delivers his wish that she can reunite with him. His tenderness is effective: the woman’s reticence shows her implicit agreement. Having accomplished his mission, Sanming returns home excitedly, planning to save money to buy her back from her current partner, her creditor who does not love her (Figure 5.1). From this plotline, the audience has a new understanding of the subaltern’s life. Illegal human trafficking is immoral, and the women involved experience great pains and sufferings, as vividly shown in many movies. Still Life does not whitewash this fact, because through Sanming’s words, we know that the woman was initially desperate and crying, even trying

Figure 5.1  S  anming and the laboring people are inside a narrow and sultry room.

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  91 suicide. Yet, this film diverges from other movies by showing her life after she returns to society. She cohabitates with a boatman, not out of love but because her brother owes the latter a large sum of money; besides, she needs a man to offer her food. Due to poverty, their daughter quits school and becomes a migrant worker. This adversity causes her to confess “I was young and ignorant then” when facing Sanming’s complaints: “My mother treated you so well and none of my family members asked you to do housework when you were pregnant. Why did you still choose to leave?” Following this exchange, they reach a consensus and promise to reunite after all obstructions are cleared. Feminists might protest that this scenario is nothing but a narrative from a male-chauvinist perspective. While this critique is reasonable, we shall acknowledge that the portrayal of the woman’s experience is not distorted (Figure 5.2). Before this happy ending takes place, Sanming has settled down temporarily in the town, working as a demolition worker, during which the second narrative thread is introduced: the experience of a willowy urbanite nurse, Shen Hong, now searching for her husband Guo Bin, who has not returned home for two years and has rarely contacted her. Having arrived in the town, she finds one of their mutual friends, a man of their erstwhile comrades-inarm who now leads an archeological team unearthing historical artifacts in the area soon to be submerged. His job implies that the emotional ties of the couple have been buried deeply in the past and now can only be ­re-­discovered by this archeologist who intimately knows their past. Yet, he informs Shen that he has lost contact with her husband for around a year. Guo Bin is now the manager of a local construction company and is responsible for much of the construction and demolition work there. Sanming

Figure 5.2  S  anming and his ex-wife are together.

92  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? is a peasant worker, but Guo Bin is a boss or a member of the elite class. Shen Hong tries to pry into his affairs with his business partner, a female boss; however, she cannot get any reliable information apart from the fact that the two have relations. Apparently, Guo Bin does not want a formal divorce. Shen Hong helps him to make the decision once she learns of his compromising situation. They ultimately confront each other in the shadow of the large dam. Guo Bin offers Shen Hong his hand, attempting to ballroom dance with her to the diegetic piped-in music in the distance. When they awkwardly and slowly turn and dance, the tracing shot captures Shen’s apathetic face. She breaks away from Guo’s arms, and the two stare at each other in silence. Calmly yet firmly, she says that she has found a new lover. Guo Bin asks who and how long the relationship has been going on; Shen replies that it does not matter and that she is going to move to Shanghai with her lover. Guo Bin resigns with an uneasy expression. After this brief exchange, the two characters part ways. Before this meeting, the film shows an open-air square where Guo Bin often dances with partners. Shen Hong suggests to her friend that Guo must frequently come here for fun. The way Guo dances with his wife indicates that he has brought the hypocrisy of his business dealings into their conjugal bond and that he no longer has true feelings for Shen Hong. Shen comes to the square to confirm this fact; now that she has the truth, she makes the decision to save her dignity – or rather give Guo the opportunity to save his. She feigns being in love with another man; if Guo still had passion for her, he would have made inquiries into whether this was true. Earlier, Shen Hong witnesses some injured workers fighting with the ­manager of the now-bankrupt factory, which is now bankrupt and sold to the wealthy private trader, who happens to be Guo’s mistress. The workers reproach the manager for selling the factory to the woman for a cheap price and neglecting their welfare. In this light, both Guo and the manager become “traitors”: the manager privatizes the factory and sells out the interests of the workers; whereas Guo is disloyal and betrays his wife.

Representation of social problems and the societal network The two “love stories” take place in the foreground; numerous social ­problems are ferocious undercurrents that offer a network of social totality as the “background” and subtext. The director has acknowledged that he wanted to “tease out all the contradictions and conflicts in China.”2 Thus, we can understand why the cinematic narrative, composed of two unrelated threads, unfolds as a series of minor episodes and incidental bits and pieces, by which heaps of societal issues are ingeniously presented. When Sanming walks out of the mountainous, rural area and arrives in the urban world, he is immediately pushed into a scam. A faux magician declares that he is capable of converting Euros into RMB with the shake of a hand, followed by his cohort urging the “audience,” whom they drag in to

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  93 pay for watching and mastering the “skill.” This “magic” also involves U.S. dollars, as the charlatan proclaims that “a man who goes to the world needs US dollars.” This episode can be interpreted as an allegorical rendition of the international political-economic order, in which first-world countries ostensibly “teach” the third world the techniques of making money, whereas it actually exploits the latter by force. This interpretation is supported by the next shot: the man who extorts money from Sanming questions him, “do you understand intellectual poverty?” “Intellectual property,” which ­became popular when China entered the WTO in 2002, brings out a ­humorous effect: apparently, it articulates the fact that transnational corporations plunder the wealth of the domestic working class with the rhetoric of “trade rules,” in which intellectual poverty is the most significant. This parody or allusion to the trickery is done in a subtle way, yet its ironic effects help the audience to reflect upon the transnational neoliberal agenda, which squeezes every penny it can from the working class in third-world countries. The charlatans threatening Sanming and other passengers are from the bottom of society, but they are forced by poverty into this ignoble profession. Little Mark, a boy in his teens, also becomes such a lumpen proletariat. When he initially appears, he is staring at a television showing a well-known police-and-bandit movie, A Better Tomorrow (Yinxiong bense英雄本色), directed by John Woo (1946- ). The screen shows the hero “Little Mark,” played by the famed Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat lighting a cigarette with a $100 bill in his hand. Ostensibly, this gesture shows the hero’s virtue and that money does not matter very much to him; in reality, it confirms the dominance of money worship in society. Later, “Little Mark” uses a strip of paper to light a cigarette mimicking the iconic scene and indicating that his youthful psychological world has been preoccupied with this fantasy of becoming a hero. The erstwhile socialist ideology is not seen throughout the diegetic space, the depletion of which has made room for the resuscitation of feudalist ideas such as the sworn brotherhood typified by the Mr. Big figure (Figure 5.3). When Sanming converses with Little Mark, the latter describes the lawlessness of the area; upon hearing Sanming’s story, he laments, “you are quite nostalgic.” Furthermore, he emulates the heroic character’s manner and reiterates, “the society is not suitable for us anymore, because we are too nostalgic.” The society is indeed greatly transformed, and the people feel it with a nostalgic sentiment recalling the good old days, though none of them really knows what has changed. Sanming compares the natural landscape of Three Gorge, now on his horizon, with a ten yuan Chinese currency bill on which the image of one of the gorges is printed.3 When the scene is presented, two famed Chinese sayings are immediately brought out: “Time brings great changes to the world” (Canghai sangtian 沧海桑田) and “The things are still there, but men are no more the same ones” (Wushi renfei 物是 人非). When Sanming reaches the town, the old address left by his estranged wife is his only clue. Yet he finds that the place he is looking for has been

94  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?

Figure 5.3  L  ittle Mark is watching a television showing A Better Tomorrow.

inundated. For the local residents, the change is not necessarily beneficial. A young girl in this doomed setting reveals to Shen Hong the predicament of local people whose lives are affected by the dam project. The girl asks whether Shen Hong can help her to get a job in the city as a nanny. Shen can do nothing for her and embarrassedly walks away, leaving the girl alone beside the river. This urge to leave the small town indicates a hopeless situation and the immobility of local residents. Crime and violence blossom in this society; mafia-style organizations are everywhere. The audience witnesses the hotel boss, whom Sanming has befriended, angrily informing those coming to demolish his house that he has some “bad friends” to help him revenge the unfair treatment. Little Mark dies in a group fight for his boss. Shen Hong witnesses a worker with a bleeding head telling his buddy that he was attacked by a gang that forcefully took over the demolition job. One critic aptly comments, “The water levels set at 156.5 meters (which appears in the movie) thus also indicates a virtual border below which, quite literally, the underworld rules.”4 In this brave, new world, everything has a price, and the market logic has changed interpersonal relations: Sanming’s wife, once rescued by the police, is essentially resold by her brother to the boatman; consequently, Sanming has to purchase her again with more money. With this merciless principle of market interests prevailing, inhuman working conditions are the norm. A factory worker gets his arm maimed during work, yet he cannot be compensated, because after privatization, he cannot get his salary from the factory and has to find an illicit job in a company without injury insurance. To support the family, his wife is forced to go south as a migrant worker. The naked bodies of the workers who relentlessly demolish the vanishing

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  95 city – Sanming being one of them – implicitly inform the viewers that their physical injuries are caused by the horrendous working conditions.5 At the end of the movie, when Sanming tells a group of local workers that the daily remuneration in the coalmine he previously worked is about 200 yuan, a sum much higher than what they are earning now – around 50 yuan a day, they are all eager to go, though they are warned that the job is dangerous and lethal incidents occur every year. The last shot of the movie, of an adventurer walking a tightrope between two buildings slated for demolition, is indicative of their lives.6 Throughout, Sanming is the reticent observer of the local masses and a pitiable figure. The great divide between these poor laboring people and the powerful new rich is vividly and allegorically presented by a businessman’s ordering of the instant lighting of a whole bridge (Figure 5.4). While various problems are exposed, the movie also subtly explores the root cause of these social illnesses. The hotel boss earns a little money by renting his narrow-space house, yet his house is demolished with little compensation, and he has to move into a ghetto under the bridge. This is a major source of social instability in contemporary China. The prevalence of organized crime reveals chaotic social circumstances; impersonal and even immoral interpersonal relations show the lack of social ethics. Yet these are still superficial phenomena. When people flock to the official department of demolition and relocation interrogating the officer about the government’s compensation, the officer does not deny that there are many problems. However, his rebuttal recalls the famed developmentalist rhetoric: “For such a city having existed for thousands of years, it is demolished within two years; as a consequence, could there be no problem in this process?” This excuse is a popular phrase in China; it reasons that “all the problems [that] occurred

Figure 5.4  The last shot shows an adventurer walking through a tightrope on height.

96  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? during the reform and development should be resolved only by furthering the reform and development.” From verbal exchanges between a disabled man, his relatives and the factory manager, we learn that the factory is sold to a businesswoman for a cheap price. This subtle reference to the privatization of SOEs, a trend since the 1990s that has brought about rampant corruption between officials and traders, is worthy of note. After the protestors leave, seeing from his window that they are moving something outside, the manager sternly asks his secretary: “What are they doing?! (They) should not take anything out from the factory. (We) should take good care of the state’s property!” This instruction is not necessarily an expression of his hypocrisy; rather, his unconscious concern over public property indicates that he is merely an executor or scapegoat of the policy of privatization. Someone of a higher rank is responsible for the illegal transaction. Guo Bin and the woman named Ding Yahong (who never shows up) are the most directly involved. When Shen Hong inquiries of the manager the whereabouts of her husband who worked in the factory, the manager shows indignation. He refuses to discuss Guo Bin but calls “Chairman Liu” (who might be the director of the worker’s union) to talk to Shen. His move indicates that he must be very unhappy with Guo’s behaviors. Yet although Guo is now a big boss, he is not the man who orders the whole bridge to be lighted up. Since the businesswoman Ding Yanhong can buy the factory worthy of thousands of millions with a low price, she has powerful connections, and Guo has to depend on her to get a share. This delineation points to the hidden network of society, which becomes the subtext that informs the audience why the masses live in such an ignoble situation. Although the new proletariat class has come into being, it has not yet formed a conscious political awareness and subjectivity. Some members of the class even become lumpen proletariats. This situation is particularly exemplified in the destiny of Little Mark. Unemployed and unable to find a job, he fantasizes about becoming a heroic figure and admires the glorified brotherhood. In reality, he becomes nothing but an underling, playing the role of a hatchet man. His death indicates the illusion of any individualist heroism in this merciless age of global capitalism. Behind him stands the majority of the newly born industrial workers, who are mostly migrant peasants – typified by the group following Sanming to work in the coalmine. The non-diegetic music of the Beijing Opera “Lin Chong Escapes to Liang Shan at Night” (which is about a story of a heroic insurrectionist in the Song dynasty), as well as the diegetic sounds of fighting from video games, implies the suffering of these people and indicates the ubiquity of violence in society and the nature of the riots.

Toward a new critical realism and its impediments The representation of the difficult lives of the under-strata as well as the exposure of various social problems brings the movie closer to the tradition

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  97 of western social realism in the 19th century and Chinese pro-left literature of the 1930s. It also has its own features. First, the narrative seems to be unconsciously enriched by a perspective of natural history, which is shown in the panoramic shots of the passengers and natural landscapes, and in the voiceless scenes of dilapidated factory buildings and stained machines placed in murky corners, as well as in minute sound-work recording the mixed processes of demolition, voices of machines, and the verbal fights between laid-off workers and the manager. These cinematic textures imply the depleted human spirit and memory buried within the debris (Figure 5.5). The progress is also displayed in the new angle of observation toward the laborers. In the Mao era, emphasis on the genuine love among members of the working class, or the so-called “class feeling,” was one of the key subjects of cinematic works, which has disappeared in the mainstream films over the past 30 years; now this thematic concern seemingly re-appears. What is more, the disclosure of the hypocrisy and vulnerability of “middle class” urbanites toward love in contrast to the laborers’ sincerity and persistence is another landmark move. Masses of the underclass are portrayed with their intrinsic goodness shown and their flaws naturally exemplified. Throughout the process of Sanming’s pursuit, he deals with subaltern characters like himself. Most of them seem to be selfish and treat him badly; yet later on, they all reveal their kindness and become his intimate fiends.7 This disclosure of the kindness and innocence of the laborers as their true nature makes the film transcend the old social realism, which aimed to expose the stupidity and cruelty of the masses. Together with its critique of

Figure 5.5  A long-shot with the film’s title.

98  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? social illness in the postsocialist era, the movie comes close to the tradition of revolutionary and even socialist realism, which extols the greatness of the suffering people. In short, these subaltern figures are the “good persons,” which is the film’s original Chinese name – “the good people of the Three Gorges.”8 However, the film is neither revolutionary realism nor socialist realism, which is partly decided by the social conditions; it has more to do with the director’s knowledge of reality and his political awareness. He believes that “The change in China has been completed…what is left is the fact that everyone has to face the reality to make a decision.”9 Consequently, he could not take the other dimension of the change into account; history is always taking place, and change will never be completed. However, the key issue still lies in the director’s knowledge of the laborers. Although he notices the vitality and persistence of the working class, and he “admires their emotionless expression when they are engaging in work,”10 he does not witness any political awareness of this class. Thus, this film at most “asserts the possibility of personal emotional triumphing over changing structures of contemporary life.”11 Yet the majority of those who remain silent will not always keep silent over oppressions against them, substantiated by the numerous protests occurring in China in recent years. The director’s belief in certain a-historical and universal human nature, when applied to the object of his observation, brings out a somewhat stereotypical representation of the under classes: they are ignorant and numb, although very nice and with wisdom. This limited horizon also accounts for why the film only fulfills its humanist concern, partially shown in its formal architectonics. It is divided into four thematic parts by four superimposed intertitles: “cigarettes,” “liquor,” “tea” and “toffee,” which merely highlight modest daily pleasures. Indeed, this limitation constrains the film’s deeper exploration of the social contradiction. Consequently, the principle contradiction of society, as the director sees it, appears “between destruction and an ongoing urge to live.”12 Modernization is taken to be a value-neutral process, thus the director has a tendency to extol the achievement of the state’s project,13 whereas he never devotes himself to exploring the inexorable consequence of the market-driven restructurations. In this sense we can better understand the argument that “Jia’s interest lies in visual ideas and human behavior, not agendas.”14 (Figure 5.6) This does not mean Jia does not give any message of grievance and discontent about revolutionary conditions. Subtle references to the unfair treatment of the workers and rampant corruption aside, a form of nostalgia endorsed by the heavy use of long takes and extreme long shots envelops the movie, which is typically expressed in Little Mark’s comment that “we are too nostalgic.” In Szeto’s view, this shows “both passionate desire to resist state hegemony as well as to lament the circumstances.”15 Yet the nature of

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  99

Figure 5.6  The Gods look weary and listless.

this nostalgia is worthy of further exploration. Eric Dalle has made an apt comment on the structure of nostalgia, Nostalgia is a complex recasting of the relationship between the present and a perception of a pastness through which one attempts to revision a future. Bakhtin refers to a “historical inversion” of the poetic and artistic imagination, through which universal themes such as “­ purpose, justice, perfection, the harmonious condition of man and society” are housed in the past (146). This same enrichment process of the past and the present at the “expense of the future” describes the counter-­ teleological conceptualization of pastness inherent to the feeling of nostalgia (146)… Therefore nostalgia, which will seek the pastness in the present, is in fact the structural makeup of the relationship.16 Although nostalgia in contemporary China also comes from a “structural makeup of the relationship” between the past and the present, it has a ­peculiar historical reference. In the film, it points more to the subtext that underscores the behaviors and gestures of characters. Shen Hong and Guo Bin both have memories of when they were comrades-in-arms, which, mainly shown by Shen Hong’s intimate association with their mutual friend – the head of the archeological team – might account for their hesitation to formally terminate their conjugal relations. Similarly, the factory manager still unconsciously upholds the interests of the state-owned enterprise in his mind; accordingly, he despises the wrongdoings of Guo Bin, though he could not help but involve himself in the privatization process. Like the object of

100  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? the archeologist’s job, here the treasure of the past is deeply buried in their minds. However, the director only unconsciously displays this nostalgia of the socialist past, for he holds no political awareness of socialist ideas. Therefore, when Little Mark is talking about nostalgia, what is taken to be “normal,” or what has been lost, could be none other than the value ­system in the Mao period; the people yearn for nothing but the bygone egalitarian socialist ideology and its ethical-moral codes of virtue, which made these now under-privileged the “leading class” of the nation-state. Although their life was not necessarily better then than now, they were respected and could afford to live with dignity. Thus, this nostalgia releases their sense of discontent toward the present. Nevertheless, for the film, the foreground is merely the traditional moral code of sworn brotherhood with the signature of feudalist ideology (as typified by Little Mark),17 whereas the erosion and disappearance of socialist values as represented by Guo, Shen and the factory’s manager are not fully and consciously exemplified. On the other hand, while the innate goodness of the laboring class is represented, we rarely see the inscriptions of the socialist experience on their behaviors and in their minds. Instead, we merely see the illustration of the spirit of endurance, a myth of the glorified Chinese “national character.” Accordingly, the r­ epresentation of the social transition through the perspective of natural history is not effective (for instance, the character of the subaltern class appears to be a non-historical entity), and the social totality is not fully displayed. In other words, this cinematic narrative only partially speaks to the wholesale historical transformation.

Conclusion Though indirectly, both of the narrative threads of the movie deal with the relationship between the rapidly changing Chinese society and the transmutation of interpersonal affections. In general, the film reveals the difficult lives of the under-privileged in China, showing their spirit of persistence and their genuine love. By contrast with the betrayals and hypocrisies of some middle class urbanites, it further confirms the unusual qualities of the subaltern class. Through this double narrative, it offers a picture of China undergoing its most profound transition. Generally, the film articulates the necessity of establishing humanity in the ferocious progress of historical momentum. Yet, although sometimes it unconsciously notes the erosion of socialist ethics, it could not fully tap into it. Since the major thematic concern cannot provide more allegorical space, the director adds some fantastic elements into the movie. There are three scenes of this sort: one rocket ship-like building flies into the sky; a UFO ­appears unnoticed; and a tightrope walker walks across a rope high above the ground. This idiosyncratic move receives no acclamation; for instance, Eric Dalle finds that “the illogical and supernatural elements that Jia throws into the otherwise realistic representation of the demolition” are jarring,

Revolutionary realism or socialist realism?  101 which “shock the tranquility of the documentary effect” and “remind the viewer that the work Still Life is no more than a narrative—a fabricated story.”18 It indeed impairs the film’s artistic integrity, although Jia himself might take this as the Brechtian “distancing effect.” China’s fast transformation certainly gives foreigners, and even the domestic audiences sometimes, a magical feeling, yet the extra setup only indicates the director’s ambivalent feeling or a sense of uncertainty, toward his narrative of contemporary China. To be sure, the effects are different: the last scene can be explained as the under-strata people navigating the fine line between heaven and earth; the second indicates the abnormal nature of the mythical Three Gorge area; whereas the first is merely a way of self-deconstruction or expressing a nihilistic feeling for the unpredictability of personal and collective destiny. Wither the subaltern class? Wither China? The film does not answer these inquiries and cannot provide any clues. Yet a consistent concern with and representation of the life as well as the reactions of the subaltern class would help the audience reflect poignantly upon the fortune of this under-privilege stratum and the future of Chinese society.

Notes 1 Anthony Kaufman, “Generation China: Jia Zhangke Continues to Document His Rapidly Evolving (self-destructing?) Homeland,” www.villagevoice.com/ content/printVersion/ 219553/. Accessed October 31, 2012. 2 Ibid. 3 He is presented by his workmate with the bill, and he shows the man a fifty RMB note with Hukou Falls on it, which is located in his hometown. 4 Marco Bohr, “The Distancing Effect in Jia Zhangke’s ‘Still Life’,” http://visual­ cultureblog.com/2012/07/the-distancing-effect-in-jia-zhangkes-still-life/. Accessed October 31, 2012. 5 The lack of protection of these workers and thus their vulnerability is shown by a visual juxtaposition of them with a group of technical men wearing gear and gas masks when they spray poison to eradicate diseases. These technical men are employed by the state, thus still enjoy the benefits of the state’s system whereas the local workers do not. 6 His figure is reminiscent of the ape man, which probably implies the primordial working conditions and the cruel Social Darwinism rampant in the society. 7 In order to earn money, the peroxide-haired young motorcyclist does not inform Sanming the fact that the street Sanming is looking for has been submerged in the water, which triggers Sanming’s anger; yet upon arriving at the destination, the motorcyclist shows Sanming the way to find his wife and helps him to find a cheap hotel by negotiating with the boss for Sanming. The old boss has tried to rent Sanming a room with a higher price, yet he soon resigns to the price ­Sanming demands. Sanming fully understands them: like him, living in the ­lowest social stratum, these people all depend on this small sum of income to barely keep a living, so this duplicity is understandable while their nature is not bad. Similar experiences are also found in his contact with Little Mark and the relatives of his wife. 8 Critic Ping Zhu believes the title of the film is a homage to Bertolt Brecht’s ­classic work “The Good Person of Szechwan” produced in 1943. In Brecht’s play, three gods look for a “good” person in a Chinese society, only finding that in

102  Revolutionary realism or socialist realism? the egotist society, making a financial gain has prevailed over the move to help others. In the movie Still Life, we also witness a weird scene with a “distancing effect” which is reminiscent of Brecht’s skit. Here, three Chinese Beijing opera actors, dressed in their robes of deities, sit at a table playing on their cell phones, with bored expressions in their faces. We are not very sure what this scene signifies; yet we can infer that their performance is not very welcome by the audience in this age of market economy, when the youths mostly prefer fashion shows. See Zhu Ping, “Destruction, Moral Nihilism, and the Poetics of Debris in Jia Zhangke’s Still Life,” Visual Anthropology 24 (2011): 318–328. 9 This is from an interview. See Da Dong, “Still Life, An Authentic Recording of China’s Change,” New Beijing Daily, December 6, 2006. 10 See Jia Zhangke, “Still Life: The Director’s Exposition,” http://ent.sina.com. cn/m/2006-09-07/18181236258.html. Accessed March 30, 2013. 11 Marco Bohr, “The Distancing Effect in Jia Zhangke’s ‘Still Life’.” 12 Jared Rapfogel, “Still Lives in Times of Change: An Interview with Jia Zhangke,” Cineaste 33, no. 2 (2008): 44–47. 13 He has argued “even with a pile of ashes, you’re not sure whether it’s the site of destruction or a phoenix rising from the ashes.” See Anthony Kaufman, ­“Generation China.” 14 Manohla Dargis, “Those Days of Doom on the Yangtze,” http://movies.nytimes. com/2008/01/18/movies/18stil.html. Accessed March 30, 2013. 15 Kin-Yan Szeto, “A Moist Heart: Love, Politics and China’s Neoliberal Transition in the Films of Jia Zhangke,” Visual Anthropology 22, no. 2 (2009): 106. 16 Eric Dalle, “Narrating Changes in Topography,” Jump Cut 53 (Summer 2011). www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc53.2011/dalleStillLife/index.html. Accessed October 23, 2012. 17 When Sanming and his co-workers watch together the images of natural ­landscapes in Chinese currency, the TV in the background is showing the TV drama series of “Romance of Three Kingdoms,” which were adapted from a famed Chinese classical novel and extolling the worthiness of sworn brotherhood. 18 Eric Dalle, “Narrating Changes in Topography.”

6 Contradictions of contemporary China from an elite’s perspective Sound and fury in A Touch of Sin (2013) A Touch of Sin has received an enormous amount of attention and has been shown in many countries (including the U.S., France, the U.K., ­G ermany, etc.) It has won the 66th annual Cannes International Film ­Festival award for best screenplay, as well as other honorable ­i nternational awards. In ­c omparison with the director’s other prize-winning works, the uniqueness of A Touch of Sin’s lies in its content as well as its form. Isabelle Regnier expresses her surprise: “Who would have predicted the genial Jia Zhangke could produce such a violent film? Who could have believed Jia would ­express such unconcealed violence on the silver screen in such a delightful manner?”1 Marie-Pierre Duhamel enthusiastically shares, Many comments will no doubt be made about a ‘new’ trend in Jia Zhangke’s cinema. As he himself puts it, Tian zhu ding is a ‘martial arts film for contemporary China,’ paying direct homage to director Hu ­Jinquan (King Hu, as went his name in the West) and nourished by the vision of martial arts films like those of Chang Cheh.2 Indeed, the film’s content is gory and violent, making it very controversial. Nevertheless, Jia has argued that his film is about “modern chivalry” that follows the examples of the classics of “Wuxia” (the Chinese martial art filmic genre) works. Does this mean that the film develops upon the ­traditional concept of “chivalrous spirit?” How does Jia judge societal ­conflicts? Since the film shows the desperation faced by people enduring humiliation and their final retaliation, considering Jia’s other films thus far, which sympathetically portray the lamentable lives of the lower classes in the spirit of critical realism, we could wonder whether this film reaches a new critical stage of revolutionary realism. Against popular opinion, I s­ uggest that, ­although the film focuses on acts of rebellion, it takes a ­reactionary stance against the age-old Chinese tradition of chivalry and shows the elite’s viewpoint on social contradiction, which is at odds with that of the ordinary populace.

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Critical realism or revolutionary realism? The film is roughly divided into four parts, based on four real-life stories that caused a sensation across society. The audience can easily identify the four cases: The 2001 Hu Wenhai incident, the 2009 Deng Yujiao incident, the 2012 Zhou Kehua incident and the Foxconn labor worker suicides that have taken place since 2010. We should analyze how this film has adapted these incidents, in particular from which points of view, and how it attempts to communicate them to us. The four sections of the film are the stories of Dahai, San’er, Xiaoyu and Xiaohui. Dahai, who is from a Chinese village, holds great animosity for the village leader as well as his former classmate Jiao Shengli, who collude to monopolize the village mines. After arguing with them, trying to appeal to a higher authority, never getting a satisfactory explanation and even being bitterly humiliated, he is infuriated to the extreme. One day, he murders the village head, as well as the village accountant, and even carelessly kills a carriage driver who is mistreating his horse. He becomes so enraged that even the doorman is not spared. Wandering from place to place, San’er rushes home before the Spring ­Festival begins in order to celebrate it with his 70-year-old mother. However, he purchases a gun from some unknown place and kills three hooligans who try to rob him. After staying at home for a few days, he sets out again. ­Following a couple after they exit a bank, he murders both of them to get their money. In a cold and cruel manner, he rides off on his motorcycle. Working at a massage parlor, Xiaoyu hopes that she can establish a stable relationship with her lover, a private entrepreneur. However, the businessman offers various excuses to avoid the commitment. After she sends him off, the man’s wife shows up to humiliate her for what she is doing. Shortly after, a domineering client who wants more than just a massage curses and beats her; in a fit of rage, Xiaoyu stabs this pig-headed patron to death in a manner like a classical chivalrous knight. A Migrant laborer, Xiaohui, strikes up a conversation with his fellow worker; the exchange leads to the workmate’s being injured and having to rely on disability allowance. To avoid shouldering the responsibility, ­X iaohui flees to Dongguan, a famed “sex capital” in southern China, to work in a night club. He unexpectedly meets a beautiful girl from his hometown there. When love cannot override cruel reality, he jumps to his death without any forewarning. The four stories are seemingly unrelated to each other but, in effect, are subtly connected. The relationship between time and space in the four ­sections is also ingenious. The director explains: The relationship of space: (in terms of the four locations) Shanxi, Chongqing, Hubei, Guangdong ….(they are) exactly running through China’s North to South. Whereas (in terms of) the relationship of time: the four stories revolve around the Spring Festival. The first takes place

Contradictions of contemporary China  105 prior to the Spring Festival, centering on the atmosphere of returning home; the second occurs during the middle of Spring Festival; the third happens after the festival, showing the character returning back to work; and the fourth occurs outside of this time interval. I have studied the narrative skill of many Chinese classical novels; therefore (the movie) follows rigorously the structure of “four steps of composing an essay.”3 Thus, I have written the film into one story instead of four separate and unrelated small ones. The first story is the one that shows the setting (the unequal dispersion of wealth); the second story reveals the lives of the characters (including that of husband’s and wife’s, brother’s, and family’s): (there is an absolute equalitarianism that) the remaining cigarettes needs to be divided into three parts; the third story discusses the issue of dignity in detail; the fourth story displays an omnipresent, implicit violence. While all the three stories are about killing, the last one deals with self-annihilation.4 This statement tells us the directorial intention. The first story introduces the great divide between the wealthy and the poor and the collusion between officials and merchants. This lays out the backdrop of the era and society in which the film is set. The second story reveals the lives of average p ­ eople and their relationships in society. Afterwards, it shows Chinese social customs and what can happen when one’s honor and dignity are violated. Finally, under this inescapable net of circumstances, the film reveals how a normal person can resort to self-destruction when ubiquitous violence envelops him. On the surface, the director aims to disclose the existing social contradictions from the perspective of ordinary people. He has explained his concern in the first story. The prototypical incident takes place in my home province of Shanxi, where the village government’s corruption and the increasingly unequal allocation of wealth have forced farmers to take up arms. The focus of the contradiction is the coal mine’s privatization and the unfair distribution of wealth.5 Corresponding to this theme, the film’s use of the three traditional Shanxi opera arias makes the audience recall classical Chinese stories such as ­“Tragedy of Dou’e” and “the rebellious Lin Chong forced to raise the ­standard of revolt.” Jia has admitted his source of inspiration: I have come to realize that the plights of the characters in the film are very similar to stories found in martial art movies. I’m very happy to have found a suitable cinematic language to describe contemporary China… I have discovered that these events are one and the same as those found in Water Margin which portrays the Song Dynasty, and Hu Jinquan’s works which narrates the Ming dynasty. In the transformation of society, a single person can only take up violence when facing a crisis.6

106  Contradictions of contemporary China Jia adds, “However, these are all tragedies.” To show his understanding of the tragedies, he spends a lot of time developing the characters. For example, Dahai is modeled on Lu Zhishen, while San’er is made according to the image of Wu Song. Both characters are heroes found in the Chinese classic The Water Margin. Additionally, the feature of Xiaoyu mixes images from King Hu’s A Martial Woman and the image of Lin Chong in his red trial clothes in Ye Zhu Lin (Wild Bear Forest), a famed piece from the Beiing ­opera. Besides, the film directly uses some scenes from classical Chinese dramas to arouse intertextual associations. When the climax scene of the opera Lin Chong Escapes to Liangshan at Night is performed on stage, the camera pans to show Dahai, who is falling into deep contemplation, planning his revenge; then the camera cuts back to the stage, presenting a close-up of the dramatis personae, Lin Chong, who is making his decision to revolt. Before Xiaoyu surrenders herself to the police, she watches Su San in Chains (Su San qi jie), a famed segment in the traditional opera piece Yu Tangchun, which narrates how a courtesan, Su San, is wrongly accused of murder and subsequently becomes a helpless victim of the corrupt judicial system. On the stage, Su San is weeping, while the corrupt official behind her shows his shameless, sinister face. When this scene is put against Xiaoyu’s tragic experience, the intertextual connotation is very clear. Therefore, cultural commentator ­Marie-Pierre Duhamel astutely remarks that …this repertoire plays the exact part it plays in real life: it provides e­ xpression, postures and moves to the victims of injustice to whom ­expression and action have been denied. A heroic posture for the ­humblest, a dignified image for those who do not count. It goes for D ­ ahai and his “Water Margin” move, for Xiaoyu’s wuxia killing ­gesture, and even for San’er’s use of the gun in the opening sequence.7 Jia emphasizes that, if “we examine case by case, all the incidents are ­incidental. However, as these incidents occur one after the other, they become non-accidental. I feel that I must use the multiple narratives to present this ‘accidentalness’.”8 The process through which Dahai’s violent tendencies erupt is comparable to the stories from Water Margin, which shows the inevitability of his being forced to rebel. Dahai tries to expose the corrupt behaviors by every means possible, yet he receives scant attention. Even when he goes to the post office to mail a complaint letter to the disciplinary committee of the party, he is kicked out because he is incapable of writing the address clearly enough. In light of this, the director’s rhetoric of the “inevitability of accidentalness” is much like the logic used by those works of revolutionary realism – the irreconcilable nature of social contradictions leads to the eruption of revolution (Figure 6.1). Peculiarly, besides these associations, we can see no reason for Dahai’s revolt or for others in the film. For San’er, we are left with no clue as to why he would decide to murder and pillage someone. Xiaoyu acts out in

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Figure 6.1  The opera Lin Chong Escapes to Liangshan at Night is performed on stage.

a moment of impulse when the customer looking for more than a massage humiliates her. Xiaohui is much like the other Foxconn factory workers in the daily news who do not take resistance as an option but blindly annihilate themselves. Therefore, although the film uses images of small animals as metaphors for the conditions in society,9 in comparison with the resolute attitudes of the heroic characters in Water Margin, the characters appear irrational and abnormal. We need to note that the film’s inspiration in no way arises from the rebellious spirit of the heroes in Water Margin, which has been often rejected by China’s “public intellectuals.” They regard the revolts as unlawful ­r iots against the modern spirit of civil society. The director himself, greatly ­influenced by this trend of thought, explains that he opposes using violence to combat violence: Reading Weibo, Mr. Jia said, made him realize that violence wasn’t an occasional misfortune visited on an unlucky few, but a ­fundamental thread running through Chinese society and culture. “In Chinese ­culture, ­violence is always used to solve problems,” he said, citing Mao Zedong’s famous adage that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” “The potential for violence lurks in everyone. It’s just that people manage to control themselves,” he added.10 Where does the inspiration come from? Upon scrutiny, it comes from the director’s understanding of the Chinese chivalrous spirit (Xiayi [侠义]). He says that the movie “focuses on establishing a relationship between ­ancient and contemporary people, whereas the tie for this relationship is this chivalry.”11 It is well known that the Chinese tradition of chivalry opposes tyrannical rules, fights crime and redresses injustice, while helping the innocent. Do

108  Contradictions of contemporary China the characters in the movie measure up to these standards? Jia has made comments on this matter: As for the definition of Xia (martial or chivalrous man, [侠]), because they have superb martial arts, so they fight injustices and stand up for the innocent. In the film, I have taken the four characters to represent these type of person, but they have trouble even in taking care of themselves. From the perspective of human nature, I feel that they are fighting for their dignity and self-respect… In the movie, these characters are the surviving “Xia,” or the residual Xia. This is because from the perspective of our cultural background, in the past, underneath the long-time reigns of authoritative regimes, we have fundamentally lacked the spirit of self-protection and dignity. However, this movie’s four leading characters seek to reaffirm their honor in the last moment. When ordinary people find themselves in a crisis, in the end they will become a Xia.12 Here, the director substitutes one concept for another, or re-defines the ­original meaning. He replaces the chivalrous spirit, which resists oppression and thus is compatible with the modern revolutionary spirit, with the liberal concept of self-preservation and safeguarding one’s honor. Although peasant rebellion was highly praised in the Mao era for its ­pursuit of justice and its revolutionary qualities, Mao stresses its historical ­limitations and shortage of political vision. Moreover, Water Margins, and traditional novels like it, were never extolled as works of “revolutionary ­realism.” We have noted that the director opposes any violence, “I feel that using violence to fight violence is not a good way, including those martial art films which idealize heroism, because tragedy and injury is unavoidable [in the process].”13 This viewpoint echoes Chinese public intellectuals’ position of anti-revolution, a conservative stance particularly targeting the socialist revolution. In this light, we can understand that the movie not only does not follow the revolting spirit of Water Margin, but is also in direct opposition to the political message of “revolutionary realism.” Consequently, we can comprehend the paradox: on one hand, the movie seemingly shows the despair and reluctance of the characters when they have no alternatives; on the other, it highlights the senselessness and cruelty of the violence to which they resort.

The origin of tragedies So, what essentially is the ultimate cause of the various tragedies portrayed in the film? After carefully examining the narrative strategy of the movie, we find that every examples come from the idiosyncrasies and perversities of the protagonists. First of all, the indirect cause of Dahai’s lethal violence is introduced by his interrogation of the accountant and the chairman of the board and his

Contradictions of contemporary China  109 fury toward the village head. The film reveals that the privatization of public property and monopolizing of local coalmines are the result of a collaboration between officials and the businessman. However, there is a simultaneous implicit narrative thread. It meant to foreground Dahai’s personality and character to tell another story. In this less obvious line of narration, ­Dahai appears to be well known in the village as a reckless man. After he loses the battle over ownership of the mine, he becomes jealous of the boss and spiteful toward the village cadres who are depriving his opportunity and finally decides to appeal to a higher authority. However, after he is beaten and humiliated by the rival party, he begins ranting about how these men are stealing his fortune; he proclaims, “I can be 10 thousand-times more evil than them.” Thus, his behavior is atypical – he cannot be viewed as a representative of ordinary villagers in China. The implied reason for his exposure of the collaboration is his own selfish interests. Although on the surface he continuously poses the question, “What happened to the item in the original contract which stipulates that 40 percent of the royalties should belong to the villagers?,” we never see any other villagers express this discontent. As he is going from place to place explaining how he is going to spill the beans about the village leaders’ corruption, other villagers simply ridicule him. In addition, we are not shown any evidence that he is suffering. He parades around in his army overcoat, appearing robust and energetic. We can only conclude that he is vengeful out of jealousy. After he makes the chairman of the board (who was his classmate in elementary school) lose face, as expected, he is taught a lesson by the man’s lackey when he is hit over the head with a golf club, earning him the nickname “golf ball.” He then becomes a buffoon in the eyes of the entire village. Since he loses control of the mine as well as the opportunity to share the profits, he vengefully makes his wicked pledge. Thus, his horrendous murders are nothing more than a personal vendetta – or a murderous ploy between businessmen with interests in conflict. The movie hints that Dahai’s lethal action also comes from the vicious spirit and influence of Chinese traditional chivalrous fiction such as those in Water Margins. In addition, it is subject to the bad influence of extreme Maoist ideology. The latter is less noticed; only traces can be detected. ­Dahai wears an army overcoat, the style of which was often witnessed in the Mao era. When he crosses the plaza, a statue of Mao in the background gestures forward, hinting at the fact that the Maoist ideology is still present in Chinese society and that Dahai is deeply affected by the “ultra-leftism” that promotes violence. When he opens his cabinet after he arrives at home, we see a row of similar greatcoats, which confirm his identity as retired military personnel ready to return to combat (Figure 6.2). Therefore, Dahai, a murderous villain, is subject to the impingement of Maoist education from the “extremist era” – at least this is the message from the movie. Also, we learn from his past lover’s criticism that he has been viewed by others as unimportant and a “nobody” since childhood.

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Figure 6.2  W hen Dagai crosses the plaza, there is a statue of Mao gesturing to go forward.

This older lover, who has already married someone else, blames him for not ­taking the initiative to find a wife and a proper job: If you have so much free time, why do you not open up a small ­restaurant or a store? You can earn more cash in this way so as to get yourself a wife, and be in control of your own life. Why bother with taking care of what they are doing? Dahai has no response. Put another way, he is indolent and makes a fuss over nothing, arising from his jealousy of the rich, as well as his frustrations over the loss of monopoly. By contrast, for San’er, we barely see any cues as to why he commits the brutal murders. While he seems to be a filial son to his mother, he curiously does not pay her a courtesy call. When his mother sees him, she does not show any expression of happiness. Even his son avoids touching him (probably because of unfamiliarity or his cruelty). When he is with his two elder brothers, they have to share three cigarettes together. In other words, we do not see much genuine interpersonal affections between him and his close relatives. During his mother’s 70th birthday, all he does is stare coldly at her. His conversation with his wife is also devoid of emotion, and he goes as far as to allow her to find another man. His wife does not know where he has been or where he will be going. Apparently, being an adult, he cannot realize his self-worth. Finally, hearing the sound of a gunshot, he finds something to catch his interest. Being a loser, just like Dahai, he takes his son outdoors on New Year’s Eve. During the magnificent fireworks display, he says to his son, “Let me give you a firework to see!” Then he shoots his gun in the air. This scene gives the audience a hint; apparently, he has taken bloody gun-shooting as casual entertainment. As his feelings for his mother and brothers gradually become indifferent, his tragedy has become rooted in

Contradictions of contemporary China  111 this insipidness. In other words, a desperate man loving ease and detesting work, he is merely searching for stimulation. To make money, he could do anything, fair or foul. After coldly and indifferently killing a couple withdrawing money from an ATM, his bloodlessness exposes him to be a habitual recidivist (Figure 6.3). Next, why does Xiaoyu, who appears soft and agreeable, become so violent as to kill the whoremonger? Discovering the cause will explain why her experience must be divided into two parts. The first section shows her relationship with her lover, and the second section presents her encounter at the nightclub. Xiaoyu and her paramour, a factory owner, have passionate feelings. Yet, the businessman cannot escape his wife’s control and get a divorce. This makes Xiaoyu feel very disappointed. After the owner leaves, she is beaten up on the landlady’s instructions, and she loses her face in public. Her humiliation brings out her distorted psychological state. The next section then turns to her work environment. As a receptionist at the sauna, two clients mistake her for a prostitute and insist that she give them a massage. She refuses their demands, and they beat her. In a moment of hysteria, she takes a fruit knife that is close by and kills the man insulting her. Wandering around in the night aimlessly, she makes a phone call to turn herself in. In conclusion, evil forces do not push her to take a path of no return; on the contrary, her doubtful morality and her loss of self-­respect result in her frantic state, in which her own paranoid character plays a significant role. Lastly, why does the worker Xiaohui decide to kill himself? On the surface, he is very different from the previous three characters, who kill to vent their sense of infuriation and frustration. Yet, Xiaohui is also similar to the others in that they all bear feelings of desperation and self-annihilation; they all behave violently, rather than show chivalry. When Xiaohui works in a workshop, his trivial talk causes his coworker to injure his hand, and he

Figure 6.3  San’er fires like setting off fireworks.

112  Contradictions of contemporary China runs away to Guangdong to avoid paying the absence fee for the boy. This suggests that he is accustomed to retreating from responsibility. Like San’er, he loves leisure and hates work. Upon hearing that working at the nightclub in the sex capital Dongguan pays more money and is easier to do, he decides to travel there. During this time, he meets a girl who is also a fellow villager, and they develop feelings for each other. Xiaohui thus proposes that they elope together, which violates professional ethics. The innocent-looking lover (his mistress) turns out to have a three-year-old child and thus cannot leave. Unable to endure the fact that the girl he loves works as a prostitute (an ambiguous scene reveals this secret), Xiaohui changes his job again and works at a restaurant. However, his measly salary is unable to satisfy his family’s demands; and a particular close-up scene delivers this message. When he receives a phone call, Xiaohui’s stern face implies that he is being interrogated: Why haven’t you sent any money back? Is it because you are spending money wastefully outside? The incessant complaints cause Xiaohui to collapse psychologically. At that time, the injured coworker comes to take revenge, which is the final straw. Without leaving a note behind, he climbs on top of the balcony and jumps off. The movie offers this reason for the Foxconn factory workers’ suicides, which repeatedly occurred these years. Rather than subscribing to the scholars’ investigation report that exposes inhuman treatment and merciless exploitation of the workers by the capitalist management,14 the director implies that the tragedies are simply a result of their own failures in personal affections and professional careers. In this film, the responsibly lies in the callousness of Xiaohui himself and his moral impurities. The responsibility even extends to his family’s education: his mother’s phone call shows no care for her son’s life; instead, he is blamed for sending such a small amount of money and spending his earnings carelessly. In all, the personal (and familial) problems of the lower-class themselves lead to the tragedies. This kind of diagnosis typically reflects the elites’ understanding of the under-classes. Someone may protest that the film shows people being forced onto a desperate life path. Actually, this is where the film pretends to advance along one path but secretly takes another. Let us look at how it lays out the villains and evil forces. Dahai’s opponent is the village head, as well as the businessman Jiao Shengli, his elementary school classmate. The village head does not show up until he faces Dahai’s long barrel rifle. This upright-looking leader (he is dressed like Jiao Yulu, the model the Party has promoted for a long time) appears very calm and instructs him: “Calm down. Is there anything that we cannot sit down and discuss?” Dahai completely loses his reason and goes mad. How much evil intent caused by inflated selfish desires would it take for Dahai to unexpectedly commit this act on his elementary school classmate? When we see Jiao Shengli the first time, he is wearing a pair of sunglasses and a black cloak, taking an airplane and arriving in the village. He looks handsome and is reminiscent of the appearance of film star Chow Yun-fat in the film A Better Tomorrow (1985). He is, indeed, a hero of

Contradictions of contemporary China  113 the contemporary society, with an ambitious will in this era’s surge of market economy. He cannot resist having his subordinates teach Dahai a lesson; afterwards, he provides Dahai handsome compensation. Facing D ­ ahai’s gun barrel, he shows no panic, but just calmly says, “Whatever you demand, just speak up.”15 We are unable to see how these “evil-­people” would collude to embezzle state-owned recourses, and we are unable to feel any sense of ­disgust with them. Nor can we find their collusion to have caused ordinary villagers any loss. The apparently honest accountant always appears helpless in front of Dahai, which reminds us that he is passive and reluctant, even though he may have to prepare false accounts on the orders of the authority. When Dahai comes to his house wanting to take his life, the accountant has to write down the confessions Dahai dictates as gunpoint, reminiscent of what he has to do for the authority. Yet, while his wife attends to Dahai in a friendly manner, Dahai, brutally kills her too. The three bandits San’er encounters look just like him. As soon as he pulls out his gun, they all begin to panic; but even though they run away, San’er is mercilessly determined to take their lives. Obviously, he is not doing this for the sake of justice but, rather, for a certain idiosyncratic addiction to and fetish for murder. The identity of the couple that San’er subsequently kills is unclear; judging by their ordinary dress, they are probably normal citizens. Thus, the audience can only suppose that his action arises from his absurd hatred of the rich. When the man sees his wife being killed, he courageously faces the barrel of San’er’s gun, which gives the audience a feeling that he is truly righteous and courageous. It is evident that San’er’s cruelty has caused him to appear inhuman. What evil forces push Xiaoyu to revolt? She is the mistress of a factory owner (played by the famed Chinese actor Zhang Jiayi, who is famous for his guileless face, being solemn, and looking tall and strong). Facing ­pressure from Xiaoyu, he appears helpless and tells her that he has informed his wife of the situation, although he has not explained everything. He begs Xiao Yu to wait for some time. Xiaoyu resists his pleas, claiming that at her age she cannot wait any longer and gives him six months to think about who he really wants to be with. This pitiable businessman later appears in ­X iaohui’s factory. He is so busy and devoted that when he is having lunch, he is ­simultaneously teaching Xiaohui to be an upright man. He does not fire the crippled worker and negotiates with Xiaohui that since Xiaohui is responsible for the injury he should give the injured worker his salary as compensation. Even the man bullying Xiaoyu is excusable, because it is caused by a misunderstanding: he feels that she looks down upon him. Her idiosyncratic personality causes her to endure suffering unnecessarily and brings inexorable consequences. The person hitting her is “Xiao Wu,” a protagonist in one of the director’s earlier movies; he has many drawbacks but is ultimately a kind-hearted person16 (Figure 6.4). Indeed, the powerful and rich, who in the classical works of revolutionary realism appear as an oppressive evil force, take on a new appearance

114  Contradictions of contemporary China

Figure 6.4  Displayed in a medium shot, ladies in opera dress perform pornographic shows to entertain the new rich.

here. Regardless of whether one considers them to lack empathy or sincerity, they are also just ordinary people like you and me, and thus do not deserve ­violent reactions. This creates a sharp contrast with the archetypal characters in both the classical work Walter Margin and modern revolutionary novels. The movie thus presents its own understanding of the contemporary Chinese upper class. In a scene that lasts two minutes or so and shows the extravagant lifestyles of the Chinese new rich, the director Jia Zhangke makes a guest appearance as a member of the noveau riche from Shanxi going to Dongguan’s famed nightclub “World Paradise” looking for happiness. He passes a group of young girls wearing military uniforms, seemingly of the former Soviet Union’s Red Army. The scene is apparently a satire; the uniform (as well as the revolutionary song accompanying the parade of this team earlier in the movie) is a symbol of revolutionary passion past and present; however, here it works to stimulate sexual desire. In less than one minute, Jia the businessman does three things: buys a painting ­ hinese artist Xu Beihong (1895–1953), makes an appointment with by the C friends to go to Macau gambling and orders the service of the bargirl, who is ­X iaohui’s girlfriend. However, this glance at the life of the nouveaux riches does not portray their lives – it shows the people enjoying pornography as just “ordinary” old people seeking normal fun and entertainment. Even when the movie shows Xiaohui’s girlfriend providing sexual services, the customer does not force her, nor does she show any unhappiness. Instead, we witness her closing her eyes, smiling in the face of adversity. This is the “professional spirit” that Chinese “public intellectuals” advocate, which also displays their dictum of freedom: if a girl cannot resist the destiny of being raped, then it is better to just close her eyes and enjoy the pleasure. In all the characters’ encounters, we see no reduction of wages, exploitation or inhuman discipline or regulations put in place by the capitalists; thus, all the tragedies seemingly come from the characters’ own troubles and personal failure in forming friendships, finding affection and suffering

Contradictions of contemporary China  115 family stress. When we see Xiaohui pick the iron club as a weapon and looking confused as to where his enemies are, we know that the movie is indeed unable to determine who is responsible for the tragedies.

Politics of dignity or class polarization? While the movie ostensibly demonstrates the “forced rebellion” of the lower classes, it actually shows the degradation of their sense of dignity. Moreover, their humiliation is closely related to their moral flaws. Thus, we can understand why the director contends “the cause of violence lies in the society, but it is also related to psychological problems. Violence is all related to dignity; it occurs at the moment when one feels deprived of dignity.”17 This deceptive rationale bypasses or deliberately glosses over economic stratification and class polarization. As in earlier films, Jia is trying to express the voice of the oppressed; rather, he intends to represent the society’s under-classes who are often subject to humiliation. He does this by disclosing their privacy and their tendency toward egalitarianism, which is due to their poverty. By exposing their weaknesses in personality and defects in morality, the movie essentially holds that the underprivileged are largely responsible for their miserable lives. For instance, as one critic aptly observes, We have a deeper understanding of poverty from San’er. …The elderly brother of San’er introduces the detailed expenses of the birthday feast to his two younger brothers and distributes the remaining money to them accordingly. He even divides the nine cigarettes into three parts (reflecting the humbleness of people from the countryside and their yearning for equality and justice…). Such emphasis on equality arises from extreme poverty while extreme egalitarianism only leads to greater poverty. Poverty is sometimes not the problem. What really matters is the frustration arising from poverty. On the eve of the Chinese New Year, a group of people get together for Mahjong and make fun of each other and their wives, indicating the latter’s pornographic services under the disguise of work. They seem to find superiority by disparaging each other and even engage in a physical fight. Poverty has successfully eroded the innocence of the countryside and the pitiful dignity of all.18 Consequently, the movie also hints at the “sins” of these lower-class people. In one of these scenes, San’er’s girlfriend believes that she is committing sins in her present life and therefore needs to set fish free to compensate for her wrongdoings. This practice is based on the traditional faiths of Buddhism in China. At the end of the movie, the lyrics of the traditional Chinese opera are, “Do you plead guilty?” The camera then shifts to a group of observers. The implication is more than clear: whether these violence-oriented, lower classes know that they should “plead guilty”? At this point, we also come to know why the English name of the movie is “A Touch of Sin.” To the ­director, sin resides in these people and creates their inexorable burdens,

116  Contradictions of contemporary China the belief of which reflects the class-based nature of this movie’s outlook. In other words, while the movie ostensibly shows the oppression of the lower class, its story is told from the perspective of the bourgeois elites and actually purges the oppressors of their “sins.” Thus said, let us examine the story arcs from the perspective of realism, through which we find that it is based on certain postmodern, “imaginative” poetics. In an interview, the director explains how he created the plotline, How violence is bred in the mundane life? Why a rule-abiding person would become a gunner? It is impossible for us to document the exact process of how violence is bred. The process can only be grasped when we imagine it as a whole, when we delve into imagining the influences of and frustration in the character’s interpersonal relations.19 If this is the case, how does the director imagine the actual events the film portrays? In the first story, Dahai is the only person in the village asserting that the village head is a corrupt official conspiring with merchants. It seems that although the villagers cannot benefit from the privatization of the coalmine, neither are their interests are undermined. Therefore, Dahai is merely an extremist who cannot win the support of the other villagers. But, if we look at the real events that have occurred in recent years (e.g., the Qian Yunhui case) we know that the embezzlement of state-owned assets and interests has always done great harm to the interests of villagers. For instance, in Qian’s case, the farming mudflats, which are essential to the living of ­villagers, were leveled out by real estate developers; the villagers consequently lost their livelihoods. Those who dare to challenge authority on behalf of v­ illagers normally die in some mysterious incidents, as did Qian. In the second story, because of hatred toward murderers such as Zhou Kehua and the unilateral reporting of the media, we can know neither how a man such as Zhou has become what he is, nor his inner self. In terms of how San’er commits his crimes, we can only infer that “the less distinguished San’er, who is abandoned by modern culture, finally feels a sense of value by controlling the life of others when he hears the gunfire.”20 In the third story, Xiaoyu is a mistress despised by all, and she kills others due to a misunderstanding. In this portrayal, girls like Deng Yujiao who stand up against oppression and exploitation become eccentric and morally defective. In the fourth incident, we only see the betrayal of workers to their workmates, their laziness, their frustrations at their failure to satisfy family demands, ignorance and the pretense of indignation at social corruptions.21 The audience does not witness any inhumane management in the “blood factories” such as Foxconn, and the physical and mental traumas caused by it (Figure 6.5). This pretense of understanding the life of the oppressed and assuming the role of its spokesperson typically shows the ability of contemporary Chinese cultural elites to comprehend reality. Keep this in mind, we can further

Contradictions of contemporary China  117

Figure 6.5  T  he closeup shows Xiaoyu turning chivalrous.

appreciate the features of the movie’s aesthetics (i.e., the alleged modeling of characters after ancient chivalrous heroes). For example, why does Xiaoyu suddenly turn into a chivalrous knight accompanied by exaggerated “heroic” actions and music? While critics easily find the absence of chivalrous spirit in the movie, they generally fail to perceive the deconstruction of the spirit of chivalry in the name of humanism and anti-violence. The film takes the lower class’s last resort as the spontaneous eruption of their original sinful ideas, which are subject to the poisonous influence of Chinese ancient novels and the pollution of Maoist “extremist” doctrines. Although the oppression of the lower classes is revealed to a certain extent through various metaphors, it distorts and defames the images of the lower classes due to its bias. As a result, the audience cannot infer the causes of the characters’ desperation from a social-economic-political perspective, but feel only their coldness and cruelty. In addition, as the director does not show their pains (e.g., the reluctance to become a prostitute), we are unable to understand why they feel they have to commit suicide, or why they have to kill others. To understand why the director adapts life’s happenings in this way, we need to analyze his attitude toward reality. In other words, his adaptation corresponds to his ideological concepts. Jia believes that the changes in China behind these events are “pains occurred during China’s ­modernization process.”22 That is to say, this is the unavoidable cost of the modernization. On the surface, this is a cliché associated with the discourse of modernization since the 1980s. But, in essence, it is the official’s version of “mainstream melody,” which calls for people to understand and accept “birth pains” by upholding the socialist spirit of sacrifice, to “take the general situations into consideration,” in order to accommodate the neo-liberal reforms that have taken place since the 1990s. The director not only advocates this neo-­ liberal creed, but also aligns his views with those of public intellectuals (i.e., what is lost in this process is traditional morality and the awe of authority). Hence, we witness the scene in which the village head solemnly maintains

118  Contradictions of contemporary China

Figure 6.6  P  resented in a long shot, Dahai kills the village head in front of the ­magnificent, ancient temple.

his dignity before being killed by Dahai in front of the magnificent, ancestral temple (Figure 6.6). When producing the movie Xiaowu, Jia Zhangke used to say that, “When a society is moving ahead rapidly, do not ignore those who are knocked over by you simply because you want to get ahead.”23 Many people use this quote to comment on the movie. It is similar to a comment made by public intellectuals during the high-speed train accident of 2012: “Oh, China, please slow down the pace of your development! Please take care of the lives of your citizens!” The problematic of political lines and economic orientations of China’s neo-liberal reform is simplified as a problem of speed; therefore, class stratification is converted into cheap, humanistic care, although such care seems to be disguised as the criticism of capitalism: Economic development is not equivalent to the development of civilization. Instead, it widens the gap between economic activities and value concepts. Rapid development of the economy and continuous expansion of living space offer people more opportunities to enjoy life. However, the Chinese who used to emphasize family life and lack ultimate care and a sense of social justice are increasingly staying away from the normal social practices’ or are occupied by money worship with the encroachment of capitalism. These fully tragic images [of the movie] constitute a mosaic portrait of China and display the loss in connection with defected personality and missing morality.24 Apparently, in this version of “critical realism with Chinese characteristics,” a fundamentally social issue is displaced to become an issue of defective personality and lost morality. The exploitation and oppression, in the plutonomic sense, is substituted by a pseudo proposition that the Chinese should embrace the “ultimate care and a sense of social justice.” Money

Contradictions of contemporary China  119 worship is believed to be a negative phenomenon unavoidable in the process of economic development. Under the disguise of a sympathetic portraiture, it is hinted that the “sins and faults” of the “criminals” are the consequences of their greediness, desire and other “original sins,” and their forced but unwilling breakout is taken as a spectacle. The original Chinese title of the movie is “Tianzhuding,” which means “Decided by Fate.” This “fate” is not the implication of destiny in any religious sense; instead, it “refers to the dramatic impulse that moves tragedy,” which is not caused by the “pitiless authority that makes the characters… be subjected to unfair powers and rebel against their evil sentences.”25 Rather, their plights are caused to a large extent by these social outcasts’ own weak human nature. In this light, Jia claims that “this film represents part of the missing picture to these (real) events,” and he “wanted to explore a deep contemplation of two factors”: “One is the social roots of violence and the second is violence that has its roots in a very human level.”26 Apparently, the “second level” is taken to be what is “missing” in the general picture. Compared to his previous works, Jia does not completely change his style for this movie. Instead, he only incorporates elements of gang movies, Kungfu movies and comedies, which bring out a sense of nervousness that we have never seen in him before. It interrogates those that have been humiliated and defamed “Do you plead guilty?” and does not concern itself with how they could attain justice. It uses a series of religious images to insinuate how the sinful souls of the lower class can be “purged.”27 To the director, who originates from the lower class but has ascended to the elitist circle through personal efforts, these disoriented murderers are pitiful; those ordinary people that used to be pillars of Mao’s socialist era appear foolish and numb, as the apathetic faces of the folks watching folk opera performances demonstrate. By contrast, Xiaoyu, who loiters in the numb crowd and has seemingly deep thoughts at the end of the movie, could be taken as an incarnation of the director himself with the mindset of elitism.28 However, self-contradiction is unavoidable if the movie is meant to distort social conflicts in this way. It is noteworthy that “sin” has a totally different meaning from “罪 (crime)” in Chinese. In Christianity, it refers to the “antagonism of human beings towards the will of god, and is inherited through generations.” Jia “accepts such a Christian definition in an ambiguous way and believes that the human beings are destined to be sinful in nature and that such sins are inherited through generations.”29 This is witnessed in the director’s attempt to attribute the faults of the underclass to their “original sin.” However, Jia seems to endorse their “claims for justice and antagonism against violent authority” when he says I feel that all the four characters have a rebellious personality, which I value very much. It is a quality that China is losing gradually, for all of us have been conditioned to submit to authority… yet such a personality needs to be preserved.30

120  Contradictions of contemporary China In reality, such recognition of the “rebellious personality” originates from the Maoist revolutionary concept, which holds that “wherever there is oppression, there is resistance.” However, since Chinese elites are antipathetic to the socialist idea of revolts against the oppressive ruling class, they have to treat the rebellions of the underclass as nothing but ignorant, destructive and worthless behavior.

Notes 1 See Isabelle Regnier, “‘A Touch of Sin’: et le doux Jia Zhangke dégaina son saber,” Le Monde, May 13, 2013. 2 Marie-Pierre Duhamel, “Cannes 2013. Consistency In a Filmmaker’s World: Jia Zhangke’s ‘A Touch of Sin’,” Notebook, 17 May 2013. http://mubi.com/notebook/ posts/cannes-2013-consistency-in-a-filmmakers-world-jia-zhangkes-a-touch-ofsin. Accessed January 29, 2016. 3 It is a classical technique of composing an article, which includes four parts: an introduction, elucidation of the theme, transition to another viewpoint, and summary. 4 Anonymous. “Jia Zhangke Niuyue tan tianzhuding” (贾樟柯纽约谈《天注定》) [Jia Zhangke discusses A Touch of Sin in New York]. September 30, 2013. http:// blog.sina.com.cn/s/ blog_6a1894c10101ly9d.html. Accessed May 6, 2016. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Marie-Pierre Duhamel, “Cannes 2013.” 8 Ibid. 9 It is implied that, in society, the weaker and underprivileged are tortured and waiting to be slaughtered, whereas evil forces are like leopards and tigers unsheathing their claws, and snakes and rats crossing the street. 10 Olivia Geng, “Jia Zhangke Explains Why Censors Are Scared of His Award-­ Winning Film,” http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/03/14/jia-zhangkeexplains-why-censors-are-scared-of-his-award-winning-film/. Accessed ­November 12, 2015. Weibo is a Chinese microblogging and social media website, just like twitter in the West. 11 MTime Cannes Report Team, “Jia Zhangke Reveals His New Work ‘A Touch of Sin’,” http://news.mtime.com/2013/04/18/1510504.html. Accessed May 6, 2016. 12 See Anonymous, “Jia Zhangke Niuyue tan tianzhuding” (贾樟柯纽约谈《天注 定》) [Jia Zhangke discusses A Touch of Sin in New York]. September 30, 2013. http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/ blog_6a1894c10101ly9d.html. Accessed May 6, 2016. 13 Ibid. 14 See “Liangan sandi gaoxiao Fushikang diaoyan zong baogao” (两岸三地高 校富士康调研总报告) [The General Report of the Foxconn Incidents by the ­Higher-Education Institutions of the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan], http:// it.sohu.com/20101009/n275489839.shtml. Accessed March 15, 2017. 15 Moreover, when his wife reappears in the fourth section of the movie, this attractive woman, in her face full of sadness, is kind to Xiaoyu, who is just seeking an employment. Apparently, the episode meant to deliver the message that this kind-hearted businesswoman is handling the underclass a life-line. 16 Critics note this contextual message, e.g., Marie-Pierre Duhamel points out, Xiao Wu has a filmic biography that made him a small town crook again in Ren xiao yao. In Tian zhu ding, Wang/Wu dies under the blade of the film’s lady knight… He did not make a big fortune, his money came from local

Contradictions of contemporary China  121 corruption. The banknotes he slaps Zhao Tao’s Xiaoyu with are somehow archaic. Marie-Pierre Duhamel, “Cannes 2013.” 17 See Anonymous, “Jia Zhangke Niuyue tan tianzhuding.” 18 See Xu Haiyan徐海燕, “Jingyin shenjiao xia shehui wenti de chengxian jiqi ­Juxianxing (精英视下社会问题的呈现及其局限性) [Displaying Social ­Problems from an Elites Perspective and Their Limits],” Bachelor’s Thesis, Xiamen ­University, 2015 19 Lesley Yiping Qin and Jia Zhangke, ”Cinema Spotlight: Interview with Jia Zhangke and Zhaotao on A Touch of Sin,” October 4, 2013. www.asiancinevision. org/look-back-in-anger-interview-with-jia-zhangke-and-zhao-tao-on-a-touch-ofsin/. Accessed March 20, 2018. 20 See Xu Haiyan, “Jingyin shenjiao xia shehui wenti de chengxian jiqi Juxianxing.” 21 The film shows Xiaohui and his girlfriend reading news via an ipad and posting a comment “Garbage!” for each piece of news, which is meant to show that the lower classes do not understand social injustice at all, but simply pretend to have a sense of justice. 22 See Anonymous, “Jia Zhangke Niuyue tan tianzhuding.” 23 Zhang Yaxuan 张亚璇, Jian Ning简宁, Jia Zhangke贾樟柯, “Fangtan: Ba Jia Zhangke gao qingchu” (访谈:把贾樟柯彻底搞清楚) [Interview: Understanding Jia Zhangke].” http://cn.cl2000.com/film/dypx2.shtml. Accessed January 1, 2008. 24 See Xu Haiyan, “Jingyin shenjiao xia shehui wenti de chengxian jiqi Juxianxing.” 25 Marie-Pierre Duhamel, “Cannes 2013.” 26 Hubert Vigilla, “The Director and Star of A Touch of Sin Discuss the Changing Face of China.” October 9, 2013. www.flixist.com/interview-jia-zhangke-zhao-taoa-touch-of-sin -216577.phtml. Accessed January 15, 2016. 27 For example, Two Catholic nuns next to a martyr horse in Dahai’s story, magical snakes around Xiaoyu and buffalos watching over her desperate night flight, a duck promised to sacrifice in San’er story, a few fishes ‘liberated’ by Lianrong to please Buddha… Marie-Pierre Duhamel, “Cannes 2013. Consistency in a Filmmaker’s World: Jia Zhangke’s ‘A Touch of Sin.’” 28 It is noted that “Zhao Tao’s expressive face and focused talent inspire the filmmaker’s figure of womanhood. A wanderer in cities, a melancholic image of an endless quest and of a hard to tell grief.” Marie-Pierre Duhamel, “Cannes 2013.” 29 See Xu Haiyan, “Jingyin shenjiao xia shehui wenti de chengxian jiqi Juxianxing.” 30 See Pan, Meng潘萌, “Meiyou Yinyu, Zhiyou Xianshi: New York Tianzhuding Jia Zhangke Zhuanfang (没有隐喻，只有现实——纽约《天注定》贾樟柯专访) [No Metaphor, Only Reality – Interview of Jia Zhangke on A Touch of Sin in New York],” http://cinephilia.net/archives/21539. Accessed December 1, 2015.

Part III

7 Orchestrating workers’ memories and Chinese national history 24 City (2008) as a fake documentary Jia Zhangke admitted that when he produced the film 24 City (Ershisi Cheng ji二十四城记) in 2008 he had a strong desire to rewrite the national history of China. He explained that the reason for his “leaving for Chengdu without hesitation…to produce a new film” was At the end of 2006, news outlets reported that a local factory in Chengdu named the “Chengfa Group” (or “Factory 420”) with a total workforce of 30,000 workers and 100,000 dependents transferred its lands to “China Resources Land Ltd.” One year later, this factory…would finally disappear like ashes. Simultaneously, however, a modern real-­ estate project would emerge on its ground … From the transformation of land, from the planned economy to the market-oriented economy, from collectivism to individualism; all of these would tell a story of the system and the collective memory of the Chinese people.1 Jia acknowledged his positive response to this change. “I was excited to come across this real-life case: it represents the gigantic – and miraculously rapid – transformation of modern China.”2 Thus, his new move also signifies the director’s shift of attention from individual, marginalized characters (such as bargirls and thieves) to a broader group of people, those who used to be members of the leading class of the country but that are now considered part of the “underprivileged” stratum of society (i.e., the working class). He attempted to make a record that is also about a recollection of the history of the People’s Republic. Therefore, it has been noted, “Grander themes like historical turmoil, seismic shifts in economic and human infrastructures are in the periphery, but always informing these characters’ destinies.”3 In other words, this narration is about two interrelated stories. One story recalls and narrates the ­ fty-year evolution of a factory on the basis of personal experiences, fi as well as the contemporary history of China demonstrated by the ­experiences of the factory and its staff. The other story relates to how the fifty-year history is narrated through certain subjects, and how it is

126  Orchestrating workers’ memories elevated to be the common memory of the Chinese through personal or ‘local experiences.’4 Does this mixed genre of a practice of “oral history,” combining documentary (about real people) and fiction (played by professional actors and actress) authentically reveal the history of the workers as well as the evolution of the People’s Republic? Many critics acknowledged the positive merits of the film in this regard. Hollywood Reporter praised the film as a “moving elegy to modern-day China” with its documentary strain that “prevails to simple, yet emotionally ­reverberating effect;”5 The New York Times commended the film by a­ rguing that, “Without nostalgia but with sensitivity and depth of feeling, Mr. Jia is documenting a country and several generations that are ­disappearing ­before the world’s eyes.”6 Even Time joined the chorus: “The film interweaves the political overview … with personal anecdotes that are poignant and c­ harming.”7 On the other hand, Jim Hoberman regarded it as “an ambivalent exercise in Communist nostalgia” with a “subversively old-­fashioned hymn to production.”8 Scott Tobias felt the arrangement was “jarring w ­ ithout necessarily being illuminating,” since there is not “much continuity” within the film.9 These divergent comments speak to the ambivalent nature of the movie and confirm its complex significance. On the surface, the film chronicles the stories of workers using the ­narrative structure of the pseudo-documentary consisting of two parts intercutting each other. In the desolate industrial complex of the factory, five elderly workers poignantly describe their life and work in the factory. Three “witnesses,” played by professional actors, discuss changes they have observed in the factory. As the director claims, this peculiar arrangement is intended to “emphasize the value of imagination in the film,” I found several film stars whom everybody [in China] knows, to make the public aware that this is a film comprising of both factual and fictional parts. No film can be absolutely accurate and objective in its factual account; there is inevitably some treatment processing involved.10 However, this “controversial use of actors playing fictional roles, inserted silently amidst real people” brought about many reservations among critics, who suggested that it “arguably evaded the responsibilities of both fact and fiction.” They also considered that “by failing to signpost the difference between reality and fiction … it was underhand, even phoney.” However, other critics contended that this “formal daring is what is impressive”11 and this “synthetic vision of docufiction … gives Jia the philosophical freedom to contrast, juxtapose, and integrate the real and the fictional in ways that defy and overwhelm conventional cinematic storytelling.”12 To judge whether this creative decision achieved its intended aesthetic and cultural (-political) objective, we need to examine the formal effect on the content and vice versa.

Orchestrating workers’ memories  127 Before going to the textual analysis, a brief introduction of the historic background is necessary. Factory 420, founded in 1958, was formerly the top-secret aircraft-manufacturing Shenyang Factory 111. Following Chairman Mao’s strategic plan of developing remote regions of China in the early 1960s, it was relocated from Northeast China to Southwest China, together with its workforce of several thousand staff members. The particular ­policy is known as “Third-line Construction,” a major decision concerning the ­Chinese industrial system and national defense and the first large-scale and concentrated movement to develop the western area. Although it was C ­ hina’s key strategic factory in the 1960s and 1970s, the fortunes of Factory 420 have nevertheless undergone several rounds of upheaval. Accordingly, the vicissitudes it has experienced show the 50 years of social-political disruption within the People’s Republic. After the 1980s, the factory experienced its first short boom on the eve of China’s economic reform due to the Sino-­ Vietnamese War (1979–1989). It subsequently suffered economic depression that began in the late 1980s when the War ended. Finally, it collapsed totally after the 1990s during national industrial restructuring. In 2008, the factory was ­relocated to a new industrial zone, and the original lands located in the downtown area were sold to a developer, who then developed a real estate project called 24 City. In this regard, it has become “an obvious symbol for China’s transformation.”13 How does the movie take its stance toward this sea change? Is it that the director “offers neither criticism nor celebration” but “simply chronicles and pays a gentle tribute to the unnoticed and unappreciated people who devoted their lives to the old factory, and to China’s pre-capitalist state, just as they disappear into oblivion,”14 as many critics generally believe? Against these interpretations, I will suggest that as a “fake documentary” that blends documentary footage with fictional elements, and as an ethnographical account of the working class in particular and the nation-state in general, the film is meant to account for China’s macro-transformation, which departs from the party’s official version of the historical narrative. Yet, what a de-politicized recollection ultimately brings about is that the downfall and tragedies of the working class are shown to be merely phenomena of certain strata and professions, and the transformation of the fortunes of this community a result of industrial restructuring. The historical experience that shaped the Chinese national identity in the traditional socialist era is once again masked by commerciality, instead of revealed.

Three-generations of “flowers of factory” The most spectacular narrative strategy of the movie is that it presents three generations of the so-called “flower(s) of factory” – Hao Dali, Gu Minhua and Su Na, who recount their experiences. These roles are all performed by well-known professional actresses whose acting careers correspond to the three phases of the factory.

128  Orchestrating workers’ memories Dali, the flower of the first generation, appears with a transfusion bottle held on high in her hands. In a long shot, we witness her walk past a long block and a passageway before she reaches her office. Such bold behavior arouses a sense of discomfort in the audience.15 Dressed in a plain manner, she does not appear particularly mature; however, she responds to the greeting of the clerk, who calls her by the title “auntie,” “Why are you calling me aunt? You should call me Grandma!” The impatient answer shows her deliberately flaunting her seniority. She does not appear have a positive opinion of the polite young girl in this scene and sarcastically remarks, “Are we allowed to wear makeup at work nowadays?” In response to this meddlesome and aggressive “Marxist-Leninist lady” (a nickname for women who sprout revolutionary phrases but who themselves do not set a good examples), who is not old by any estimation, the girl patiently and politely explains, “In foreign enterprises, the staff members are even required to wear makeup!” Dali replies contemptuously, “Isn’t this a state-owned enterprise?” The girl is then speechless. Taking her entrance in an irritating manner, the lady then begins her narration (Figure 7.1). Her narrative comprises four parts. The first is the privilege of the ­factory  – a monthly confidentiality fee of 5 yuan and a monthly benefit of 1.5 kg pork per staff during the days of great starvation in the 1960s when everyone else could barely feed themselves. The second part of Dali’s narrative is about the staggering income earned by the staff at the time. “I remember the bank was opening a temporary outlet next to the gate of our factory when we were reimbursed. I earned 58 yuan per month in 1975 and could deposit in the bank 30 yuan.” As the “leading class,” they received full welfare packages from the state, including work uniforms and gloves,

Figure 7.1  Dali holds high the transfusion bottle and walks past the alleys.

Orchestrating workers’ memories  129 and Dali had sent the additional sets to her younger sister, who then unraveled them and knitted woolen clothes. The third section of her account consists of comparisons of the past and the present: the son of her sister, who ran a small drugstore in the countryside, sent her 500 yuan because he knew that her factory was in trouble. But the most distinct part of her narration is the last part, which is about her personal sacrifice: her child went missing during the chaotic factory relocation. In a flood of tears, Dali recounts the experience as though to an interviewer. It is uncertain, however, whether this would have the desired dramatic effect, as the character is played by an actress who is well known across the country. The last scene shows her eating and watching television. A barely audible voice-over is heard from the TV, “an enemy airplane is approaching from the southwest.…” Apparently, this is a war movie shot during that era. She is enjoying a moment of nostalgia. Upon the initial appearance of the second flower, Gu Minhua (acted by the internationally renowned actress Joan Chen), she is performing a scene from an opera with other elderly female staff members. After her performance is over and all the other actors have dispersed, she returns home with her makeup on, which insinuates that, in real life, in her mind she is still a fairy from heaven. In the next scene, she appears in front of a mirror in her inner room applying rouges and eyeliner, which again shows that she is fond of dressing herself up. She then talks to a man whose face is never shown, using the Shanghai dialect. Strangely, the conversation begins with the visit of her younger sister in Shanghai and goes on to the anti-Japanese war: as the “Japanese invasion started,” many Shanghai residents fled to Sichuan Province of the southwest inland. After the victory, they saw themselves as anti-Japanese warriors and ate spicy food to demonstrate their experience in Sichuan. This narration, apparently of the Nationalist Party’s experience during the anti-Japanese war, appears strangely unique. We can only surmise that the director has a special message for the audience here, because the actress played the role of the wife of a high-level Nationalist Party traitor in the hit movie Lust, Caution not long before.16 To audience members born before the mid-1970s, her nickname – Little Flower – also brings to mind the memory of her acting in her debut movie Little Flower, which laid the foundation of her reputation in 1978 (the same year Gu Minhua, the character she plays, was allocated to “Factory 420” as a graduate of Shanghai Aeronautics University). The two intertextual messages seem to imply that the director aims to keep the audience’s distance from this character. Even more interestingly, after Minhua performs Dream of Red Chamber in a ­Zhejiang Opera play by a group of people dressed up in ancient costumes (her role here is the leading heroine, the sentimental Lin Daiyu), she wears her opera costume when she goes home and carries a basket. She flaunts her way past a block to get home, just as Dali held her transfusion bottle high in her hands when she first appeared. The comparable scenes indicate that they are similarly vain and conceited (Figure 7.2).

130  Orchestrating workers’ memories

Figure 7.2  Gu Minhua returns home after a performance with her makeup on.

Her narration breaks the myth of her sacrifice. She, indeed, chose to leave Shanghai for the frontier when the others all tried to stay there after graduation. However, as she confesses, this is because there were seven people living in her congested attic, which made her life very uncomfortable. Next, her life in the factory was not difficult. She was well received, for there were few female workers in the factory. A piece of inter-textual information is offered in this moment to show her popularity. We are informed that many factory workers said that she was very much like the Little Flower, the principal female character in the homonymous film widely shown across China at the time, which was also the first movie to be a national sensation after the fall of the “Gang of Four.” Minhua narrates two stories; these cover the working conditions of the factory and her experiences in dating, which were microscosms of the society of the early 1980s. The first tale shows the revolutionary spirit of discipline in the factory of the period, which was brought about by political education. A picture of a handsome youth appears in the window, making the workers curious about his identity. Days later, the director of the factory tells them that he was a pilot who sacrificed his life when his airplane was in trouble. His death was caused by a defective component that had been produced by the factory. The director requests that everybody “take self-examination.” While this episode reflects the political awareness at the time, the second tale narrates her loss of youth. Minhua used to date a teacher, whose parents were both high-ranking officials, from an open university (something like a workers’ evening school) at the factory. Someone was infatuated with her and wrote a love letter to him in her name. This caused misunderstandings between them, and they parted ways. By the end of the Sino-Vietnam

Orchestrating workers’ memories  131 War in the mid-1980s, the need for military products was greatly decreased, c­ ausing the factory’s profits to deteriorate. The factory had to turn to ­making ­civilian goods such as refrigerators. Minhua was dispatched to Shanghai to the sales department. Following the subsequent rise in the number of private enterprises in China, she left to start her own company. She was over 30 then and could only be introduced to divorced men with children; however, she was reluctant to be a stepmother. She met a successful businessman with “satisfactory conditions” who used to be a mason. When she learned that he used to know her but had not thought he deserved to be her boyfriend, she was greatly offended, “Even if I am not ‘standard’ now, I am not useless!” Only at the end of her narration do we learn that she was a quality inspector of the precision workshop. Apparently the nature of her profession is now inconsequential and her contribution, like any sufferings, insignificant. Most critics believe the narrations of the two “factory flowers” are about their sacrifices; such stories about the system and the costs are narrated in a dichotomy of family versus nation.17 However, careful examination reveals scant evidence. Dali lost her child because of her negligence, rather than a tragedy caused by the mission. Minhua’s single status is not due to the intervention of the political authority (which is a common claim in cultural works aiming to indict the era), but rather the result of a conscious decision (she always had high expectations of potential lovers) and self-conceit, shown by her wish to marry a successful businessman. Although it is far-fetched for the director to orchestrate the stories to demonstrate the antagonism between “naturalized family” and “alien state,” their reminiscence of the bitter past really reflects the “backfire against class theory and collectivism” by the generation of people after the 1990s, as well as the “loss of order, despair, and bewilderment arising from sharp social diversification and restructuring” in this era.18 When the director attempts to arouse audience sympathy for the “tragedies” with the theme song ­“Little Flower” (the lyrics of which read, “the girl is in all tears looking for her brother”), what he does not attend to is that, as these characters show off their past contributions to and sacrifices for the state with the pretension of seniority, the seeming nostalgia backfires, exposing their regret for past behaviors. It is more a projection of their contemporary feelings than a genuine recollection. When the “factory flower” of the third-generation shows up, we are ­surprised to learn that she does not take a formal job. Su Na – pet name is Nana – was born in 1982. Interestingly enough, her first appearance is the same as Minhua’s, doing her makeup in front of a mirror. Like her two predecessors, she walks the same block dragging her suitcase. She is greeted by an a­ cquaintance, demonstrating her narcissism, but her egocentrism has a higher form. After driving a car past a motorway, she comes to a field of cauliflowers and stops to look into the distance. Following her line of sight, we see high-rise buildings under construction. She comes to the ­dilapidated and empty Chengfa Children’s Middle School where she used

132  Orchestrating workers’ memories to study. When she saunters there in a conceited manner, a voice-over full of her sense of glorification is heard. “I was 1.66 m tall when I was in Senior Grade 1. With such excellent physical conditions, I was even expected to become a model. But unfortunately, I stopped growing taller from then on.” At this moment, she passes a building with a lamp on the wall; she examines the lamp, which shows a hand holding up the “torch” of Marxist gospels, a typical design of Mao’s era. Apparently, she is unfamiliar (and thus curious) with the past (Figure 7.3). Like her predecessors, she starts to talk eloquently as though to an ­interviewer. She was not admitted to university due to her poor academic performance, but she did not she want to work in Factory 420. Immediately shifting topics, her conceitedness returns to her face and her hand gestures. I feel I am doing a good job now. I am a buyer and I need to go to Hong Kong to shop for my patrons once every two weeks. There are many rich people in Chengdu … those rich ladies have too much free time. They want to be fashionable, but feel too tired to shop by themselves. So I am their agent. These ladies fed by the nouveaux riches prefer the most trendy luxury products but are reluctant to go there. That is why she can be an agent for them. She says, in a proud and shamelessly manner, “I will take one thousand per item. I think the profit is ok for me. Not too much anyway.” The interviewer flatters her by responding, “That is great!” This comment brings an awkward smile to Nana’s face so she quickly turns to another topic. She says that a foreigner she met aboard an airplane expected to run a rotational restaurant

Figure 7.3  Nana appears to be melancholic.

Orchestrating workers’ memories  133 and invited her to be the manager. She admits that she is a stranger to this industry but wants to try. “Maybe I can become a professional woman. Don’t you think so?” With firm endorsement from the interviewer, she attempts to disguise her motives for buying a car and showing off her wealth, arguing, “I just want to have a platform for myself. It would be better for my business with those rich ladies if I could buy a car.” Obviously, she is not a representative of contemporary workers. But it is not out of the negligence of the director to take a lazy person like her, rather than a regular worker working in the enclosed workshop of the Foxconn company, to be the “representative” of contemporary Chinese workers. The same as the narcissists, who are selected to be the paragons of workers in the Mao era, Nana here demonstrates the unconscious feelings of superiority of the bourgeois class in contemporary market society. Without any transition, she starts to talk about her mother, a state worker who was laid off in 1995. Her husband, Nana’s father, was the factory manager but refused to use his connections to arrange a job for his wife. Nana’s mother found a temporary job at a wire factory and continues to work there. Nana then explains that in the early days of her father’s retirement, he was at a loss and could not help smoking every morning. She seems to believe that he is lonely because he misses the sense of power. Here, Nana is discussing the gigantic societal-political transformation since the middle of 1990s, when pro-market reform changed the direction of the state. Her father is apparently a Maoist model leader, who followed revolutionary or socialist ethics and refused to exploit his public office for private gain. This, together with his misgivings and anxiety toward national politics (in particular, the pro-market reform policy), is beyond her understanding. Being oblivious to these subtle details, which remain unexplained throughout, the movie unfortunately sanctions this depoliticized narration. Despite her failure to understand the choices of her parents due to her lack of knowledge about that generation, Nana unashamedly mentions her previous cohabitation with three boyfriends. She is reluctant to go home, because of the dejection she feels whenever she goes back. However, during one incident she was forced to return home to retrieve her residence registration. When she realizes that her house key is missing, she has to visit the factory and ask her mother for it. What follows is the first, and only, narration about physical labor in the movie. The moment I walked into the workshop, I found I had to yell and shout to make myself heard because of the roaring machines. I could not find my mother inside. Everyone was wearing a blue uniform and working attentively. This is a typical scene of labor in a large factory in the industrialized era: on the surface, there is virtually no difference between a socialist factory and a capitalist one (there is little difference, if spiritual conditions – class

134  Orchestrating workers’ memories consciousness – is ignored). When Nana finds her mother carrying a heavy steel ingot robotically like a man at the corner of the workshop, she cries out in pain. That night she sleeps at her home and sighs, “I have grown up while lying in bed. I genuinely feel sorry for my parents.” Such a tearful narration can be heartfelt, but it is also a kind of disguise. It is particularly noteworthy that she is emblematic of the fall of the working class and their (socialist) mindsets, rather than a “flower of factory” or the “daughter of a worker” as the publicity for the movie would have us believe.19 In conclusion, through the representation of the three generations of “Flowers of Factory,” the movie unwittingly shows their vanities, affectations and self-conceits. This unconscious lapse by the director is caused by his political awareness.

Empty memories of the working class The question remains whether the memories of the “real” workers are more “authentic.” In any case, the film originated with the director’s feeling that “Memories were lost. That’s why when I read this news, I thought to myself: Wow, in the end, even memories had to be sacrificed.”20 So, did he successfully recreate the “sacrificed” memory or historical experience? The first female worker in the film is Hou Lijun. Neither her appearance nor narration calls to mind a “factory beauty.” She is an ordinary staff worker born in 1953. This repairwoman sits inside a large, empty commuter bus, narrating emotionally about her long separation from her mother, who works in the Chengdu factory, and her maternal grandparents in the Northeast of China. They have had only one opportunity for a family reunion in 14 years. The family worked for the factory for several decades, but she was laid off during the market-oriented economic reform at the age of 41, when her son was a sixth grader. This comparison demonstrates the different political preferences between the two eras. “The mother sacrificed her ‘small family’ for the ‘bigger family.’ Yet when Hou Lijun became a mother, the ‘big family’ no longer needed her.”21 However, she apparently accepts the official rhetoric of downsizing the workforce for higher productivity and happily recalls the farewell party that the factory held for the first group of laidoff workers. They were all in tears and held hands with the leader, asking him, “Was I ever late for work in these years? Was I ever absent-minded at work? Did I ever make a mistake?” The leader replies, “Not at all,” but the factory just “doesn’t need so many people now” because it “has to become a business responsible for its losses and gains.” As a result, the tuition of her child and the living expenses of all three family members are dependent on a monthly maintenance fee of 200 yuan. She narrates the history of the compulsory layoff of state-owned enterprise workers with nominal compensation justified by the excuse of downsizing to increase efficiency during the pro-market reform of the late 1990s. This process is frequently associated with authoritarian privatization, the cheap sale of state-owned assets and

Orchestrating workers’ memories  135 governmental corruption. Yet, she does not express doubt or criticism. She shows merely the pathos of workers and often displays her willingness to “share the hardship of the state,” as called for by the government. Worse, this suffering is soon replaced by an inspirational story of “becoming successful out of personal diligence,” a tale favored by official propaganda. She posts on the wall her maxim “Go ahead courageously regardless of any obstacle ahead,” which she repeats a couple of times before going out to find a job. To earn a living, she worked as a peddler selling Michelia champaca but stopped because the police would confiscate her stall because she had no license. Now, she works as a tailor at home. She believes that, “One grows older slowly when keeping busy.” The last scene switches to two middle-aged women standing together and singing a happy song, “We have an appointment tonight, a sleepless night; when the bell rings for the new millennium, come on, my dear friends! Come on, my dear friends. …” The unfairness of the economic transformation is hidden and overlooked in this narrative. Apparently, her educational experience by the Communist Party facilitated her acceptance of the official rhetoric. To be sure, other staff workers engage in protests, and the director admits that he has omitted many “extreme” personal memories, instead selecting only those he believes to be “representative.” His political stance determines what is represented and what is left out. Doubtless, the personal narration of this worker unwittingly shows the style of an official narrative. What about the narrative of the real worker “acting” as himself? This male worker, He Xikun, is the first to appear in the interviews. Sitting in an empty and dilapidated workshop, he does not tell his own story. The caption says that he was born in Chengdu in 1948 and became the apprentice of a locksmith in 1964 before joining the PLA. Strangely, we do not know his present identity. He begins to recollect the past and then shortly later, he visits his master, the leader of the work team that migrated from Shenyang to Chengdu in the 1950s. During the conversation, they recall the master’s instructions that the disciple should take care of work tools and recycle those that that would typically be deemed ­useless but are still usable. The work ethics of the master inspired He Xikun to stay in the workplace during the Cultural Revolution, when few workers remained in the factory. The master appears to be stubbornly, unreasonably and blindly devoted to his job. One particular case is noteworthy. The ­master recalls working overtime, even during Chinese festivals in 1959, when he came to the factory. The schedule was tight as the Korean War was taking place. Apparently, the master’s memory has a problem (the Korean War ended in 1954); He Xikun does not correct it. Such a confused memory adds complexity to the simplistic labor scene, and renders the remembrance utterly unreliable (Figure 7.4). He Xikun attempts to tell something about his master, but his recollection is actually very simple; apart from talking about the conceptualized details of treasuring tools, he merely mutters some vacuous concepts such

136  Orchestrating workers’ memories

Figure 7.4  O  ld worker He Xikun tells the story in a decrepit, spacious room without decoration.

as “You have made great contribution to the factory!”22 Possibly, because he soon left the factory and joined the army, he had very limited work experience and knowledge about industrial production. Consequently, the long-separated two generations actually could only communicate through silence, with the disciple stroking the forehead of his master, while the latter uttering some meaningless groans from his throat, as if he had lost his memory and ability of oral communication.23 Regarding the scene where he remains silent over what his master says, the following comment is convincing: It is noteworthy that the role of He Xikun as an interviewer in the ­ aster-disciple meeting is exactly the role that the director Jia Zhangke m plays in all the subsequent interview scenes. They used to share the same history as interviewees. As the lucky “escapees,” however, they have lost the continuous association and experience with such a history and therefore, can only rebuild their memories through the interviewee’s narrations. The narration of the movie starts in silence or lapse of memory, and it may be interpreted in a Lacanian way: Memory only works in vain to fill up the vacancy left by the missing objects; and language could never reach reality by its nature. However, the place where silence resides is not a pure gap. Instead, it is a specific identity. When the narrator is a mother, a daughter, a single woman or a successful ­figure inside/outside the system, he/she has his/her own story to tell.

Orchestrating workers’ memories  137 Why can’t a worker tell his or her story?… How shall we look historically at the speechless old worker? What other messages does it convey other than an aging life and a profession in a desperate position?24 Apparently, He Xikun’s visit to the forgetful and deaf master is simply to pay his last tribute, a ritualistic mourning of the good old days. Another incompetent former worker the director presents is a retired manager, Guan Fengjiu, who was the vice secretary of the factory’s Party Committee. Although the senior manager was considered a member of the working class, no relevant narration is provided regarding his job, relating to either physical work or ideological supervision. His role is almost non-­ existent in the movie. According to the caption, he was born in Haicheng in the Liaoning Province in 1935 and used to be the head of the Security Department of the Chengfa Group. The director permits him to tell only one story, about the relocation of the factory. Interestingly, his interview is arranged in a venue like a worker’s theatre, where he sits in the auditorium close to the camera. On the remote stage, there are two youngsters playing badminton; the stage curtain is decorated with an image of the meandering Great Wall. It seems to imply that the era of defending country and homestead is gone forever and the familiar place has become a venue for fitness and entertainment (Figure 7.5). The account of Secretary Guan relates to the first half of the factory’s history; the “recollection” of Song Weidong, played by renowned actor Chen Jianbin (1970- ), consists of the second half of the legend. Born in 1996, he was set to be a successor to his father’s career and is now vice manager of the GM Office. He smokes and talks in an eloquent manner. Proudly, he is

Figure 7.5  G  uan Fengjiu introduces his experience in an auditorium.

138  Orchestrating workers’ memories designing the blueprint for the future: the proceeds from land transfers will be used to build a new industrial zone, and the plot of land where his office is located will become a five-star hotel. This narration is obvious recognition of the achievement brought by the official policies of “reducing workforce for higher productivity” and privatization of lands. The audience would easily forget the laid-off Hou Lijun upon seeing this excitement and optimism, for the two are separated by Hao Dali. Weidong continues to introduce the “cradle to grave” educational, working and welfare system enjoyed by any large-scale state-owned factory in the Mao era. In the neo-liberal rhetoric of this era, such a system is chastised as bringing a burden upon the business, resulting in financial loss and low productivity. But Weidong proudly claims that an independent factory like this is great and there is no need to “have a contact with the local community.” The only tie, according to him, was fighting with local youths. He recalls that he was once spared by those youths in a fight simply because it was the day of Premier Zhou Enlai’s death. Through this incident, his narration skips smoothly to 1976. Thereafter, the changes occurring in society are indirectly reflected in his lost love. Due to the profitability of the factory, after high school he stayed in the factory instead of going to college, while his girlfriend left for college. When the factory became less profitable, his girlfriend broke up with him at the request of her parents. He remembers a then-famous Japanese TV series. With the sound of the interlude piece, his juvenile trauma becomes another type of “sacrifice.” In this poetic recall, the workers’ past labor scenes not narrated, and the feelings of workers of the “new era” are absent. Other than Su Na, who abandons her worker’s job and runs her own businesses, we only see one other former worker who left his job to enter the business of entertainment. Zhao Gang, born in 1974, then starts speaking of his experience. He narrates his excitement about the outside world when he traveled from Chengdu to the Northeast province Jilin by train after receiving notification of his admission to a vocational school in 1990, as well as the new feelings of wearing a uniform and being an intern in a factory. However, he was soon bored with mechanical grinding work. The dull, insipid work killed his passion, and he made up his mind to adventure in the new world. This choice is more a demonstration of the fall of the working class and the multitude of new opportunities in the outside world on the eve of China’s market-oriented economic reform than the youngster’s initial discovery of the dullness and repetitiveness of industrial labor. After the interview, Zhao Gang and his father have a photo taken together in front of a fighter jet. After a sequence of a security guard inspecting the desolate factory, the camera shifts to a fade-in shot of an almost still scene, in which a group of peasant workers, each holding a steel drill, takes a picture in front of a construction site numbly watching the camera. This sort of community picture often emerges in Jia’s movies; they reveal that in the director’s mind, the workers, past or the present, are ignorant masses without distinct political awareness (Figure 7.6).

Orchestrating workers’ memories  139

Figure 7.6  A  group of peasant-workers in front of a construction site numbly watching the camera.

Cultural politics of “oral history” Jia Zhangke admitted that he gave up filming his original script; he preferred personal stories because he believes Chinese films or literature “used to conform to the mainstream stance and ideology,” and he “hope[s] that our relation to history can have a personal – and genuine – starting point.”25 Does his “personal” view of history become more “genuine” than the “mainstream stance and ideology”? In addition to reservations about putting real people and actors together, film reviewers have concerns showing that the ultimate product did not necessarily meet the director’s expectation: Is the filmmaker bemused or amused by a factory bureaucrat’s earnest remark that “our offices will become a five-star hotel”? And what is one to make of the casually revealed information that the movie itself was partially financed by 24 City‘s developer? Have we been watching a kind of infomercial? Is there irony or pathos in the juxtaposition of retired workers enthusiastically singing “The International” as their factory collapses?26 We can find many ambiguities or contradictory elements in cinematic space. In this oral recount, the order of the characters taking their turns runs as follows: 1 He Xiku (1948- ): Senior worker. 2 Guan Fengjiu (1935- ): Senior manager. 3 Hou Lijun (1953- ): A female worker sacrificing her family life for the factory and making a living independently after her layoff.

140  Orchestrating workers’ memories 4 Hao Dali (1937?- ): A first-generation representative of the “factory flowers” who sacrificed being together with her family for the sake of the factory. 5 Song Weidong (1966- ): The present manager. 6 Gu Minhua (1958- ): A second-generation factory beauty who sacrifices her youth for the factory. 7 Zhao Gang (1974- ): A new-generation youth who puts an end to the traditional worker’s family. 8 Su Na (1982- ): A new-generation broker. If we re-order the positions of the fifth and sixth narrators, then the chronological order fits in with the evolution of the factory. In this chain of recollection, “the narrative from the roles of mother, daughter, or single woman normally illustrates their experiences of separation between private and public life,” whereas the males’ narrations of father and son stories tend to demonstrate a more complicated meaning of country and family. Moreover, “the close ties of consanguinity squeezed together within factory dorms seem to be the only thing that people can identify with” in the 50-year ­evolution of the factory.27 Applying the dichotomies of planned economy and market-oriented ­economy and between collectivism and individualism, the movie follows a rigid and dogmatic mentality in which market economy and individualism prevail. Abiding by the rule, it chooses the characters according to the content of their narrations. Besides, the director, who did not share the characters’ experiences, relies on the impersonation of these characters to establish his imagination and perception. He admits, “I thought I could only fully comprehend these real people’s feelings through imagination. I’m not a historian writing history. I’m a film director reconstructing experiences ­incurred in history.”28 This confession shows the fictional nature of the documentary-style film. Jia believes that, by arranging professional impersonators to act as real people while the audience does not know that it is a performance, the movie will be turned into a fake documentary. He thus suggests: If there is any fictitious part, it is necessary to tell the audience, which part is rehearsed with an actor or intervened by the director’s imagination. I believe all productions have been plotted and interfered with by the director. From this perspective, (to make) a movie, which tells a 50-year history with the hues of recalls and retrospections, there would be many factors that have contributed to this method. In this sense, the spectators should be told directly that it is a performance.29 The statement seems to be in line with Berthold Brecht’s theory of Estrangement. However, Brecht expects the spectators to understand the ridiculousness of routine phenomena and behaviors and to mount criticism against the capitalist world and unveil imaginations of alternative life. Jia’s intention of notifying spectators that what is being shown is merely a play, by

Orchestrating workers’ memories  141 contrast, displays his strong distrust of (recalled and written) history. In other words, it is a subversion of the original concept of documentary under a neo-historicist concept; it is also a deviation from the initial intention of the Sixth-Generation directors, which aims to reveal the reality under the slogan “my camera does not lie.” In China, the opinion that historical truth can only be imagined, rather than demonstrated, originated in the mid-1980s and was highly popular among so-called “avant-garde fiction.” It shows the distrust with and the abandonment of the official, grand narrative. In this movie, we find some style traits similar to that particular brand of fiction. For instance, when Dali loses her child, the screen displays a caption that reads: The Fengjie Government immediately organized the public to search for the child along the Yangtze river; and the factory had also dispatched people to do the same thereafter. But the child was never found ­(excerpts from The History of Chengfa Group). Considering it is highly unlikely that such a personal experience is kept in an official record, it spontaneously reminds us of the fabrication of history in the famed avant-garde novelist Gefei’s story “Qinghuang.” Let us go deeper into the messages the director intends to convey. Through showing the sacrifice of the female characters, he is particularly keen to demonstrate that country and society are alien to individuals. A revival of the past from the perspective of common, universal human nature indicates that, while on the surface the movie displays experiences vis-à-vis the background of that era, in truth, it only displays the director’s understanding of them – and he is oblivious to the ideology of the time, which constructed the thinking of the people. Their pain is expressed in the present age of the postsocialist era, when the original purpose for their sacrifice no longer exists (although they might not realize it, and this does not mean that such sacrifices were not painful then). What is more, their pain is now actuated by the depoliticized atmosphere in which they acquire certain psychological compensation through this cathartic release. They believe that they have sacrificed for the state, yet the state today is different from that of the past. In this light, their experiences actually become a critique of a depoliticized country. On the surface, however, their narration seems to be a criticism of the mechanism of the erstwhile socialist state, in which the personal traumas of different eras are lumped together to show the costs of the inhuman, planned economy. What is particularly worthy of analysis is the appearance of female ­characters in the movie. All the female workers active in the Maoist era in the movie now appear aggressive, offensive and narcissistic. While ­ostensibly they are continually engaging in nostalgic remembrance of the past, in reality they only recall their honorable “sacrifice” in a rather self-conceited manner. On the other hand, the young ladies of the postsocialist period are shown to be fashion lovers putting on makeup every day, such as the ­Minhua

142  Orchestrating workers’ memories and Nana, who nevertheless are presented as more “human” and normal than their elders. Even the broker Nana is flattered by the interviewer. In this way, through the naturalization of the traditional concept of the female gender, the mainstream concept that it is better for women to return to their proper place in the home (rather than serving the socialist enterprise in the same way as men) is once again subtly confirmed. While the female characters are foregrounded, we need to notice the silent and amnesic part of the movie. At the end, when the camera is presenting a panorama of the city, the screen displays a poem that reads “Chengdu / even only your missing part / is enough to give me a lifetime glory.” Doubtlessly, the director intends to display this missing element. However, he covers up more than he reveals. In any case, such “missing part,” whatever it may be, bears little relation to the present prosperity of the city, as demonstrated by the skyscrapers seen in the panorama. In the cinematic space, the “missing part” seems merely to be the abandoned factory, a product of a special system and era. It can only be so because the past here is objectified as a special space and profession.30 However, what we can infer is that this missing part refers to nothing but labor. A poem appears in the movie as follows: “The entire factory is like a giant eyeball, and labor the darkest part of all.” Nevertheless, the portrayal of labor in the movie, if any, is flat and lifeless. Surely, the high intensity of labor in the socialist days for the purpose of industrialization was also conducted in the manufacturing mode of Fordism. However, the movie’s approach of de-­ politicization does not allow real senior workers to express their feelings regarding labor, and none of them is permitted to talk about the class awareness that used to have an impact on their passions for work as well as their political life. Obviously, to the director, labor is labor, which has no difference physically and psychologically, or in terms of its appearance in socialism or capitalism. However, this is merely a metaphysical and non-historical understanding. This mistake can be examined through another perspective concerning the geological relationship between Shenyang and Chengdu, which is “metonymically displaced to be the antithesis between factory and city; and such an antithesis is denoted not merely spatially, but also temporally signifying ‘the Subject’ and its ‘Other’.”31 Nevertheless, while the movie fully utilizes this city as a token – a city of poem and leisurely life – Chengdu as a city is virtually invisible in the movie, until the last moment, when it is shown in a panoramic shot at the end of the movie. It is reminiscent of what the manager Weidong says to the interviewer: the folks felt that the factory was a self-sustaining world and did not need to have relations with the outside world. From an isolated perspective, it is a fair assessment. Yet, it is actually an extended metaphor of the atomic individual, which severs its ties from society and interpersonal relations. This means that the film cannot provide a concrete context of the various eras; by contrast, the labor is only significant in such a concrete social, political and interpersonal milieu. Consequently, the factory and city form a binary contradiction spatially in the movie. However, this is simply a projection of the present knowledge,

Orchestrating workers’ memories  143 which is deemed common and natural. What is more, the “vast median between the binary spaces – the city of the working class” is invisible here, which becomes a problem because a city in the era of the planned economy was organized and constructed on the basis of (the needs of) the working class. The central position of the working class in the city corresponds to the national identity of socialist China, i.e. a class-nation. Specifically, (China’s) national identity was established through identification among the leading class.32 As such, the “invisibility of the working class in a city signifies the elapse of a national identity.”33 As said, this emplotment is merely a projection. It projects the feelings of laborers in the postsocialist era (e.g., workers isolated from each other in Foxconn-like factory settings) into that past era. These interviewees, even the real workers, are already strangers to the political feelings of that era. At the implicit instigation of the interviewer, they are actually encouraged to express their sense of sacrifice and trauma: they are “who were often treated high-handedly and whose work often separated them brutally from their families.”34 It is worth noting that none of them talks about the glory and pride they had in the past or mentions the various privileges they enjoyed as the leading class (at most, they only mention their relatively high salaries and welfare), the part of which, to be sure, is possibly deliberately omitted by the director when he selected what should be included in the movie. The resulting effect can be anticipated: the film is “clouded by desolation that it’s all gone and they are on the scrapheap, and a sense that there has not been sufficient gratitude for this work.” What is often neglected, however, is the postsocialist transformation that has brought out or preconditioned this pitiable atmosphere, “the state that should be expressing it, and for which they sacrificed their lives and happiness, has disappeared and been replaced by a … agency devoted to a new economy.”35 In light of this fact, the following observation is insightful: The working-class acquires the patents of industrial labor, but it loses the totality of their own city and life … History is thus recalled in such an aesthetic way. However, such an art of recollection is completely unable to imagine the history of an alternative type of factory, a history of a production space that was closely linked to the fate of the general life of a metropolis.36

Conclusion The name of a new real estate project, 24 City, is simultaneously a reference to Chengdu, which originates from an ancient Chinese poem. Just like “the poetic, upscale real estate project 24 City replaces the remains of

144  Orchestrating workers’ memories the factory,” the poets from Chengdu, whose poems continuously appear throughout the movie, also “use their poems to cover all the interviews of Northeastern Chinese Working Class.”37 However, the interviews shown on screen are not randomly chosen from the archives; rather, they are selected on the basis of the director’s preemptive concept: We need to face the fifty-year industrial memories of the People’s ­Republic of China. In the past, we have chosen the planned economy for national prosperity and individual well-being. But what have we paid for such a trial in the past fifty years?38 In other words, what he intends to record is the cost – the painful sacrifices. On the surface, this selection has been made out of the appreciation of the workers’ lofty spirits. In actuality, it is more of an exposure (to indict inhuman experience). With this motivation, the Chinese working class, which was the historic subject, is dissolved in a mechanism of displacement and projection: From the eulogy of the “contributions” of collectivism to the accusations of “suppression” of individualism, from the accumulation theory from the perspective of national modernization to the theory of sacrifice premised on the position of a universal value, from the “whitewashing” of the mainstream propaganda to the “exposure” of avant-garde arts, the stereotyping of the same history always persists regardless of their differences in value judgment. What is supplementary to such an external production space is only the family life of the workers. Factory and family seem to be the entire life of the working class … “The elder son of the Republic” (namely the working class) has owned only factories but no cities, and only has its labor and family-life being examined; but there is none of an organic and vivid representation of its organic life and historical subjectivity.39 Indeed, Jia Zhangke himself has admitted that he “keeps wondering how many startling memories remain concealed when the workers stop talking and remain silent,” and he surmises that “perhaps those silences are the most important.”40 Apparently, those concealed memories have never been revealed throughout the movie.

Notes 1 Jia Zhangke贾樟柯, Zhongguo Gongren Fangtanlu中国工人访谈录 [Interviews of Chinese Workers], Jinan: Shandong Huabao Chubanshe, 2008, 3. 2 Edmund Lee, “Invisible Cities: An Interview with Jia Zhangke,” Time Out, June 19, 2009. www.timeout.com.hk/film/features/24940/jia-zhangke-on-24-city. html. Accessed April 11, 2016.

Orchestrating workers’ memories  145 3 Reuters/Hollywood Reporter, “‘24 City’ a Moving Elegy to Modern-day China.” www.reuters.com/article/review-film-24city-dc-idUSN1846231420080519. Accessed April 10, 2016. 4 Liu Yan, “ ‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying” (“工人老大哥”最后的 家国身影) [The Last Image of Chinese Working Class Brothers], Zhongguo Jingji 中国经济 [Chinese Economics], No. 7, 2009. 5 Reuters/Hollywood Reporter, “‘24 City’ a Moving Elegy to Modern-day China.” 6 A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, “Reality Rudely Intrudes in the Screening Rooms,” New York Time, May 19, 2008. www.nytimes.com/2008/05/19/movies/ 19cann.html?_r=2&scp=13&sq=Cannes+Film+Festival&st=nyt&oref=slogin#. Accessed April 10, 2016. 7 Richard Corliss, “Cannes Gets Real,” Time, May 17, 2008. www.time.com/time/ arts/article/0,8599,1807446-2,00.html. Accessed April 11, 2016. 8 Jim Hoberman, “The Cannes Film Festival Thus Far,” The Village Voice, May 20, 2008. www.villagevoice.com/film/the-cannes-film-festival-thus-far-6388296. Accessed April 16, 2016. 9 Scott Tobias, “24 City,” June 4, 2009, https://film.avclub.com/24-city-1798206346. Accessed April 10, 2016. 10 Edmund Lee, “Invisible Cities: An Interview with Jia Zhangke.” 11 Peter Bradshaw, “Review: 24 City,” The Guardian, April 29, 2010. www .theguardian.com/film/2010/apr/29/24-city-review. Accessed April 11, 2016. 12 Hsiu-Chuang Deppmana, “Reading Docufiction: Jia Zhangke’s 24 City,” ­Journal of Chinese Cinemas 8, no. 3 (2014): 188. 13 Peter Bradshaw, “Review: 24 City.” 14 Ibid. 15 Critic Jim Hoberman notes that this is an “offbeat, vaguely absurd” detail: “an elderly worker walking past the doomed plant holding aloft her bag of IV fluid as if it were a torch of freedom.” See Jim Hoberman, “A Chinese Factory Reborn as Condo Heaven in 24 City.” 16 Because Minhua was born in 1958, it is possible that she did not receive the ­official and orthodox teaching of national history, and thus is susceptible to the popular, revisionist historical narrative nowadays, i.e. flattering the ­contributions of the Nationalist Party during the Anti-Japanese War. 17 Liu Yan, “‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying.” 18 Ibid. Excerpt from Dai Jinhua戴锦华, Yinxing Shuxie (隐形书写) [Invisible ­Writings], Nanjing: Jiangsu Renmin chubanshe, 1999, 217. 19 According to an online report, we are justified in believing that there was a scene in the domestic version that was deleted for a particular reason (possibly the over-long running time of the movie). In this episode, Nana confesses that her greatest wish is to “make lots of money” and to “buy an apartment for my parents at the 24 City.” Workers living an arduous life like her parents could not afford such good accommodation. But an agent such as Nana could become financially sound enough to afford a much better life. The socialist concept of “labor is the greatest honor in life” cherished by her parents became mindless, if not thoroughly abandoned, in the postsocialist era. Thus, when watching the scene in the foreign version in which the heroine declares that she would buy an apartment for her parent because “I’m the daughter of a worker!” critic Jim Hoberman notes that the “apparent hollowness of this proletarian pride… is ­accentuated by a burst of ambient technopop.” Jim Hoberman, “A Chinese ­Factory Reborn as Condo Heaven in 24 City.” 20 Edmund Lee, “Invisible cities: an interview with Jia Zhangke.” 21 Liu Yan, “‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying.” 22 Ibid.

146  Orchestrating workers’ memories 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Ibid. Ibid. Edmund Lee, “Invisible Cities: An Interview with Jia Zhangke.” Jim Hoberman, “A Chinese Factory Reborn as Condo Heaven in 24 City.” Liu Yan, “‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying.” Edmund Lee, “Invisible Cities: An Interview with Jia Zhangke.” Xu Zhiyuan许知远 and Jia Zhangke贾樟柯, “Duihua: Lish yu Shidai.” (对话：历 史与时代) [Dialog: History and the Era]. www.eduww.com/Article/200904/23710. html. Accessed December 12, 2015. Liu Yan, “‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying.” Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Peter Bradshaw, “Review: 24 City.” Ibid. Liu Yan, “‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying.” Ibid. Jia Zhangke, Zhongguo Gongren Fangtanlu, 3. Liu Yan, “‘Gongren Laodage’ Zuihoude Jiaguo Shenying.” Jia Zhangke, “What Remains is Silence,” China Perspectives 1 (2010): 57.

8 A postmodern narrative of historical fragments and elitist historicism On the fiction and reality in I Wish I Knew (2010) Historians generally acknowledge the fact that Shanghai was “a colonial creation and centre of nationalist sentiment, hotbed of vice and incubator of radical politics” in modern China; in the meantime, it was also home “to the most cosmopolitan aspects of China’s Republican culture of the 1930s and 40s” and “a stronghold of radical leftism during the Cultural ­Revolution.”1 Apart from the fact that it “stands as a symbol of the country’s traumatic colonized past,” with China’s rising financial and political power, being ­China’s largest city today, it now also typifies the state’s “growing 21st century might.”2 Jia’s more-than-two-hour film I Wish I Knew, released by Shanghai Oriental Film Distribution Company in China in 2010, was a commissioned product at the official invitation of the organizers of Shanghai World Expo 2010. It is praised as a “wonderfully subtle and constantly intriguing picture” that “feels like an ode to a city that from a trading port changed into a state-of-the-art metropolis and a hub for entrepreneurs, ­artists, and tourists alike.”3 The film could be called a “real” documentary − namely, it consists of interviews of real people in real life; it records various historical legends, ups-and-downs of renowned elites and reckless social unrests alternatively staged in Shanghai. While the semi-documentary 24 City intended to re-present the history of the People’s Republic through narrating the changing destiny of Chinese working class, this “full and real” documentary ­i mplicitly emblematizes the national history by showing the development of the metropolitan city, covering more than one and a half centuries. As critic Tony Ryans aptly notes, there is “an underlying assumption that it’s useful to examine the past to understand the frequently wretched circumstances of the present and their effect on the behavior and thinking of Chinese people.”4 For this purpose, the director has adopted all sorts of techniques from features films, which seemingly “indicates the possibility for a young Chinese director to achieve the complete self-expression for the history of the nation.”5 Has Jia Zhangke succeeded in “presenting and seeking the real lessons and the universality above the cases he presents”? Is this “documentary” a real “complete self-expression” for Chinese modern history?6 This film is intended to be digested by foreigners; does it provide an understandable and convincing narrative of the twisted national destiny?

148  Historical fragments and elitist historicism To achieve the self-proclaimed effect, the director employs the form of “oral history,” which has been quite popular at home and abroad in recent years. Under the tide of postmodern historiography, such “oral history” ­focuses on personal experience, which is believed to be allow more room for different views from ordinary people, more real than official “grand narrative,” and can avoid one-sidedness of elite historiography. However, critic Daniel Kasman finds that “a politely complacent tone” in the film sabotages “the new, overlong, and very ‘inside’ documentary,” and the “overly leisurely and visually flat interviews with people… whose connection to the China of here and now is left tantalizingly out of reach” render it less ­persuasive.7 Indeed, although this film takes the form of oral narrations, it interviews mainly the descendants of noble families, except for one ­offspring of a r­ evolutionary martyr and one model worker famed in the 19502 – n ­ evertheless, now they both are social elites. Then, what features does such an elite narration show? The analysis of the filmic contents and techniques informs us of the latest trend of remembering modern history within the cultural community in China. Generally, Shanghai gives people the impression of being a highly modernized metropolis. The opening shots of the film are about a large bank, which lives up to people’s expectations. A worker is scrubbing a bronze lion established in front of the bank. If this man, as some critics suggest, is the director himself, this scene is thought provoking: not all the characters in the film are the real people in the world of Shanghai. As a matter of fact, both this minor character and the “ghost of the city” lingering around the streets and lanes of Shanghai played by Zhao Tao, the director’s wife who plays major role in most of his movies, confirm the existence of subjective intervention in general and the allegorical nature of these two “characters” in particular. The majestic giant lion statue being scrubbed and the smaller one looking pained under the bigger lion’s feet, remind Chinese audiences that on one hand, the state has now turned into “a lion awake”; on the other, China has gone through a history of being trampled and oppressed by western power (Figure 8.1). “Jasmine Flower” and “Wandering Girl Singer,” two melodies popular in the Republic era (1911–1949), play in the background; the audience hears a mixture of noise, including whispers, and sees a cruise ship roaring by on the river. Then, a shot scans passengers on the ship, just like what we see in the beginning of Jia’s Still Life. Subsequently, the words “上海 2009” (Shanghai 2009) flash by, and a solitary woman (played by Zhao Tao), wearing white, thin clothes and a surprised facial expression, passes by the rubble on the shore. She looks around, holding a small fan in her hand and over her face. The evident contrast between her clothes and the winter items the ­passengers wear makes her seem alien and to have no idea of the season. Within this weird atmosphere, the film starts showing the interviews one by one. The first interviewee is Chen Danqing 陈丹青 (1953- ), an elite painter in his 60s. In a deserted hall, he recalls his childhood during the Culture

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  149

Figure 8.1  The historical specter, holding a small painting fan in her hand and over her face, walks around.

Revolution. Altogether, 17 people appear one by one to narrate their experiences, which can be divided into three categories. The first group (interviewees two through nine) tells about life before 1949. Interviewees 10 to 15, describe life during Mao’s period, and include those people who emigrated to Hong Kong. The last two persons “got rich first” after the reform and opening-up. In view of this sequence, we may wonder why Chen Danqing is chosen to be the first narrator, since he never mentions how he has struggled to succeed. Apparently, he merely plays the role of initiating the narration; he informs the audience that most residents of Shanghai are immigrants from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas. However, his identity suggests that this modern history is narrated from the perspective of the middle class. In any case, he is among the few cultural elites who, since the late 1990s, promoted the romantic fantasy of the Republican era in general and Republican Shanghai in particular as a “golden era” and a “lost paradise” in popular imagination, which brought about a sensational “Republic fever” in the cultural field. Does Jia Zhangke’s re-presentation of the life in the period by arranging the narrations of the interviewees succeed in breaking away from the conventional illusion or fall once more into it? My analysis will suggest that while the movie tries to represent ­China’s history in the past century with a practice of oral history, it keeps a ­postmodern way of recording historic fragments, while maintaining an elitist historicism repudiated by postmodernism. Being the spokesperson of the individualistic bourgeois class living in the contemporary market society, the film nevertheless does not uphold a firm subjectivity, which is a r­ esult of its shortage of the horizon of political economy and class analysis. ­Consequently, it offers a spectacular kaleidoscope of the vicissitudes of ­national destiny and an interpretation based on a humanist point of view filled with contradictions and tensions.

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Feasting and revelry: the life of plutocrats and gang leaders Let us first look at how the life of the elites in the Republican era is presented. The third interviewee is Zhang Yuansun张原孙 (1930- ), whose grandfather, Zhang Yiyun张逸云(1871–1933), was called “the King of MSG.” Through Zhang Yuansun’s daily life, his leisurely grace is vividly captured: d ­ rinking coffee, enjoying parties and dancing with the music popular in the 30s and 40s of the last century. He is quite good at English songs, and he sings I Wish I Knew so well that Jia Zhengke chooses the name for the ­English title of the film.8 People at the party Zhang attends are all m ­ embers of the so-called “Ningbo Gang,” coming from the treaty port Ningbo, which is closed to Shanghai. Many of these oldies, who frequently fly to and fro North ­A merica or Europe, attend such parties once they return to Shanghai (Figure 8.2). In his narration, Zhang recalls the life of three generations: his grandfather’s, his father’s and his; all are “typical” capitalists of Republican Shanghai. His narration delivers the extravagant lifestyle enjoyed by these entrepreneurs, who nevertheless are patriots. For one thing, as early as the 1930s, Zhang’s father enjoyed driving a luxury yacht and air conditioning. He was lavish in food and clothes; he claimed that he could have a good reason to die because he had already had quite a satisfactory life. In addition, he was so crazy about Peking Opera that he not only paid a lot to those famous actors for playing minor roles in the show he masterminded, but he also tried to attract larger audiences by offering free mosquito coils and MSG. His romantic personality apparently passed to his son, who takes the floor and dances in several clips. Zhang’s grandfather, who once was a successful candidate in the imperial examinations at the provincial level, set up a monosodium glutamate factory, which not only broke the monopolization of Japanese productions on the Chinese market and squeezed them out of China, but was also twice awarded first-rate honors at World Expos.

Figure 8.2  Zhang Yuansun (right) is dancing in the party attended by the “Ningbo Gang.”

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  151 To realize his dream of developing industry in China, he even donated a customized German-made fighter to the KMT government with 10,000 taels of silver. All the descriptions Zhang Yuansun offers seem to present two three-dimensional figures, though pitifully, there none of their photos are displayed. We cannot figure out why their careers failed. The next person to appear is Du Meiru 杜美如 (1930- ), whose father, Du Yueshen 杜月笙 (1888–1951), was the infamous “gang chief” in Republican Shanghai. Before she starts to speak, a series of montage clips from the sixth-generation Lou Ye’s film Suzhou River (1997), and some shots of workers slogging with heavy burdens, are shown. A few brief lines of words appear on the screen giving background information on the evolution of Shanghai: 1842–1929, Shanghai was set up as a treaty port under the Treaty of Nanjing. On December 17th, 1843, the British Consulate in Shanghai, George Balfour, arrived and Shanghai officially opened to the world. Since then, concessions abounded and gangs clustered. Only later do we learn that these intertitles are tied in with the modernization discourse. People may wonder how the daughter of the head of a gang would describe her father. Yet we are not supposed to expect too much, for the second generation is unlikely to expose and criticize patriarchal authority. In fact, the image she sketches out is one of kind humanity: the father was loyal and righteous, the embodiment of “benevolence, righteousness, wisdom and trust,” as stipulated in the traditional Chinese moral codes. “My father, Du Yuesheng, seldom talked about the gang affairs. The only things he mentioned was that one should say ‘enjoy it and thank you,’ and the chopsticks should be held upside down like this at table” (Du Meiru signs with her hands). Since she claims that she has no idea of what her father did within his gang, those evil things are completely left out of the picture she presents. By contrast, by showing his teaching of his scion, the godfather appeared to be a scholar of propriety, who set the example himself to educate the next generation. The woman continues her narration. One day, we took his car and stopped near Lafei Fang of the Fuxing Road. He had several bodyguard around him. Then ‘clank’ opened the door, and those men jumped out of the car. They followed the car closely to the gate, made a call first, and then my father entered the gate when it barely opened. Those guys did not drive away until the gate closed. Yes, he was afraid of assassination. Since big bosses like Du Yuesheng were afraid of being assassinated, when associated with what the second interviewee tells of – a democratic

152  Historical fragments and elitist historicism progressive who was assassinated by the KMT – the gangster seemed to be a victim of the oppressive regime. Such a delivery made the audience more inclined to forget the fact that Du was a gangster who kept killing his rivals as well as innocent people. As a matter of fact, his fear of being murdered was nothing but his dread of the threat of hatred and revenge; he should never be compared to those civil progressives persecuted and repressed by the reactionary regime. The daughter suddenly and intentionally switches to her father’s childhood experience. When he was 14, his father died. Then his mother died after she gave birth to a girl. He was so poor that he could not afford a coffin for his parents. Covered by a mat, my poor grandpa was thrown into some muddy place…Later, a tree happened to grow there and its roots ­encircled grandpa’s body, which, according to a geomancer, was a great fortune. Here, the description of his poverty and the narration of a geomantic omen make his later “success” or “prosperity” an inspirational legend of ancestral blessing and individual efforts, which is not only consistent with Chinese traditional precepts, but also similar to the prevalent “chicken soup for the soul” provided by elite celebrities in contemporary China for folks to digest. The childhood experience has a deeper function of minimizing his criminal persona through a metonymical displacement. He was naughty… like doing some little damages. So naughty that ­ eople dislike him. Oh, yes, he was surrounded by the kids all the day p and he was their leader. He claimed, ‘A bounder I am notwithstanding, I still should be the big boss,’ ha ha. Thus, the villainous gang head’s evil deeds were transformed into ­“mischievous deeds” of boys, something that originated from the “mischief” of childhood. The truth, that everyone was scared of him, becomes simply that they “dislike him.” Since he was “disliked” just because he was naughty due to the children’s nature, this narrative even gives us an impression of a “lovely” kid. Instead of simply denying the “authenticity” of Du Rumei’s narration, we need to focus on what she, intentionally or unintentionally, has chosen to overlook in her narration and what such narration covers, transforms and implies. Moreover, we should think about the role the director plays here in deciding which part of the interview appears in the movie. Ostensibly, the director, who never shows up in the screen, takes a neutral stance. Yet, the gladness on the interviewee’s face, her exclamations, the excitement in her gestures and the articulations of the unseen interviewer make it abundantly clear that Jia is actually encouraging her particular way of narration, as in 24 City. Next, Du Meiru narrates how her mother was introduced to be the fourth wife of Du Yuesheng. Although she admits that Du’s wives often schemed

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  153 against each other and her mother was bullied, she claims that “they often play mahjong together, just like sisters.” The two statements apparently conflicted. Her narrative of Du’s life after the establishment of the People’s Republic is enveloped in a sentimental atmosphere. After Du escaped to Hong Kong, he applied to the Taiwan authorities for 140 passports so that he, with his big family and underlings, could flee to France. Yet he was charged for $150,000, which he could not afford. He just said, “I…deserve to die. If I don’t, then you all have to die.” In this narrative, a gangster boss is transformed into a selfless man, always ready to sacrifice himself for his family. After several shots of those landmarks like “Pudong” or “the Bund,” the female specter once more appears. She walks through the traffic-packed tunnel, with her nose covered by a hand. This gesture again exposes her status as an elite woman distanced herself from the masses. Having taken a glance at the building under construction, she steps high and smokes in contemplation. Right then, the musical tune of the song, The East is Red, sounds the hours, yet she takes a casual look at the place where the music arises. She is more an embodiment of the director himself than a “ghost” from the Republican era, for she not only implicitly approves of all the narrators proclaim without any question, but also superficially “reflects” on the past and the present with her seemingly pensive and melancholy gaze.

Fires and swords: recording the history of civil war Ostensibly, the interviewees in the film are diverse. To exhibit the vicissitudes of Shanghai in the past century, there are altogether 17 personages interviewed on both sides of the Taiwan Strait; most of them have either the CCP or the KMT background. Instead of furnishing the audiences with antagonist views of the two parties, the film merely arranges the descendants of the politically rivals to tell their personal and familial experience. Among them are lady Zhang Xinyi张心漪 (1915- ) and director Wang Tong 王童 (1942- ), both of whom have family backgrounds of the KMT’s military force. On the other side of the political spectrum, the audience witnesses Yang Xiaofo’s杨小佛 (1919- ) exposure of how his father Yang Xingfo杨杏佛 (1893–1933) was assassinated, and Wang Peimin’s 王佩民 (1948- ) description of the process in which his father, Wang Xiaohe 王孝和 (1924–1948), who was a secret member of the Communist party and a trade unionist, was arrested and killed, both by the KMT. Whether these interviews truly enrich our understanding of the historic truth depends on how the film arranges the interviewees to tell the history pertaining to the two politically antagonistic sides. After Chen Danqing’s narration, a succession of shots shows a group of elder people gathering in a tea house leisurely playing mahjong, and the camera pans to the crowd in the streets and lanes on both sides of the Huangpu River. Suddenly, with the sound of several gunshots, the camera switches to the doorway of a living room in a luxury villa, where sits an

154  Historical fragments and elitist historicism elderly, pensive man. There can be two interpretations for the changes of scene. For one thing, the middle class’s illusion of a perpetual peace brought about by comfortable life can only be awakened by the sound of a gunshot, as Fredric Jameson has reminded us; for another, since the scene switches to the interior of the living room of the middle class instead of the historical scene after the peace is broken, the audience can only learn the history through the middle-class man’s personal account, making it impossible to return to the historical site to obtain knowledge. In this way of rendition underscored by the principle of postmodern historiography, the gunshot is degraded to a cinematic prop, forfeiting its possible function of alerting the audience to historicity and truth. The elderly man is Yang Xiaofo, who briefly and calmly describes two assassinations. His father Yang Xingfo杨杏佛 (1893–1933), then the General Secretary of the China Civil Rights Security Alliance, offended Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石 (1887–1975) for his attempt to rescue some Communists and democratic personages arrested by the KMT. Chiang sent some agents to assassinate him on the morning of June 18, 1933. Given that it happened long ago, the elderly man seems calm and peaceful when he recalls that his father fell on the top of him to shield him from the shots. He then says that, after his father’s assassination, the Alliance his father worked for was dismissed because people were afraid to take over the position. The second assassination happened to Song Ziwen 宋子文 (1894–1971), a politician and democratic and his father’s classmate in America, who also annoyed Chiang. Although Song survived by a fluke, his secretary was killed. With this brief description, we learn of the direct cause and effect of these incidents and learn the good and the evil of both sides (assassinations, especially those by the authority, always stand for the evil tyranny), yet we still have no ideas of the right or wrong of the undertakings engaged by the two parties. Again, the depoliticization move blurs rather than makes clearer the historical happenings. While Shanghai during the 1920s through 1945 is explained by Zhang Yuansun the industrial tycoon, Wang Peimin tells the story of the city on the eve of liberation in 1949. On the virtual Nanjing Road built in a film and television base, she stands before a shop and looks at a marching team of the PLA (apparently arranged for another movie, and the scene is shown through its reflection on the shop windows, implying its double-represented nature), then recalls in fragments that her father was brought to death by the KMT. Is there any distinction between the original revolutionary narrative of the Communist Party and hers? (Figure 8.3) Her narration starts with a plain introduction: My father is Wang Xiaohe; he joined the Party on May 4th, 1942. He worked in Yangshupu power plant due to the call of the party. That year, Kuomintang was losing its ground, and the student movement and the labor movement were very fierce. The enemy paid particular attention to him. So they trumped up and accused him of ‘destroying generator’.

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  155

Figure 8.3   Wang Peimin looks at a marching team of the PLA, falling into contemplation.

Although Wang Xiaohe was a revolutionary martyr and a household name in the Mao era, he is little known for youngsters nowadays, and there is no explanation for the significance of his undertaking in the daughter’s ­narration. The only information is the accusation, which leaves us the impression that it was merely a machine wreck or workers’ riot. This rendition apparently deprives the revolution of any political import and progressive significance. She then recalls her mother’s breakdown as she ran alongside Communist troops looking for her dead husband when the city was liberated in 1949. She appears tearful, and her narration is touching; the revolutionary martyr does not move the audience with his faith in political justice. Put another way, political fairness does not occupy a position in this “oral history.” After her narration, the scene in one of China’s “Red Classics” films of the 1960s, The Battle of Shanghai (1959), produced to celebrate the 10th ­anniversary of the People’s Republic, was cut in. The screen shows a scene after victory, with the red flag fluttering in the wind; the army chief explains the significance of the revolution to his fellow comrade: “The liberation of Shanghai marks the complete smashing of imperialist force in China, and the permanent independence and liberation of the Chinese people! Let the warmongers tremble in front of the powerful Chinese people!” His words skip the direct enemy of the civil war, namely the KMT regime; thus, the import of the socialist revolution – class liberation out of class struggle – is left out of the picture. Consequently, the character’s emphasis of the national liberation from the imperialist colonization only becomes nationalist rhetoric easily accepted by both Parties, the CCP and the KMT alike, which are politically antagonistic (Figure 8.4). Wang Peimin goes on to introduce that her memory for her father remains dim. His death brought tremendous pain to her mother. The pictures taken just before Wang’s death, a brave revolutionary with a fearless smile, appear

156  Historical fragments and elitist historicism

Figure 8.4  T  he army chief explains the significance of the revolution to his fellow comrade.

on screen; this definitely shocks the audiences who have been so alien to deeds of revolutionary martyrs in this post-revolutionary era. However, the meaning of the Civil War between the two parties, and the significance of this martyr’s sacrifice, are never explained. The original pursuits of the Communist Party, namely class liberation, are here implicitly displaced, the cost to be paid for “national rejuvenation,” which is in line with the leitmotif chanted by the government. Complete negligence of the Communist Party’s original political ­commitment thus attained, the coverage of the KMT’s history is similarly one-sided. Subsequent to Wang Peimin’s narration is the interview of the famous Taiwan director Wang Tong 王童 (1942- ), born the same year, and whose father was the former lieutenant general of the KMT army Wang Zhonglian 王仲廉 (1904–1991). He explains how his family fled during the retreat in 1949. One remarkable detail is that “all, regardless of young or old, were tied up with a big rope; and they grasped it tightly for fear that the rope might disappear.” Here to show what he tells, the scene in the film he directs, Red Persimmon (1966), where the whole family takes refuge in the boat, is cut in. Yet regarding the meaning of the war, there is no introduction. Obviously, the director is somewhat attached to the period from the late Resistance War to the eve of the KMT retreat, thus he arranges for Li ­Jiatong 李家同 (1939- ), a renowned Taiwan professor from a similar family background, to describe it. Li tells the story of his father, who was responsible for the takeover in Xuzhou after the Anti-Japanese War. The father was taken off the position due to his refusal of bribery and corruption; whereas, the family his neighbor, the KMT general Tang En-bo汤恩伯 (1898–1954) was rooted by a number of people after it retreated to Taiwan. The first part of Li Jiatong’s remark reveals the rampant corruption of the KMT regime; the second part shows a chaotic wartime picture. When the two are put

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  157 together, they present a war-wrecked society, in which the chaotic situation even propelled the masses to perpetrate the wrongdoings, which apparently implies that there is no politically right party. Jia Zhangke said, originally I had the idea to interview ‘the Four Great Families,’ which was the key not only to the history of the Republic, but also to the memory of metropolitan Shanghai. With substantial efforts, we collected widely the information from Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and even got appointments with the direct relatives or insiders (of the Four Great Families). However, they generally kept reticent, which is pitiful but understandable.9 The “Four Great Families” refer to the four households with powerful p ­ olitical forces in Republican China, responsible for much of China’s ­management of finance, politics, economy and law. Apparently, Jia seeks to find the answers to the ups and downs of these elite households, which also hold answers to the changes in destiny of Chinese capitalism. However, based on the interviews of those celebrities presented on screen, even if more offspring of those celebrities were interviewed, this depoliticized exploration would not further our knowledge of the historical and political transformation.

Romance immortalized: recollection of the “highborn ladies” As a matter of fact, critics have noticed that the interviewees, especially those from Taiwan and Hong Kong, picked their words so cautiously that they almost spit the word one by one when they related to their experience around the year 1949. They weighed the words carefully and selected the safer and more neutral words. So what they said seem very obscure.10 Still, the word “obscure” should be replaced by “evasive” here, for they choose to narrate only family sufferings to leave the audience with the ­i mpression that the nobles and the powerful families were also the victims of national destiny. For a large part of the movie, the location of the interviews moves from Shanghai to Taiwan and Hong Kong and elderly Shanghai residents stranded there. These interviews are intended to show how the “highborn descendants” consistently maintained their romantic nature. The interviewee after Li Jiatong is the 95-year-old Zhang Xinyi张心漪 (1916- ), who describes the lives of those socialite ladies during and after that time. When studying in the U.S., she received the Eisenhower scholarship. Yet she is interviewed not for her fame in academy, but for her extraordinarily influential family ­background − she is descendant of the late Qing politician Zeng Guofan曾

158  Historical fragments and elitist historicism 国藩 (1811–1972), the daughter of the general secretary of the warlord Wu Peifu 吴佩孚 (1874–1939) and the granddaughter of Shanghai’s governor in the Qing Dynasty. She often mentions dates with her American-educated husband during their romance, as well as the love stories of her generation in general, which stimulate the audience’s imagination of the socialite ladies’ life in the Republican era. Jia expresses his admiration of Zhang Xinyi’s mannerism: she keeps the language of old Shanghai. Her Shanghainese dialect is ­completely different from the contemporary youth and very elegant. Listening to her words is comparable to reading Eileen Chang’s stories. I asked her what her feeling is for not returning to Shanghai for so many years, and she replied, ‘Women are always following her husband. To me, this kind of vagabond life is sort of romantic.’ I felt so moved and felt that I were reading a story.11 The lady’s traditional mindset and her aristocratic habitus and mannerism wins Jia over; her conservative stance propels him to subscribe to Zhang’s position without reservation. As a matter of fact, Zhang’s rendition ­h ighlights the high-class, bourgeois civil life in Republican Shanghai and typifies the popular imagination of the elite’s elegant lifestyle in the Republican era (1911–1949). Her narration is confirmed by the next interviewee, director Hou Hsiao-hsien 侯孝贤 (1947- ), who informs the audience that his knowledge of Shanghai was gained when he was shooting the film Flowers of Shanghai, and he praises the late Qing novel of the same title – from which the movie is adapted – as very delicate in portraying the Shanghai flavor. In particular, he is fascinated by the courtship rituals of the flower houses. After displaying a scene from the movie showing the late Qing gentry-class scholars playing cards on a table with prostitutes, an expository intertitle introducing the development of Shanghai emerges: “Around the middle of the 19th century, due to the Taiping Rebellion, numerous people flowed from the rich Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas into Shanghai concession. Thus with the mixed residence of Chinese and foreigners, Shanghai began to flourish.” Obviously, it is deliberately inserted here to underscore the popular, romantic supposition that the establishment of the treaty-port concession brought about the mixed residence and contributed to the prosperity of Shanghai in particular and the modernization of China in general. This discourse of “China’s modernization by foreign colonization” is very popular nowadays in the cultural field, creating a sharp contrast to the revolutionary discourse predominant in the Mao era. The dictation of those celebrities who were born in Shanghai but ­dispersed to Hong Kong after 1949 is subsequent to the narration by those celebrities whose parent’s generation were victims of the Cultural Revolution. To begin with, Wei Ran 韦然 (originally Miu Mengying 缪孟英) (1941- ), is the heroin in the 1948 movie Spring in a Small Town directed by the renowned director

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  159 Fei Mu费穆 (1906–1951). She mentions the unfavorable circumstances in which the untimely romance was produced and explains the reason she came to Hong Kong: she was running away from the affection of the actor playing the leading protagonist in the movie, who fell in love with her during shooting. Then Barbara Fei or Fei Mingyi费明仪 (1931- ), daughter of Fei Mu, talks about how her family arrived in Hong Kong in order to escape from the unrest and political machinations. They thought that it was just a temporary sojourn, only to find the situation altered so drastically that their plan of homecoming turned out to be a dream. Such choice for some intellectuals from the mainland was made against their will at the time. A snippet from Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild (1990), starring Rebecca Pan 潘迪华 (1931- ), once a well-known singer, ushers in this aged Shanghai refugee. In a dressing room for actors, Pan tells the whole story of her family escaping from Shanghai to Hong Kong. When she tells of the hardship she and her mother endures, she is choked with tears. The story of her life and the worldly wisdom seen in her elegance feed the popular imagination of the immortalized romance in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the bygone era. This romanticized and nostalgic “story of twin cities” panders to the revisionist fantasy among the new bourgeois class in contemporary China since the 1990s. No clear “attitude” is shown as to who is responsible for their diasporic experience, yet the focus on personal tragedy implicitly attributes the lamentable lives to the chaotic era of Mao’s China.

The new industrial kingdom: how to recall the Mao era? Due to censorship, Jia could not fully account for the Cultural Revolution, though this era is apparently one of his foci: Chen Danqing’s memory at the very beginning of the film has concentrated on this period. Chen’s narration has two parts. His most profound memory lies in the period before the ­Cultural Revolution and in the beginning of it, when he was eight or nine and 15 or 16. He argues that since the Cultural Revolution disorganized society and destroyed relative privacy, after the property confiscation took place, Chen learned that the family living opposite his home was a big capitalist household. “It is said that they once owned the entire building, but they just got one floor left for them after the Cultural revolution started.” He describes the scene when they had dinner: “They all sat around the square rosewood table, and it’s rather delicate. The servants stood by; they were very fastidious about plates and entremets. Before the Cultural Revolution, they had always been leading such life.” Chen does not articulate any of his judgment; neither do we have any idea as to the director’s attitude to it. Yet we can feel a certain sense of admiration for leading such a luxurious and “delicate” way of life, a life only affordable to a small sum of higher class at the time. The second part of Chen’s narrative concerns the “golden days” of his childhood, when the kids in the lanes fought to show their heroism. Their mischief and curiosity of the outside world are comparable to the

160  Historical fragments and elitist historicism portrayal of similar phenomena in the Chinese film In the Heart of the Sun (1993). However, judging by the narration of the first character who emerges to represent Mao’s era during Cultural Revolution, namely Zhu Qiansheng, society is apparently conservative and backward. The documentary Chung Kuo – Cina directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007), the famous Italian director, is the cut-in point for the introduction of the Cultural Revolution; Jia probably intends to show that period from a foreigner’s “objective” point of view. In 1970, China established a diplomatic relationship with Italy. In 1972, Antonioni visited China at the invitation of China’s Prime Minister Zhou En’lai 周恩来 (1898–1976). The next year, the documentary premiered in Rome, creating a stir in the western world. It gave a detailed picture of what was widely publicized in China at the time: people exercising, working and spending leisure time in schools, factories, kindergartens and parks, with happy and confident smiles on their faces. To this day, we can feel the simple and innocent ethos of these scenes. However, in 1974, the party’s newspaper People’s Daily, under Mao’s wife Jiang Qing’s 江青 (1914–1991) instruction, published an article denouncing the movie and the director Antonioni as having “evil intentions” and “dirty tricks.” It bitterly stated that the film had defamed the image of new China, which set off a huge, nationwide wave of criticism. Antonioni was confused, and he tried to explain the phenomenon, maybe all that is due to the dramatic difference of cultural backgrounds. Things that seem warm and touching to me may not appear to be respectful and revolutionary enough for them. Or, perhaps, there are some intolerant and extremely tough guys, who are unsatisfied with those generous people assisting me and complimenting my work. If so, then my film turns into an excuse for those within the power structure to fight for power and interest.12 Disputes regarding the true reason for the film’s bad fortune in China aside, here the interviewee is Zhu Qiansheng 朱黔生 (1942- ), then a reporter from a Shanghai TV station escorting Antonioni on his visit. Zhu tells of the response to the film and his personal experience. Although he felt “psychologically unbalanced” by the “backward” and less than positive footage Antonioni shot, he also felt somewhat resentful because he was labeled a “traitor, spy and counterrevolutionary” by the Chinese authority. Although this might make the audience feel injustice was done, it does not learn why the film was criticized (Antonioni’s response does not appear on screen). Although the film implies that the reaction against the film is the irrational response by the conservative wing of the Party, the critique of Antonioni’s documentary could also be interpreted as an “(ultra-)radical” move against the bourgeois ideology contained in the product; a simple and primitive lifestyle the Chinese people enjoyed at the time is observed from an outsider’s point of view and does not delve into the revolutionary hardcore of

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  161 society. This might be one of the key reasons for its unenviable reception by ­ultra-radicals. Again, falling short of the ideological analysis or the horizon of historicity, Jia could only present the phenomenon “as it is” by letting the interviewee tell superficial facts, without diagnosing the deeper causes. The Mao era is not limited to the period of Cultural Revolution; it contains a period called “seventeen years (1949–1966),” usually taken to be the golden age of socialism concentrated on socialist construction. Thus, a model socialist worker from that era becomes the representative. This choice is also warranted by Shanghai’s special status as the industrial center in Mao’s era, during which it provided most of the life necessities for the Chinese. The worker is named Huang Baomei 黄宝妹 (1931- ), a household name in Mao’s China, who worked for a nationally owned cotton factory in Shanghai. She was even awarded the Labor Model of Shanghai and of the Ministry of Textile Industry, as well as the National Labor Model, seven times. The embodiment of the industrious, patriotic socialist Chinese working class with high political awareness, she attended international conferences three times and was received by Chairman Mao, Premiere Zhou and other state leaders eight times. In 1958, she even became the central ­figure in a documentary film with her name as the title. Indeed, her memoire ­better reveals the outlook of the working class in new China than 24 City, for her narration reflects the glorious, high position of the workers then. Jia ­remarks that when I was interviewing Huang, the famous model worker in the fifties of the last century, she mentioned that there was a film about her and the director was Xie Jin谢晋 (1923–2008, a distinguished third-­generation Chinese director). I was greatly surprised.13 Jia’s “great surprise” indicates that he had no idea of the lofty state and honor the Chinese working class had enjoyed in the Mao era. During the interview, Huang mentions several things: she was received by Chairman Mao, who encouraged her by saying that: “the job of spinners is very important. In the future, all the people will rely on you for clothes. The more you spin, the more clothes there will be for people.” This lesson typifies the socialist tenet: “Labor is the most glorious.” She also attended the World Festival of Youths in 1959: The World Festival of Youths was held in Vienna. In Vinenna, all the Austrians stopped their cars to look at us Chinese. They had never seen any Chinese before. They felt that the Chinese people became so beautiful! Those Chinese in the pictures kept in their shop-windows before are all with piggy tails. Then we were there, and we are totally different Chinese. Now they saw the Chinese themselves and the whole Vienna was stirred. Whenever they saw us, they would give us the thumbs up.

162  Historical fragments and elitist historicism China! China! China, Hooray! Hooray! (Their) thumbs up.

At that time, I was so proud of being a Chinese, really. When I was back, I felt I was full of power and vigor. Later the film came out. The narrative might give scholars the impression of self-orientalism, yet it registers Huang’s authentic feelings at the time. Then, there is a clip from the documentary film named after her (produced in 1958), with the diegetic voice-over: “What a huge change (occurred to her) from an oppressed and humble person to a respected and honorable national model worker!” When the big chimney of the factory emerges and the loud marching music sounds, she walks into the abandoned factory, now a derelict shell, where she spent her entire working life. There, she resumes her experience: “I was sent to school (to study knowledge) in 1960, and returned to the factory again. I have been working at the seventeenth national cotton factory until I retired in 1987.” (Figure 8.5) She has barely completed her narration when the song of Powerful Workmen is loudly broadcast. The song is symbolic of the working class in new China turning into the leading class. Yet, the stopped clock in the abandoned factory building gives us a different feeling. Next comes a group of workers from a modern shipbuilding plant, wearing dirty work clothes and riding their bicycles. They ward off the rain with their safety helmets; one shot shows a worker hiding under the bridge taking shelter from the rain. All of these scenes impress upon the audience a striking contrast between the present and the past. However, it is hard for us to overlook some incongruities: besides the difficulty of identifying the truth in her personal narration, the glorious life

Figure 8.5  A  clip from the documentary film Huang Baomei.

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  163 she has proudly enjoyed is in sharp contrast to the decrepit factory she is walking in. And all we can see is the happiness enjoyed by Huang herself: in the clips of the interview, she does not mention the relationship with her colleagues or the life and working status of other workers at the time, to the extent that her personal experience can only be taken as exceptional. As if to balance Huang’s narration about the glory of working class in Mao’s era, next is a typical tragic story of the elite celebrities persecuted in the Cultural Revolution. The interviewee is Wei Ran韦然 (1951- ), sitting on the stage telling the complex experience of her mother, the famous film star Shangguan Yunzhu上官云珠 (1920–1968), who came from a rural village and turned into a cinema star in Shanghai in the 1940s. She mentions that her mother had several loves and marriages and committed suicide due to unbearable insults in the Cultural Revolution, which then involved her sister, her sister’s husband and her. Scenes from a 1960s movie Stage Sisters starring Shangguan Yunzhu are inserted.14 Overall, we hear a typical, plain narrative that has been offered by the official party. The lack of any word from the persecutors and contextual information makes it impossible to increase our knowledge.

Portraying the new times: “the first better-offs” and the “silent others” The female specter appears again after the interview of Pan Dihua. Following Zhao’s steps and her sight, as well as the caption “Shanghai 2010,” we see once more the Huangpu River and a modern cruise ship inscribed with the logo “Special Law Enforcement Ship for Expro,” which signifies strengthened national power. Thereafter, two figures standing for the “new times” of the reform era come out. They are the first Chinese shareholder Yang Huaiding杨 怀定 (?- ) and the young writer Han Han韩寒 (1982- ). They stand for the “legend” of the 1980s and that of the period from the 1990s to now, respectively. Yang recalls his embarrassing experience of being suspected of “being either a robber or a thief” when he carried a case with “over a million cash” when he got his first barrel of gold in the financial speculation. To avoid trouble, he demanded the local police send him two policemen as guards, who also helped confirm his innocence. Such peculiar protection from the state machine inadvertently reveals the special protection of the opportunists in the new era and their actual status in society. After his narration, the specter appears again and enters the canteen for workers helping to build Expo Park. The banner with the slogan “Stage a Great Expo and Win Glory for the Country!” is strikingly hung on the wall. At night, the workers enjoy break dancing. Ostensibly, the workers are quite happy; yet, what is the relationship between the speculator Yang, nicknamed “Yang the millionaire,” and the workers or the businessman and the laborer? Their senses of glory, just like their earnings, are apparently incomparable.

164  Historical fragments and elitist historicism With the arrival of several race cars, the best-selling novelist and racecar champion Han (1982- ) energetically runs over, sits in a reclining chair and proudly tells about how he has achieved his dream. He asserts that his writing enables him the expensive hobby of racing and that he has fulfilled his dream of making a living by royalties from his works, which had been subject to ridicule before. As a critic penetratingly remarks, among the two interviewees, “the former stands for the dream for wealth, whereas the later the dream for freedom.”15 Both are dreams the bourgeois class wants to achieve. Nevertheless, the film in general gives the audience the impression that “it is too scattered as a whole, the ideology it conveys is vague and ambiguous, and it lacks a consistent ‘attitude’.”16 However, to me, the film does own its “attitude” if examined closely; for instance, It is evident that the characters involved with modern history in the film are of enough legend, yet it is hard to find what hides behind; as to the interviewees of latest twenty years, there is only a little sense of empathy among the upstart and the young writer-plus-car fanatic. The speculative psychology lurked behind indicates a cold attitude. Such purely positive propagandizing inclination fits nicely with the Expro venue which appears in the end: the film itself possesses a strong sense of pride, which is unhelpful for the creation of documentary.17 Also, as critic Tony Ryans notes, “For all the glowing testimony of former ‘model Worker’ Huang Baomei, the Communist Party doesn’t come out of the film looking too good. Jia’s underlying attitude crystallizes in the choice of his final interviewee, Han,” whose “sardonic comments on the uselessness and lubricity of state officials” is well known.18 What is more, the impression of most audiences is that “the film linked by narrative clips of eighteen people is somewhat messy, for its thread is unclear, even a bit pointless, and the authentic Shanghai is still unseen.”19 Responding to this complaint, Jia explains, At first more than 80 people were interviewed. Their narrations are very complete from birth to the present. However, we find that the moment when they tell the plight in life, the most passionate moment arises when the narrators’ desire and impulse are the most aroused. I have always had an impulse to find the details of history. I don’t try to film the history of Shanghai or tell historical knowledge, but intend to present real life and real Shanghai through arranging the oldies to narrate their stories.20 Consequently, he argues, “to present tragedies and misfortunes is not my preference.”21 However, the so-called “real life and real Shanghai” cannot simply be presented by fragments in life; the vast vacancy, as shown by

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  165 the selective representation, makes us curious about what information the ­ ifferent stories of the original 88 people provide to their listeners. d “The key problem is,” as a critic reasonably argues, “how much the ordinary audiences can understand the fragments being delivered,” … it seems that the 18 stories are stacked together, that is to say, there is no logical connection between them, but only the different interviewed persons in order. The most intuitive feeling for that is a sense of clutter: first the gossip of wealthy family, next the performance experience of the famous actors, then the assassination of the revolutionaries, and the legend of “getting rich first”…22 It is thus reasonable to complain that “only those with more life experience and aged or native Shanghaiese may be aware of and correspond well to their narration.”23 Another complaint often heard is that Shanghai in the film is not colorful enough; instead, dull grey dominates. Jia replies to this concern by arguing, “It is the real Shanghai that I film, a natural one not modified or endowed with subjective colors.”24 Nevertheless, since the film is photographed with a digital camera, the director can adjust the color at will, which brings out a deceptive visual effect; what is more, “the faded picture is comparable to the interviewees’ memory. Both their authenticity or historicity leave much room for question.” Consequently, the management of color in the film shows a “cautious self-examination and self-contradiction.”25 The function of the female specter, who keeps silent throughout the movie and seems to drift away from the cinematic text, also causes great concern. Critic Justin Chang suggests that this “recurring strand of footage” is “­ easily excisable,” which “feels like a distracting attempt by Jia to place his authorial signature on the film.”26 Jia defends her role by arguing that, I’ve been trying to break the boundary between documentaries and feature films and looking for the possibility of combining them. Here, Zhao Tao is turned into a figure with mystery. She is a ghost to whom no one pays attention, who nevertheless strings the whole film. I even intended to link up the whole film together with a ghost, but I had to give up considering the issues like censorship and so on. Zhao Tao can be understood as a character from the past. We can feel that she has many stories, yet she cannot tell. In this way, when combining with the plotline, the audiences can imagine more stories.27 Such intention can also be found at end of the movie. After Han Han’s boastful reminiscence, the camera shifts to the passengers in the Shanghai subway and the city’s fast track traffic. After boarding the sightseeing tower, Zhao Tao seems lost and looks at workers on the pier. On the surface, just like the portrayal of late-Qing workers with heavy burdens in the opening

166  Historical fragments and elitist historicism of the movie, the director pays tribute to the laboring class, who has been bearing the “rising” of China for more than 100 years. Yet these representations of workers make them the object of observation by the “ghost” of the bourgeois class; the laboring class can never uphold its subjectivity and tell their own stories. They are always a foil in the film, “the other” in the eyes of the urbanites who do not truly understand them. This position also partly accounts for the film’s wavering attitude toward Shanghai’s history. From this perspective, we can understand why the director takes the past and the present of Shanghai as “spectacle” and why his vision is as vacant and confused as that of Zhao Tao, the phantom or the incarnation of the bourgeois class from the old Shanghai. This also explains why the film ends with the passengers dozing off in the subway. They appear tired and exhausted, possibly confused; we are not sure what kind of hope they hold for the future.

Conclusion This postmodern narrative of Shanghai’s history is filled with contradictions and tensions. On one hand, Jia deliberately avoids the traditional way of producing a documentary film: he “pointedly refused to ground or contextualize by showing photos or archive footage of old Shanghai.”28 Instead, he applies the postmodernist historiography, recording historical fragments with a point of view akin to nihilism. It simultaneously subscribes to the modernization discourse. On one hand, it repudiates the “grand narrative” of revolution or the macro-history and intends to record the experience of “ordinary” people or transcribe “micro-histories” by way of oral narration. On the other hand, in addition to offering the “tedious, long-winded sequences recording the interviewees with too much contentment and too little energetic investigation,”29 it maintains the elitist position regarding historical change by focusing on the behaviors and experiences of social and cultural elites and nobilities, the practice of which has been consciously repudiated by western postmodernist historiography. Although it attempts to balance the views of people from antagonistic parties in China’s modern history, the limitations of the form of oral narrative and the inclination of depoliticization – the shortage of the perspectives of political economy, class analysis and global vision – makes it unable to convincingly explain political struggle and historical transformation. Instead, apart from implicitly questioning “the human toll exacted by such splendor” by “focusing especially on slums and construction zones” throughout the movie,30 it only offers narrated historical spectacles and laments the inexorable vicissitudes of fortunes akin to historical agnosticism. The director himself feels so confused that he can only leave the audience with the feeling of inconsistence. It is reported that When the film completed its production in Taiwan, at Taipei airport, he felt very bad in heart and had a sudden impulse to write a poem. He

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  167 had no pen with him, so he used his cell-phone to record. Then came the poem, “The Leaping Moment,” printed on the back cover of the book I Wish I Knew: “The leaping moment/ I suddenly forgot/ Which side to take.”31 The director claims that the function of Zhao Tao is “to tell all the audiences, besides the eighteen real characters, thousands of Shanghai people, who cannot tell their own stories, are the real owners of this legend.”32 ­Nevertheless, while she is taken by some critics to be the “specter of time, of memories being displaced and history erased,” because her silence “speaks not only of the pain hidden from Shanghai’s glittering neon lights, but also the stories that still cannot be told,”33 this incarnation of the historical specter is the embodiment of the contemporary bourgeoisie and the elitist historical narrative itself, though with the facade of “oral history” by “ordinary people” it points in the opposite direction – the “real owners of this legend” are still those cultural elites who can tell their stories; whereas the silent majority still cannot speak out.

Notes 1 Dans Edwards, “Shanghai: Fractured Memories, Contested Histories,” www .realtimearts.net/article/99/10015. Accessed August 12, 2018. 2 Ibid. 3 Patryk Czekaj, “Review: I Wish I Knew Is Jia Zhangke’s Wonderful Ode To Shanghai,” Screen Anarchy, April 8, 2014. https://screenanarchy.com/2014/04 /­review-i-wish-i-knew-is-jia-zhangkes -wonderful-ode-to-shanghai.html. Accessed August 12, 2018. 4 Tony Ryans, “Currency | I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke. China),” Cinema Scope 44 (2015). http://cinema-scope.com/currency/currency-i-wish-i-knew-jia-­z hangkechina/. Accessed August 3, 2018. 5 Yao Lingyao妖灵妖, “Biaoda ziyou de keneng表达自由的可能 [The Possibility of Expressing Freedom].” https://movie.douban.com/review/3385986/. Accessed August 12, 2018. 6 Jiang Xiaoling姜小玲, Shi Chenlu施晨露, “Zhuanfang Jia Zhangke: jiyi shanghai wo yu shanghai de sanjieduan专访贾樟柯：记忆上海 [The Exclusive Interview with Jia Zhangke: Remembering Shanghai],” Jiefang ribao解放日报 [Liberation Daily]. July, 2, 2010. 7 Daniel Kasman, “Cannes 2010. Today’s Quiet City: ‘I Wish I Knew’ (Jia Zhangke, China),” May 18, 2010. https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/cannes-2010-todaysquiet-city-i-wish-i-knew-jia-zhangke-china. Accessed August 12, 2018. 8 See the news report “Haishang chuanqi jiangshu laoshanghai fuerdai 《海上传 奇》讲述老上海富二代 [I Wish I Knew narrates the Affluent Second Generation],” Dongfang zaobao东方早报 [East Morning Post], June 28, 2010. 9 Jiang Xiaoling姜小玲, Shi Chenlu施晨露, “Zhuanfang Jia Zhangke: jiyi shanghai wo yu shanghai de sanjieduan专访贾樟柯：记忆上海 [The Exclusive Interview with Jia Zhangke: Remembering Shanghai],” Jiefang ribao解放日报 [Liberation Daily], July, 2, 2010. 10 Bo Bangni柏邦妮, “Suiran xingming buneng yizhijian虽然性命不能一直见 [Although Life Cannot Always Be Seen],” https://movie.douban.com/­review /3446963/. Accessed August 12, 2018. 11 Ibid.

168  Historical fragments and elitist historicism 12 Shu Kewen舒可文, “Antonioni yu ‘zhongguo’ de duihua安东尼奥尼与《中国》的 对话 [The Dialogue Between Antonioni and ‘China’],” Sanlian shenghuo z­ houkan 三联生活周刊 [Sanlian Life Week Magazine]. No. 48, 2004. 13 Li Li李丽, “Haishang chuanqi guangzhou shiying, Jia Zhangke: zhe jilupian tainanle 《海上传奇》广州试映, 贾樟柯: 这纪录片太难了 [The Preview of I Wish I Knew, Jia Zhengke: Such an Effort-taking Documentary].” http://ent. qq.com/a/20100630/000644.htm. Accessed August 12, 2018. 14 Li Jun李俊, “zhuanfang Jia Zhangke: wo keyi chengnuo wo shi nengguo­ huilai de nazhongre专访贾樟柯：我可以承诺我是能够回来的那种人 [An ­Exclusive ­Interview：I Promise, I am the One Who Can Return Back],” Waitan huabao 外 滩画报 [The Bund], June 29, 2010. 15 Li Li, “The Preview of I Wish I Knew, Jia Zhengke: Such an Effort-taking Documentary.” 16 Bukaideng 不开灯. “Haishang chuanqi, nali laide chuanqi《海上传奇》哪里来的 传奇？ [What Is the Legend in I Wish I Knew?].” http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_ 64194b390102dwni.html. Accessed August 12, 2018. 17 Mai Tong 麦童, “Haishang chuanqi: tuoxie xia de zhizhuo biaoda海上传奇:妥协 下的执着表达 [I Wish I Knew：To Voice Persistently under Comprise].” http://i .mtime.com/maitongx/blog/ 4654826/. Accessed August 12, 2018. 18 Tony Ryans, “Currency | I Wish I Knew (Jia Zhangke. China),” Cinema Scope 44 (2015). http://cinema-scope.com/currency/currency-i-wish-i-knew-jia-­zhangkechina/. Accessed March 20, 2018. 19 Liang Yanfeng梁燕芬, “Jia Zhangke: 18 ren rang wo guole 18 beizi贾樟柯：18 人让我过了18辈子 [Jia Zhangke: These 18 People Makes Me Live 18 Lives],” ­Xinkuaibao 新快报 [New Express]. June 30, 2010. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 Bright, “‘Haishang Chuanqi’: woxiang zhidao nizai shouxie shenme《海上传奇》： 我想知道你在说些什么 [I Wish I Knew：I Want to Know What You Want to Say].” http://movie.mtime.com/ 106454/reviews/4577107.html. Accessed August 12, 2018. 23 Ibid. 24 Li Li, “The Preview of I Wish I Knew, Jia Zhengke: Such an Effort-taking Documentary.” 25 Yaolingyao, “The Possibility of Expressing Freedom.” 26 Justin Chang, “Reviews; I Wish I knew,” Variety, May 24, 2010. 27 Wang Zun王樽, “Haishang chuanqi, Jia Zhangke: woshi yong shanghai nongsuo zhongguo bainian《海上传奇》贾樟柯：我是用上海浓缩中国百年 [I Wish I Knew Jia Zhangke: I’m Condensing China over a Hundred Years into Shanghai], ­Shenzhen tequ bao 深圳特区报 [Shenzhen Special Zone Daily],” July 1, 2010. 28 Daniel Kasman, “Cannes 2010. Today’s Quiet City: ‘I Wish I Knew’ (Jia Zhangke, China),” May 18, 2010. https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/cannes-2010-todaysquiet-city-i-wish-i-knew- jia-zhangke-china. Accessed August 12, 2018. 29 Ibid. Daniel Kasman also argues that it is unfortunate that a heavy hand lays across I Wish I Knew, a hand too indulgent of Zhao’s drifting allegory, too unwilling to forcefully edit, too heavy to gracefully explore the border between documentary and fiction…and… too weighted down by pressure and importance to plunge deep into the metropolis. 30 Justin Chang, “Reviews; I Wish I knew.” 31 Xu Yin徐颖, “Haishang chuanqi tushu fashou, Jia Zhangke zichao cengshi siliu shiren《海上传奇》图书发售, 贾樟柯自嘲曾是四流诗人 [The book I Wish I Knew

Historical fragments and elitist historicism  169 on Sale, Jia Zhangke Laughs at Himself Once Being a Fourth-Rate Poet],” ­Xinwen chenbao新闻晨报 [Shanghai Morning Post], July 22, 2010. 32 Wang Zun, “I Wish I knew Jia Zhangke: I’m Condensing China over a Hundred Years into Shanghai.” 33 Dans Edwards, “Shanghai: Fractured Memories, Contested Histories.” www. realtimearts. net/article/99/10015. Accessed August 12, 2018.

9 “China consciousness” in the age of globalization and its shortage Mountains May Depart (2015) as a postmodern film Critics sometimes compare Jia’s 2015 film Mountains May Depart to his ­earlier films in terms of subject, in particular The World (2004). Robin ­Collin, for instance, points out the continuity between the two movies, Fans of Jia’s work will recognise many of the themes here from his great 2004 film The World, in which the employees of a Beijing world-in-­ miniature theme park (one of whom is played by Zhao) contemplate a future beyond China’s borders.1 On the other hand, Scott Foundas highlights its difference from Jia’s earlier productions, In Jia’s earlier films, the characters longed to escape the provinces for the big city and, once having done so (in “The World”), gazed out at replicas of international landmarks and dreamed of someday seeing the real thing. So it’s fitting that Jia has now taken on Chinese migration as a subject, and what he finds is that it is possible to travel halfway around the world only to end up living in a kind of gilded prison.2 Continuity and development aside, the film is quite unique among the films of Jia Zhangke thus far, for one of the three periods of the diegetic time is extended to 10 years in the future, which endows it with some surreal factors, although nothing surrealistic can be traced from either the character’s performance or the mise-en-scenes of this presumed realistic work. Peter Bradshaw praises the movies as scaling “new heights with futurist drama.”3 James Adams even compares Jia to Balzac in terms of his ingenious arrangement of the structure and theme, “Like a Chinese Balzac, Jia expertly balances the micro and the macro, the onrush of the new and the tug of tradition here, blanketing the proceedings with a pall of melancholy as palpable as the smog over Beijing.”4 It is reported to be Jia’s first work filmed completely by script,5 which means that he pre-planned the movie. In 2015, the film was awarded many honors, including being nominated for the Golden Palm Award Palme at the 68th Cannes Film Festival, being awarded

“China consciousness”  171 the best drama film in the 52nd Taiwan Film Golden Horse Award competition and the Public Prize in the 63rd St. Sebastian International Film Festival. How does Jia change his style in this production, and what sort of new cultural-political consciousness appeared by this new way of narration? Showing the loves and lives of Shen Tao and her two lovers in three decades, the film transcribes the transformations of Chinese society and articulates its visions of the future. The three parts are set in Fenyang in 1999 and 2014 and in Australia in 2025. These time frames are “announced on-screen and accompanied by a corresponding increase in the size of the image, an enlargement that mirrors the character’s expanding universe.”6 While the storyline tells us that the film is a family melodrama, its theme is not easy to summarize. Giovanni Marchini Camia argues that the film is Jia’s “latest ­reflection on the momentous societal changes that have swept over China as a result of its entry and ascension in the globalized world economy,” which expresses “his lament over the direction in which it is headed.”7 Scott ­Foundas contends that Jia here “once again marvels at the pace of his country’s great leap forward into the realm of modern global superpowers, while pausing to consider the collateral impact on individuals, families and the fabric of society.” Thus the film is “a somber portrait of the ­capitalist-age Chinese family in a decades-spanning, continent-hopping epic.”8 Jia himself claims that he wants to “examine how Chinese society is changing, how our emotions change over time and how in the future we may have lost our feelings.”9 What information does this “epic-like” drama offer that ­comments on globalization and looks into the future? What kind of future does Jia envision for the Chinese people?

Freedom and its discontent The film tells the story of three characters: Shen Tao, Zhang Jinsheng and Liang Jianjun (nicknamed Liangzi). All living in a small town Fengyang, they have been bosom friends since childhood; they finally separate for ­reasons of love or life. On the surface, the overarching theme is emotion. Zhao Tao, the female character regularly playing the leading role in Jia Zhangke’s movies including this one, remarks that: “the director has been concerned about those emotions that people all experience but may neglect. Mountains May Depart involves the love between mother and son, between father and son and between lovers.”10 The year 1999 becomes the prehistory, when the small town girl Shen Tao, a singer and dance instructor, is adored and pursued by Liang Jianjun and Zhang Jinsheng, two townsmen. Though she has feelings for both, she chooses Jinsheng, a rich and brash gas station owner who can afford to buy the local coalmine when it is privatized and thus embodies “one of China’s new breed of pushy entrepreneurs.”11 ­Disappointed and sad, the humble and introverted laborer Liang Jianjun, who manages equipment at the state-owned mine before it is privatized, leaves his home and works in another mine far away (Figure 9.1).

172  “China consciousness”

Figure 9.1  Shen Tao visits Liangzi who plans to leave the town.

Although this story lasts 45 minutes, the film’s title flashes by only after it ends; the second story, taking place in the present (2014), starts. At this time, Shen Tao has already divorced Zhang Jinsheng, and Zhang has already remarried a stewardess and lives in Shanghai, though what has taken place between the two leading to the divorce is never shown. Their son Zhang Daole (English name Dollar) lives with his father. Having contracted pneumonia, which seriously harms his health, Liang returns home with his out-of-town wife, although he had asserted earlier that he would never come back. Reluctantly, he borrows money from Shen Tao for his treatment. In the meantime, Shen’s father, who loves her deeply, passes away; Dollar, as a juvenile boy, returns alone to Fenyang to attend his grandpa’s funeral. After another 40 minutes pass, with a few scenes of fade-ins and fadeouts, the last 30 minutes of the film move to Australia in 2025. In this futurist chronotope, Dollar has grown into a handsome man and is studying in a Chinese school. Lacking interest in attending school, he is fascinated by the middle-aged female teacher, who comes from Hong Kong and teaches him Chinese. The woman has just divorced her foreign husband and is in an emotionally unstable state. Soon, they develop an ambiguous and amorous relationship. The teacher suggests that Dollar should visit his mother who lives in China; Dollar hesitates, for he feels that he has no home to return to. The end of the film shows lonely Shen Tao pounding meat in the kitchen. As if in a trance, she seems to hear someone calling her; going outside, she begins to perform a dance she liked when she was young, in tune with the music out of her illusion.

“China consciousness”  173 Taking this storyline as a whole, the leitmotif of “departure” has been singled out by Liu Zhengzhong: In this film, “departure” is everywhere: conflicts between friends for chasing lover, divorce between couples because of aborted love, the sudden death of an elderly father, and the departure of the flesh and blood. The joys and sorrows of these common people are gradually enlarged, and then resonate with the audiences. “Nobody can be with you all through life,” the line printed on the poster of Mountains May Depart, ties in with all the abrupt gatherings and partings and presents them to the audiences. The film is so touching that many viewers begin to reflect on their relationship with their parents and family.12 Although this argument is reasonable, the film can only be taken as a soap opera with this interpretation. As a matter of fact, many other motifs can be found in the movie. First and foremost, the choice of one’s object of love is always tied in with social convention and ethics, and Shen Tao’s choice predetermines her fortune. Between the rich mine owner ­Jinsheng and the poor mine worker Liangzi, she chooses the former, which is quite normal, and conforms to the logic of the capital. Yet this initiates her tortuous misfortune. Such humanistic message can be ­developed further into an overarching theme about the ethical-moral i­ mport of the social-historical transmutations. For one, the contrast of the different choices of life partners and their consequences between Shen Tao and Liang Jianjun’s wife highlight certain “backward-looking” attitudes to “historical inertia.” The decisions made by Liang Jianjun’s wife affirm the backward-looking attitude and the historical inertia. Young and pretty as she is, she never complains about the hardships in life, her husband’s poor hometown, and the shabby, small house as damaged as the one they have rented before, in spite of her dissatisfaction with all these. Nor does she leave and abandon her sick husband. Rather, she tries to make money herself, and even bows humbly to her husband’s ex-lover in order to borrow some money for her husband… a woman who shows backward-looking attitude, she is a faithful wife standing by her husband, which forms a distinct contrast to Shen Tao, who has resigned to power and wealth. Tao finally knows that Liang Jianjun owns a happy family with a wife standing by and a lovely child. Thus, when she gives Liang the key that he has thrown away, Tao decides to retreat from his life, and ends her expectation for their reunion.13 The contrasts indicate a certain moralist appraisal of the “true love” tested by hardships and adversity in life and the falsity of preferring material ­comforts to genuine emotions.

174  “China consciousness” Such moralist judgment similarly leads to a discourse of “nostalgia” tied to the so-called “backward-looking worldview,” which can be found in the following comment: Shen Tao is nostalgic. Her backward-looking posture is formed due to her fetishism, as inwardly her mentality remains more or less in the past. She insists in sending her father’s body back to their hometown regardless of the expensive charge; and her father’s funeral is simple and traditional, completely at odds with their economic situation. She tells her son repeatedly that “I am an incapable mother,” but the truth is that she can offer Dollar a comfortable life. It is that she cannot abandon her attachment to her hometown so that she cannot go abroad herself to accompany her son, who studies in international school. It is due to her reluctance to give up her obsession with that old stage (where she used to perform), that she stays in the town, guarding her home and waiting for her son to return.14 This understanding may remind us of the Hegelian proposition of “the ­cunning of reason,” in which history and society is understood to be ­progressing through experiencing unfortunate and even evil happenings, leaving those people to abide by the traditional mindsets.15 In this moralist schema, traditional morals seem related to goodness. From the silence of Shen Tao’s father upon hearing his daughter’s choice, we learn that her choice goes against traditional morals, though it is commonly witnessed because people have become used to the market principle. Jianjun’s wife, who follows traditional women’s virtues by respecting and supporting her husband and thus enjoys the happiness of her humble ­family, embodies the blessings gained by obeying traditional morals. By ­contrast, Jinsheng’s second wife, a pretty airline hostess who never appears on screen, ends miserably for violating traditional morality; she has no child, and ­apparently ends up with being abandoned by her husband in the third diegetic period. However, this interpretation does not mean that the film simply stands by tradition, as more often than not, tradition appears debased and irksome in life. Accordingly, sometimes the dichotomy between the traditional and the modern yields to the contrast between Chinese custom and western culture. For instance, Tao is resentful of the westernized clothes – the Boy Scout uniform – her son wears when he comes to attend his grandpa’s ­funeral; she tears his scout scarf and severely scolds him; the rudeness and ignorance of her behavior is not lost on the audience. She violently forces him to kneel down in front of her father’s memorial tablet, a custom requested by the ­Chinese ritual ceremony. If the boy naturally self-willingly kneels down, or she does not appear so high-handed, the traditional p ­ ractice would not ­appear so ridiculous or “inhuman.” Similarly, the brutality that Jinsheng shows when his son chooses to work instead of going to college demonstrates

“China consciousness”  175 the repugnance of patriarchy and paternalism, which exists in his mentality and mannerism. By contrast, the westernized clothes the son wears, ­statements of modern human rights made by the grown-up Dollar when confronted with his father’s arbitrariness and the sympathetic connection with his Chinese teacher all point to the backwardness of quasi-­traditional convention and the so-called “oriental despotism.” In light of these facts, the film seems to take the side of “the (western) modern.” If so, we can affirm that the director’s mentality is still largely in line with the intellectual trend of the “new enlightenment,” which has been critical of Chinese tradition since 1980, or even as early as that of the “New Culture enlightenment” of the May Fourth era in early 20th century. Such an appreciation can also lead to a roughly “philosophic” interpretation. This fable of the shackles of love and the “escape” from it is intended to propose the value of freedom: these characters are all committed to choosing their lovers and careers freely, especially the grown-up son, who stands for the new generation. However, some facts are at odds with this judgment. In the period of pre-history, namely the year of 1999, China was deeply engulfed in the m ­ arket economy ever since the national supreme leader Deng Xiaoping’s Southern tour in 1992, yet the figures and scenes here seem to be from the 1980s and the first half of 1990s, like those in Jia’s films Platform and Xiao Wu. The mise-en-scenes are of a time when people feel the pinch of limited materials, and thus they feel that they are not free to act on their own will. However, they still all seem spiritually pleased in the period of pre-history; even the last “nostalgic scene” in which Zhao Tao, still dressed in her plain clothes, happily dances in the snowfield demonstrates such a “contradiction.” The second case in point is the change of Jinsheng’s attitude to the ­concept of freedom. He is unable to get a gun for revenge in 1999; when he flees abroad, he loads the table with all kinds of guns to satisfy his desire, yet they are useless then to him. When Dollar says that he “wants to take a try at freedom,” Jinsheng lectures his new understanding of the term: what is freedom? China does not allow private guns, but Australia has just changed its law and one can buy guns. I have just bought many guns now, but I do not have any enemy at all. What’s freedom? It’s dammed nothing! The Chinese teacher, who quietly listens there, interprets for Dollar the implied meaning of his complaint: “Freedom can be understood in many different ways.” This may feel familiar; it is indeed the amendment for the understanding of “freedom” by Chinese “new authoritarianists” after 1990s, based on their appreciation of “China’s special conditions.” When the Chinese audiences hear the reason proposed by Dollar for his not ­going to college, “I can take up any career,” and “I can do whatever I like,” they ­i mmediately realize that this is the understanding of freedom in 1980s China,

176  “China consciousness”

Figure 9.2  The Chinese teacher urges Dollar return to China to visit his mother.

which has been regarded as outdated in the Chinese intellectual community since the 1990s, when the laisse-faire style of life and management loses its enchantment. This signifies that the director has moved from the simple and naïve thoughts of the 1980s, which hold that since the ­Chinese people have lived in “thousands of years of autocracy,” they need the baptism of “new enlightenment” in order to know the precious value of freedom. Consequently, although the Chinese audience may sympathize with Dollar’s choice out of his adolescent desire and youthful rebelliousness, the father’s statement holds more life wisdom when he proclaims that he has experienced many social affairs, though he appears rude and intolerable, the usual flaws of paternalistic parents (Figure 9.2).

“China consciousness” and China’s path in the era of globalization In this light, although on the surface the film stands on a radical, postmodern position (as shown by its tolerance of the amorous relationship between Dollar and his middle-aged teacher), it actually upholds a conservative attitude, paying respects to the new authoritarianism, which has been revived in recent years because of the phenomenal “China rise.” This is also shown in the portrayal of Tao’s father. The Chinese tradition demands the father to be strict, the mother caring and the son filial; in the movie, almost all ­characters observe this rule – Dollar’s disobedience does not essentially challenge this ethical request, whereas his father’s dogmatic authoritarianism only confirms this pattern because of Dollar’s childish behavior. Furthermore, on the surface, the film narrates the joys and sorrows of Shen Tao from her perspective, by which it makes comments on the different performances of her two lovers; however, the actual perspective is not hers. Rather, it contains a profound directorial intervention, which is indicated

“China consciousness”  177 by ubiquitous symbols in the film. Through these symbols, the film shows its attitudes toward the current situation of China and envisions its future prospects in this era of globalization. The three time points of the story (1999, 2014 and 2025) are all marked on the screen. By taking “a different aspect ratio for each period, beginning in the square Academy ratio and gradually expanding to anamorphic w ­ idescreen,”16 17 it shows the expansion of the world for the characters. More importantly, the film always carries a “China consciousness,” namely the problem consciousness regarding contemporary China “between nation and individual, between great times and small characters, between public affairs and personal fate, and between the ‘hometown’ and ‘old friends.’”18 Moreover, through showing the changes in the surroundings, the context becomes the subtext, which demands our interpretation. It behooves us to give our evaluation as to the ultimate concern of the film, its insights as well as its drawbacks.19 In this regard, Peter Bradshaw notes that the movie starts with “a bunch of people dancing to the Pet Shop Boys’ Go West,” and when the new century and millennium dawns, the movie shows China more or less obsessed with doing that: going West, embracing capitalism while at the same retaining the monolithic state structures of the past, and beginning to worship consumer goods as status symbols: stereos, cars, and perhaps most importantly mobile phones — a technology which the film shows retaining its fetishistic power for the next quarter-century.20 From this perspective, the characters’ “pre-history” delivers a paradox ­between the ties to the old era (with all its virtues) and the preference for the “modern life”: The prehistory is not just the old tale of triangle love that a woman has to make a choice of marriage between two men – to choose the so-called “high-end personage” whose career keeps rising, or the poor miner, but a dilemma about the future and the past: when an o ­ verwhelming ­commercial tide is gushing into China, and the Chinese people are ready to greet and anticipate the new century with enormous ­enthusiasm, it is to embrace the modern life so that the material life can be greatly ­i mproved by ending the poor, old China, or not bear to sever the ties to the affection for the old stage?21 Reasonable as this remark seems to be, the implicit contrast is still the side effect of the plotline, the dilemma between the tradition and the modern. Therefore, we need to inquire as to how the director interprets China in the trend of globalization, its location and its trend, as well as how we can deal with this transformation. Some details insinuate the epochal transformation. In the second era, when Liang’s wife turns to Shen Tao for money, Tao, now the manager of

178  “China consciousness” the company, is attending the wedding of a foreign couple working for her. She sends them two i-phones as a wedding gift. The couple bow to her with i-phones in hand, which implies that China has become the center of ­capital, even the i-phone has to bow its head. In 2025, Zhang Daole is teased by his classmates for his name. They joke that U.S. Dollars are already out of fashion, and thus it is better for him to change his name to RMB.22 Taking a closer look, we may find that even minor characters carry underlying significance. The worker, Sanming, a character in most of Jia Zhangke’s films, always appears simple and reticent. In Platform and Still Life, he is a good man with perseverance, a symbol of the average “good Chinese” s­ truggling at the bottom of society. In this film, he appears twice; there are some ­decisive variations regarding his personage here. In the first part of 1999, when Liang Jianjun still works in the local coalmine, he invites the grimy Sanming for a drink, showing his sincere concern for the latter. The next time is in 2014, when Liang returns hometown due to his pneumonia. He turns to Sanming, trying to borrow money for treatment. Sanming knows Liang’s intention, but even though he has twice claimed that “I will do whatever I can to help you,” he deliberately asserts that he is in debt because he is to go abroad working for Petro China in Almaty. The episode implies that market relations have eroded the interpersonal relationship. “Almaty” here is another “place faraway” just like the Ulan Bator of Mongolia in Platform and The World, symbolizing the new object of fantasy under China’s new strategy of “One Belt, one Road,” which is “echoing to the reversal of global economic map brought in by the ‘rise of China’ since 2008.”23 How does the film deal with such a “reversal of global economic map”? In this regard, Liang Jianjun is crucial for us to understand the theme of the whole movie, because he seems to epitomize Chinese traditional moral codes. in his workplace of the mine, in the small rental house, or his dilapidated home, the statue of Guanggong – the unrivaled traditional hero with both royalty and righteousness – is always put there and worshiped; he insists on his dignity and refuses to bow to power; In this light, he is “the one of the past,” whose “backward-looking posture lays the tone for the film.”24 What does this traditional virtue have to do with the modern world? The portrayal of Liang as both “the carrier of the historical inertia”25 and the “victim under the fast advancing wheel of ­h istory,” as well as the two seemingly irrelevant scenes after he goes down into the coalmine – the burning of straws and emission of waste gas from the factory – delivers the message that “the rapid development of China’s economy does not seem to bring any improvement in life to him, and he seems to be the necessary victim of the history.”26 From this perspective, the film is the same as Jia’s previous movies, aiming to expose the side effects of globalization by taking care of the fortunes of disadvantaged groups.

“China consciousness”  179 By contrast, Dollar’s separation from tradition is presented as a lamentable consequence, though with a sympathetic touch of tone: he almost forgets his mother language, the origin of his life and all the memory of his hometown. In the foreign country, he is an aphasic who has to pick up the basic Chinese language. He refuses the blood relationship and refuses to talk about the past.27 The same derogative connotation is applied to Shen Tao. Compared to Liang, her backward-looking gesture is a result of unhealed trauma. The failed marriage apparently teachers her a lesson, and her repentance shows the power of tradition: when Dollar comes to attend his grandpa’s funeral, she makes the traditional dumplings for Dollar, takes him back to the Wenfeng Tower, the Yellow River Bay and to the place his grandpa passed away to feel the “fixed” time. The allegorical import is obvious, Here Yellow River can be interpreted as “China”, the national maternal body bearing too many sufferings and vicissitudes. Joys and sorrows as it had witnessed, it is toughened into one with tenacious vitality and inclusiveness. In this sense, “Tao” as a mother and “Yellow River” as the mother river are one and the same.28 Touching as the scenes might be, what they imply is not ambiguous, “If we don’t really know where we’re going, the film seems to ask, how will we ever know when we get there?”29 How should we evaluate such a conservative “humanism”? (Figure 9.3) The answer is intimately tied with the changes of the times and the characters. Giovanni Marchini Camia finds that while with each section “the

Figure 9.3  Shen Tao and Zhang Jinshen are on the shore of the Yellow River.

180  “China consciousness” frame widens, growing from Academy ratio to full widescreen”; nevertheless, “the depth of field shrinks, giving visual expression to the notion that while the characters’ horizons – and by extension those of the society they represent – are literally broadening, their perspective is becoming increasingly shallow.”30 To find the reason for this paradoxical phenomenon of the weakening perspective within the broadening frame, we need to delve ­further into the director’s subjective intention, premised on his recognition of contemporary China.

The failing of a valid cognitive mapping In the film, Jia shows the prevalent feelings of alienation among lovers or close relatives; he laments that the future in the film doesn’t just belong to these characters. The loneliness in the last part of the film is very universal… we all experience this sense of drifting, no matter where we are. This sense of loneliness and being itinerant in the world.31 He attributes the cause to language and new technologies, which bring about generational difference, in the past—the world of Platform—the previous generation would conflict with the new generation, but when they would argue and fight with each other, it was still a way of communicating with one another, and they used the same language. But in this film, Dollar can’t even talk to his father; he has to use Google Translate. In my early films, the characters lived in a world that was pre-internet, and although they have relationships that conflict and rupture, they’re still people who try to communicate with each other. I think the new technologies have become pervasive in our society, such as cellphones and the internet, and they’ve insidiously affected our personal sense of space and belonging. I think previously, when fathers and sons argued with each other, they would still face each other and face each other’s feelings, but now, the relationships between people has become much more abstracted. I think, actually, in China, the gulf that exists between the pre- and post-internet generations is more vast.32 Jia feels regretful that the sense of yearning has gone forever in real life, with all our new technologies, I feel like these feelings have really been dampened. Even if you are thousands of kilometers from somebody, you can still video chat with them on your cellphone. Even though we can see each other more on the internet, maybe our hearts become[s] more distant.33

“China consciousness”  181 While this reasoning seems valid, upon close examination, the language issue is brought about by immigration; the cellphone by itself is not responsible for the estrangement. Consequently, we need to find more reasons to explain the change. The person who transforms the most in the film is Zhang Jinsheng, who is described as a speculator in business and a vulgar upstart; his aggressive personality remains throughout. In the first part, he simply fires Liang Jianjun after his attempt to cheat the latter does not work. ­After he is punched by Liang, instead of bursting into hysteria, he plans to get explosives and kill Liang and then tries to get a gun for revenge. These things inadvertently show how bosom friends can turn into enemies after class differentiation and restructuration. Later on, Jinsheng abandons Tao for another woman after he becomes a veritable capitalist by taking the opportunity of privatization. He then goes to Shanghai and engages in financial adventure. He does not appear in the second part, because during this ­p eriod, he has already become a retired businessman living abroad due to the “anti-corruption storm.” The film does not give any explanation as to how he corrupts and why he needs to be free and hide. All his experience thus far is typical of the new class in contemporary China. Yet such a process is not fully revealed from the perspective of political economy, but is only introduced as a moralistic melodrama. When the film leaps to Australia, the third act, and is devoted to Jinsheng for the remaining 20 minutes, the audience witnesses that he is careless about his dress, wearing a plain shirt and holding a tea cup; whereas in his modern-style home, there appear traditional Chinese books and the specialty of his hometown – Fen Liquor. Among these items, we find a gigantic oil picture, Ode to The Yellow River, hanging on the wall of the living room. The picture was created by the famed Chinese artist Chen Yifei陈逸 飞 (1946–2005) in 1972. Apparently, this item implies that the Yellow River that repeatedly appears in the first two parts is still deeply embedded in Jinsheng’s patriotic mind. In this way, he expresses that he misses his hometown and the motherland. However, since the revolutionary red culture the painting typifies (in the painting, there is a red army soldier looking into the distance, symbolizing the future prospects of the revolution) has already been in the margin in contemporary China, it is hard to imagine that it will spread into a foreign country and become a fashion in the year 2025, although the painting itself now might have become a symbol of wealth in the collection market. Commenting on this mise-en-scene, some critics believe that “the ‘post revolutionary’ atmosphere here is self-evident. Even the painting ‘Yellow River’ has become superficial without any historical depth; (by contrast), ‘money’ becomes the only true God, from which we can see Jia’s critical intention.”34 Nevertheless, the director does not necessarily criticize money worship, because we are not sure whether such furnishings are intended to show off. Instead, it merely demonstrates certain ambiguity: the Chinese revolution is intended to destroy the capitalists like him and to achieve class

182  “China consciousness” liberation. Yet the film shows the stubborn persistence of “tradition” and the eccentric personality of a capitalist who has tried to kill someone at any price to satisfy personal desire and realize capital gain. However, Jia apparently has no interest in differentiating right from wrong. On the contrary, he shows that the revolutionary culture could be appreciated by a capitalist; which, to be sure, inadvertently reveals the truth in Chinese society: the red culture has become useful for covering up some ulterior dealings in reality. The incomplete portrayal of Jinsheng’s complex personality is due to selective presentation and a strategy of concealment. At the end of his lecture to his son about the concept of freedom, Jinsheng says that he does not know who his enemy is, reminiscent of the popular “chicken-soup” tenet in today’s China: “a man’s strongest enemy is himself.” A Chinese critic has made a keen remark regarding this confusion or failure to differentiate foe from friend, which also signifies the position of the film, Obviously, the vanishing of the “enemy” means the disappearance of the revolutionary logic, as well as any other alternative choice, which is a typical situation of the post-Cold War period. In common parlance, it is the end of the Cold War that leads to the homogenous capitalist developmental mode of the world. In this sense, the vanishing of the “rival in love” is a national fable about China: in 1999, a “gun” may stir up uproars along the Yellow River; yet in 2025, the “gun” will not sound in any way, for the logic of resistance has disappeared.35 Nevertheless, does the “enemy” of China really disappear? Or does the logic of resistance completely vanish? These seem true due to the omission of the cause of “anti-corruption movement” in the movie; the latter then implicitly turns into “power struggle,” a result of the depoliticized logic running throughout the film. With such a logic of depoliticization, we can understand more of the film’s “aesthetic” features. The sense of magic is intentionally added in some of Jia’s films, such as the soaring saucer-shaped object in Still Life. In this film, Tao witnesses the crash of a sowing plane when she rides in the country in 1999. It is obvious that she is shocked by the sudden accident, for she stares at it for a few seconds. In 2014, when Liang is riding home, he chances upon a woman and her son burning paper money to mourn for the pilot who has died in that crash. The tragedy of the Malaysian Airline 370 Incident in 2014 also appears in the undiegetic background sound of a TV news program. On the surface, the two incidents are groundless accidents. Yet, that the Malaysian Airline Incident remains a mystery indicates thrilling game play behind the international power struggle. As a consequence of the depoliticized social climate in this era of depoliticization, all these merely become unexplainable accidents that show the absurdity of the world (Figure 9.4). In the absence of this political way of thinking, the film can only seek the so-called “factors of historical inertia” and attribute them to the loss

“China consciousness”  183

Figure 9.4  A  young boy carrying a long-handled sword roams silently among the crowd.

of traditional ethical-moral codes of loyalty and brotherhood, which is still demonstrated in some inorganic scenes. A boy carrying a long-­handled sword emerges twice in the first two parts, roaming silently among the crowd. Jia explains that he once witnessed this, which recalled ancient people; he even associated the man with Guanggong and fantasized that the deity would wander in the contemporary world as he would have no place to go.36 Although this connotation fits with the film’s theme of wandering, its in-depth meaning lies in the traditional moral code of “loyalty.” Guangong’s long-handled sword is the symbol for loyalty, and it imparts the sense of chivalry to the boy when he is walking alone in the bustling crowd… the youth carrying it retrograding in the vehicle stream highlights the cultural conflict between tradition and modernity. With the fast pace of modernization and urbanization, the long-handled sword, which is incompatible with the modern society, becomes exactly the unique token of “solitude” when the folk, traditional culture encounters with modernity.37 In other words, the director attributes all the unfortunate happenings, including disloyalty in love and even mysterious incidents, to “the cultural conflict between tradition and modernity.” Similarly, Tao’s favorite song, Treasure by the Hong Kong pop star Sally Yeh (1961- ), appears many times in the film. It is symmetric with Go West, a song also favored by Tao, which appears at the beginning and the ending of the film as the dancing

184  “China consciousness”

Figure 9.5  P  resented in a long shot, Shen Tao is dancing in the snowfield.

accompaniment. With the form of returning to the starting point of the movie (and of the characters), these happy (yet seemingly soulless) dancing scenes, together with Tao’s melancholic appearance in the epilogue’s ­solitarily dancing in the snowfield,38 deliver the director’s intended message: Traditional morality needs to be cherished in the fast tide of globalization or westernization (Figure 9.5).

Conclusion Although the “surrealistic” emplotment does not endow the film with any “surrealistic” atmosphere, the modernist strategy delivers a Jamesonian “postmodern” consciousness. In particular, certain nostalgic sentiment ­accompanies the futuristic drama. Jameson notes that the postmodern nostalgic consciousness, as shown in the postmodern nostalgia films, lacks a genuine historicity, or there is no historical truth in this postmodern nostalgia. Nostalgia films restructure the whole issue of pastiche and project it onto a collective and social level, where the desperate attempt to appropriate a missing past is now refracted through the iron law of fashion change and the emergent ideology of the generation….Faced with these ultimate objects – our social, historical, and existential present, and the past as “referent” – the incompatibility of a postmodernist “nostalgia” art language with genuine historicity becomes dramatically apparent.39 What is more, since the utopian potential in music makes it an attractive commodity, nostalgia becomes a commodity fetish because the music of these times makes it seem utopian, fully displayed throughout its cinematic text.

“China consciousness”  185 In terms of its narrative strategy, as a Chinese critic puts it, if “the most important narrative prop has to be found in Mountains May Depart, it is none other than the key,” In 1990, Liangzi leaves home in a fit of pique. He throws the key onto the roof of the house and swears that he will never return to Fenyang anymore. In 2014, Tao returns the key to Liang. When she parts her son, she also leaves him the key. In 2025, Dollar takes the key with him as a token. Thus, the key is passed on between different generations, forming a flow of consanguinity. Especially for Dollar, the key is the only connection between him and his motherland.40 Undoubtedly, the “key” here symbolizes Jia’s “solution” to the “Chinese problem” in his mind. Over 30 years ago, in the very beginning of the R ­ eform and Opening-up, the famed poet Liang Xiaobin梁小斌 (1954- ) p ­ roduced a poem, “China, I’ve Lost My Key” (1980), which was quite a hit in the society: All of this, All the nice things can’t be done now, China, My key’s been lost. God, it’s raining again, Oh, my key, Where lies thee? The rain might erode you now. You might be rusty. Oh, no, I don’t think so, with determination, I’ll find you I will find you again.41 Jia, being the literary youth, must have been greatly influenced by the poem. This film looks for the key to the issues of contemporary China. In this regard, Jia constantly seeks in tradition the loss of irreversible historical transformation. In a particular scene, critic Scott Foundas finds that ­although “Bullet trains now streak across the rural Fenyang landscape,” Tao chooses to take the slow train to her hometown with her son, serving as “an example, Jia implies, we would all be well advised to follow.”42 A conservative or “backward-looking” attitude as a response to the consequence of globalization aside, what we should question is, have not we confused the phenomenon with the cause, and the result with the origin, if we confine our seeking to the failure of traditional morality in modern society?

Notes 1 Robbie Collin, “Mountains May Depart, Cannes Review: ‘Brushes against ­Greatness’,” Telegraph, 24 May 2015. www.telegraph.co.uk/film/mountains-maydepart/review/. Accessed August 12, 2018.

186  “China consciousness” 2 Scott Foundas, “Film Review: ‘Mountains May Depart’,” Variety, May 19, 2015. https://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/mountains-may-depart-cannes-film-­ review-1201501026/. Accessed August 12, 2018. ­ lm-maker 3 He argues that “This giddily ambitious new movie from the Chinese fi begins relatively conventionally, before spinning out into a commentary on ­g lobalization and a glimpse of a bravura new world.” Peter Bradshaw, ­“Mountains May Depart Review: Jia Zhangke scales new heights with futurist drama,” The Guardian, May 20, 2015, www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/20/ mountains-may-depart-review-jia-zhang-ke-scales-new-heights-with-­f uturistdrama. Accessed August 7, 2018. 4 James Adams, “Mountains May Depart: Jia Zhang-ke’s Intimate Film Is as Big as China Itself,” The Globe and Mail, March 4, 2016. www.theglobeandmail. com/arts/film/film-reviews/mountains-may-depart-jia-zhang-kes-intimate-­epicis-as-big-as-china-itself/article29015786/. Accessed August 2, 2018. 5 Zhao Tao赵涛, “Jia Zhangke diyici wanquan an juben paishe Shanh Gurn” 贾樟柯 第一次完全按剧本拍摄《山河故人》 [Mountain May Depart, Jia Z ­ hangke’s First Work Filmed Completely by Script]. http://ent.163.com/15/0524/07/­AQC67MCQ 000300B1.html. Accessed August 17, 2018. 6 Manohla Dargis, “Review: In ‘Mountains May Depart,’ Jia Zhangke Shows a Changing China,” New York Times, February 11, 2016. 7 Giovanni Marchini Camia, “Mountains May Depart: Cannes 2015 Review,” The Film Stage, May 21, 2015. https://thefilmstage.com/reviews/cannes-reviewmountains-may-depart/. Accessed August 12, 2018. 8 Scott Foundas, “Film Review: ‘Mountains May Depart’.” 9 Patrick Frater, “China’s Jia Zhangke Plans ‘Mountains’ Trek (EXCLUSIVE),” variety.com, 19 May 2014. https://variety.com/2014/film/news/chinas-jia-­zhangkeplans-mountains-trek12011859 65/. Accessed August 3, 2018. 10 Zhao Tao, “Jia Zhangke diyici wanquan an juben paishe Shanh Gurn.” 11 Peter Bradshaw, “Mountains May Depart Review.” 12 Liu Zhengzhong刘正中. “Shanhe gren yingping: wenyipian de chenggong cai ganggang kaishi”《山河故人》影评：文艺片的成功才刚刚开始 [Comment on Mountain May Depart：The Success of the Literary Film Has Just Begun]. http://pinglun. iqilu.com/weipinglun/wenyu/ 2015/1101/2590119.shtml. Accessed August 17, 2018. 13 See the film review by M M藤井树, “Shanhe Guren: lishi duoxing yu wenben liexi”山河故人：历史惰性与文本裂隙 [Mountain May Depart: Historical Inertia and Text Fissures]. http://weibo.com/p/1001603961739648573360. Accessed July 2, 2016. 14 Ibid. 15 Slavoj Zizek once comments on Marx’s critique of Hegel’s point, Marx thus sees through the Hegelian trick of legitimizing exploitation and other horrors as necessary moments of the progress of Reason (Reason ­using evil human passions as means to actualize itself), denouncing it as the legitimization of a miserable social reality which is merely ‘dressed up with reason.’ Slavoj Zizek, “The Cunning of Reason: Lacan as a Reader of Hegel,” The Harvard Review of Philosophy xvi (2009): 109. 16 Scott Foundas, “Film Review: ‘Mountains May Depart’.” 17 It is noted that “Jia applies three different pictorial proportions to present the three different times. In specific, he employs three different aspect ratios: from 1.33:1 to 1.85:1 to 2.35:1. The evolution of digital media echoes the development of the times.” Gelima格俐玛, “Daishu wenti, haishi jihe wenti” 代数问题，还是几 何问题？[Algebra Problem, or Geometric Problem?], https://movie.douban.com/ review/ 7645968/. Accessed July 7, 2016.

“China consciousness”  187 18 Ibid. 19 In other words, “apart from the stories of these small potatoes, the d ­ escription of the living conditions during the three time points also implies the contrast, imagination and evaluation of the past, the present and the future.” Liu Z ­ hengzhong, “Shanhe guren yingping.” 20 Peter Bradshaw, “Mountains May Depart Review.” 21 See the film review by M藤井树, “Shanhe Guren: lishi duoxing yu wenben liexi.” 22 Gelima,“Algebra Problem, or Geometric Problem?”. 23 Ibid. 24 M藤井树, “Shanhe Guren: lishi duoxing yu wenben liexi.” 25 He ironically calls Zhang Jinsheng a “high-end personage.” When Tao chooses Jinsheng, he decides to leave for the place faraway. There, he is still engaged in his “low-ended” “unpromising” job. 26 It is noted that when he is leaving the town, “a non-diegetic scene is inserted: after showing the barren massif and a fuzzy scene of grass-burning, a bulky coal truck is meeting with an embarrassing roll-over after failing in crossing a pit,” which serves as “a metaphor of historical inertia which stunts advance of history.” M藤井树, “Shanhe Guren: lishi duoxing yu wenben liexi.” 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Scott Foundas, “Film Review: ‘Mountains May Depart’.” 30 Giovanni Marchini Camia also notes that The picture quality also changes with every time jump. Initially, the film has the somewhat drab look of a pre-digital TV show, turning more refined in the second chapter, and culminating in a blindingly bright glossiness worthy of a videogame – extremely polished, but deprived of any character along with its depth. Giovanni Marchini Camia, “Mountains May Depart: Cannes 2015 Review.” 31 Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, “Director Jia Zhangke on technology, relationships, and Pet Shop Boys.” Film, February 13, 2016. https://film.avclub.com/­director-­jiazhangke-on-technology-relationships- and-1798244155. Accessed August 12, 2018. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Gelima, “Algebra Problem, or Geometric Problem?” 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Mark Jenkins suggests that it “crystallizes the film’s themes of loss, emptiness, and alienation from family and tradition.” Mark Jenkins, “A Glimpse into the Future in ‘Mountains May Depart’,” February 11, 2016. Npr.prg. www.npr .org/2016/02/11/466005655/a-glimpse-into-the- future-in-mountains-may-depart. Accessed August 2, 2018. 39 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Postmodernism, ­Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991, 18–19. 40 Gelima, “Algebra Problem, or Geometric Problem?” 41 Liang Xiaobin梁小斌, “Zhongguo, wode yaoshi diule”中国，我的钥匙丢了 [China, I’ve Lost My Key], Shikan 诗刊 [Poetry Magazine], No. 10, 1980. 42 Scott Foundas, “Film Review: ‘Mountains May Depart’.”

Conclusion The cultural politics of the “poetics of vanishing”

“To understand Jia Zhangke’s standing in Chinese cinema today, it’s not enough to hear what he has to say, but also the sorts of questions he gets asked by the media,” reporter Clarence Tsui frankly proclaims in 2017; he informs us that Jia is solicited for his “opinions about the role of the state in Chinese arts and culture, his views on film festivals as a cross-­cultural platform, and what kind of advice he would give China’s young filmmakers.”1 These questions show that Jia has become one of the Chinese film ­moguls in the field. In 2018, Jia became a new deputy to the National ­People’s Congress, China’s national legislature. A rising star in the national cultural arena, when he attended the conference, he “suggested developing the ­cultural industry to detach Shanxi from traditional coal mining in order to fight overcapacity and pollution.”2 These happenings substantiate what I have suggested earlier: although Sixth-Generation directors like Jia were “penniless when they started their career, after they obtained their names and distinctions in the international film festivals, the cultural capital brought about economic privilege,”3 and they unmistakably became social elites. Aside from acquiring handsome funds from transnational investors, as early as 2002 when the g­ overnment extended its olive branch with the promise of allowing their films to be ­released domestically with the precondition of their cooperation, the great enticement of the vast market interests converted most of them. The ­ramification is profound: their “humanitarian concern of the underclass in the early period rapidly shifted to a humanist spirit of making inquiry of human nature, which looks little different from the official rendition of the underprivileged.” Since becoming elites themselves, and since the convergence of their ­social-political ideas with the authoritarian regime, most of the directors … have unabashedly embraced the commercial culture and proudly walked into the mainstream cinema, although some of them still more and less wish to entertain the dream of adding a few elements of ‘art film’ into their products.4

Conclusion  189 Jia apparently is a typical case in this regard. This move over-determines “the cultural-political stakes” of their cinematic productions. “A consequence directly or indirectly, we witness that their political unconscious as shown in their products comes close to the cultural bourgeois, which confers upon them a new social-cultural, if not yet a fully-blossomed political, identity.”5 Is this process an unfortunate development or inevitable? It is noteworthy that these directors are “the first generation of Chinese filmmakers in the era of globalization”;6 the significance of this timing means that “globalization has imposed a radical break between them and their parents’ generation in terms of working environment, lifestyle, and value system.”7 Therefore, inasmuch as their “life experiences are shaped by China’s integration into the global market” and even “their films are often sponsored by overseas investors,”8 their cultural-political vision regarding the unprecedented transformations taking place is subject to the impingement of the historical sea change, in particular the onslaught of western knowledge and ideology in this historical period. They belong to the 1989 generation; they might be called the post-1989 generation as well, for most of them experienced their intellectually formative years during the 1980s and graduated from college and initiated their professional career after the 1989 movement; consequently, the ideas for the western-style liberty and democracy popular during China’s “high culture fever” of the 1980s took root in their minds. Though there is little trace of this desire in their cinematic works, the fashionable trend of repudiating Marxist thoughts and its methodology of class analysis continues its effects upon their intellectual world, which then sets limits to their cinematic works. To be sure, partly against the inhuman consequence of globalization (or rather, the neoliberal transformation), Jia’s heightened desire for authenticity, as well as his “recording and witnessing the twisted mindset, the drift of life experience, the loss of meaning, and the disintegration of the social fabric,” seeks what critic Ban Wang calls “truth against commercial technique, melodrama, and simulacrum,”9 in order to articulate his feelings of discontent. Ouyang Jianghe 欧阳江河 (1956- ), a renowned poet and critic in contemporary China, points out that in all, “the central motif of Jia Zhangke’s films is change,” for “the theme of change has infiltrated all of the living environments and relationships”; on the other hand, “attached to this theme of change and uncertainty is a search for stability and certainty,”10 which reminds us of the spirit of modernity as explained by Pierre Baudelaire (1821–1867). However, the difference is gigantic, as what really is represented in their productions is the post-modernity or better, China’s postsocialist modernity, a modernity departing from Mao’s socialist experiments. Defining the form and content of Jia’s cinematic productions as a “poetics of vanishing,” critic Zhang Xudong aptly notes that it is “achieved through a documenting of China’s present, in which an agonized battle is unfolding on

190 Conclusion the frontiers of global capital.”11 In particular, he finds that Jia’s films “have moved beyond his hometown, while pursuing a notion of hometown that is not only personal, but also of wider political significance.” Consequently, What is at stake is no less than the meaning of one’s collective social being, for which the hometown is not the last line of defense, but rather the most immediate locus through which other, more socially and ­politically concrete longings are expressed.12 What kinds of longings are they? Jia’s sincere concern of the d ­ owntrodden and the unlucky, out of a humanist spirit that essentially calls for a ­u niversal equity of brotherhood, accounts for the appeal of his cinematic outputs. However, falling short in knowledge of socialist values and being ignorant of the existence of the residual yet strong socialist thoughts, which appear as the “political unconscious” of the “reticent majority,” Jia, like most Sixth-Generation auteurs, fails to pinpoint the real grounds on which the weak and the marginalized seek to resist the inexorable transformation brought about by the pro-market reorientation and accordingly find their true spiritual home. Or, he fails to identify the real root of the protagonist’s unconscious concept of egalitarian rights, but only hints that what gets lost in the societal transformation is the traditional moral code of brotherhood (as the locus of “the meaning of one’s collective social being”) out of the encroachment of material allurements, which is especially shown in his most recent movie Ash Is Purest White (Jianghu ernv 江 湖儿女, 2018). What is more, just like many other Sixth-Generation directors, Jia is ­inclined to attribute the problems caused by the neoliberal transformation to the trend of urbanization and commercialization and thus a “necessary” cost during a transition to an implicitly bright future, a travail the authoritative state calls “birth pangs.” Meanwhile, from his perspective (and theirs), the suffering masses are piteous yet ignorant (although they can uphold their “sense of dignity”), and often attract sympathetic gazes in the movies, often projecting their peculiar class habitus and political prejudice. To be sure, the populace, especially the social marginal and derelicts who are now bereft of any valid political education in the de-revolutionized, postsocialist society, often appear cold and vulgar to these elite artists. In this light, Jia is both an elitist and a populist; he is elitist because regardless of whether he believes he shoulders the mission to represent the people and speak for them, the masses appear numb and inarticulate, waiting for his re-­presentation; he is populist because he proclaims that he comes from the grassroots and pursues a “Xianchang” aesthetic in order to capture the “authenticity,” though he subscribes to the postmodern belief of historical agnosticism. His lamentation of the loss of traditional ethical-moral code of brotherhood, rather than the bereavement of any socialist ideas and conventions, applies to both of these tendencies.

Conclusion  191 As a consequence of this ignorance, “what one finds is … (still) a state of flux,” and “discovery itself becomes self-denial, or … ‘searching’ is but another form of self-denial.”13 This inability to diagnose social illness and to present an organic picture of society in transformation shows itself as the formal constraints, which however sometimes appear as aesthetic features, something like a melancholic sorrow. It is found that Jia’s earlier works are “characterized by an attempt to interpret history through silence and observation.”14 The distance between “the camera and the people being observed … created a lot of elliptical space for viewers to make their own interpretation.”15 However, even those critics who eulogize this way of practice have to admit that “silence conveys the filmmaker’s incomplete understanding of the mutable reality.”16 Judged from this perspective, Jia’s declaration that he hopes his film(s) “can refrain from imposing any concepts on the audience” and his hope that “each member of the audience can impose their own subjectivity and invest their own experience in the film, make their own judgment”17 do not mean that his use of long takes to achieve the alleged effect is more democratic; neither does it mean that it is the same method as what Brecht implemented in his theater. Rather, it only belies an inefficient knowledge of society as well as of the ontology of cinema itself. To be sure, this incapability is pre-conditioned or over-determined by ­reality, as Chris Berry perceptively explains: This in-the-now temporality combined with on-the-spot observation creates a profound ambiguity about any larger significance to be drawn from these films. It is unclear if they are representative of anything other than the very specific events and people shown; no cause-and-effect logic is presented to account for what we see; and no judgment is encouraged either through narration or fictional characters guiding us… This ambiguity is itself part of the postsocialist condition.18 The forfeiture of and the remedy to social illness, in Jia’s view, lies in ­reclaiming people’s “dignity.” When responding to the reporter’s inquiry, “Do you think there’s any way to end the cycle of violence as presented in the movie (of A Touch of Sin)?” Jia Zhangke’s answer is that I think the film serves to describe and observe these events because that forms a kind of necessary platform to change. In our current social ­reality in China, I think we need to have a deeper focus on respecting other people and respecting one another’s freedom and pride.19 In other words, to him, “the most extreme form of violence is to take away a person’s pride or dignity with your violence.”20 Consequently, for him, the longings the subalterns dream of are nothing but this personal “dignity.” Since human dignity can be defined as “the particular cultural understandings of the inner moral worth of the human person and his

192 Conclusion or her proper political relations with society,”21 the differences between the liberalist and socialist concepts of dignity should be differentiated. While “in liberal-­democracies,” as Doron Shultziner informs us, “human ­dignity is inseparably understood as granting all citizens equal rights without any sort of discrimination.”22 For “socialism and socialist democracy,” Wang Hui convincingly argues, equality is “expanded into the economic realm” because “inequality within modern economies has already ­produced new ­h ierarchical and hereditary systems, which invalidates the politics of d ­ ignity.”23 As Wang further perceptively remarks, this “demand for ­e conomic equality brings collectivities with a common goal and their ­distribution mechanisms into the politics of equal recognition, which conflicts with a view of rights centered purely on the individual.”24 Referring to Mao’s China as an example, he notes that the dignity of the laboring class has been safeguarded by concrete institutions in the traditional socialist period.25 From this perspective, the underclass longs to claim inalienable ­political-economic rights, which cannot be seen in Jia’s movies. We need to go further to reflect upon why directors such as Jia concern only individual rights (or an individual-centered dignity) rather than the ­collective-oriented, political-economic rights of the subaltern (or their ­political dignity as a leading class). In addition to the de-­politicization trend that sees the relentless consequences of marketization as merely the unfortunate aftermath of the lure of materialism, it is well known that individual personal rights are cherished by the western middle class and what we often hear about now in China’s mainstream media. When we notice that the urge to become rich in contemporary Chinese society, ­encouraged by the state’s policy, reaches a feverish degree in the tide of “establishing the socialist market economy,” we know that what most social elites desire is to pursue membership in the club of the so-called “middle class.” The Sixth Generation including Jia is no exception, and they project this desire onto the underclass, displacing the latter’s yearning for social justice of political-­ economic equality with longing for “a sense of dignity” or the “politics of ­recognition,” which centers on “such concepts as gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and culture.”26 In Nancy Fraser’s words, here the issue of “economic ­inequality” is “reduced to ­cultural misrecognition.”27 Jia has now become the defining name of contemporary Chinese cinema, yet the “new wave cinema” produced by the Sixth-Generation filmmakers in which he is a key member has vanished. As I suggest elsewhere, this is so “not necessarily because it has accomplished its self-styled mission of successfully changing the collective socialist theater to an individualistic (and essentially bourgeois in my view) cinema, which is but its ideological fantasy;” rather, it is “because the Chinese society has almost completed its (market-oriented) transfiguration after the two decades’ … r­ eform, which speaks to its historicity.”28 In his concluding remarks on Jia’s “poetics of vanishing,” Zhang Xudong asserts,

Conclusion  193 To see what is present in Jia Zhangke’s films is to ask where their protagonists are going and what kind of a future they can strive for… As unclear as the answer might be, one thing is certain: they cannot—and will not—stand still.29 They do not stand still, yet in Jia’s horizon, there is nothing but involution for these characters who are the “other” of the elites, as we see that he keeps returning to the traditional codes of morality, which are taken to be ­ingrained in their minds to account for their motivations and behaviors. In sum, for Jia the social-cultural elite, what vanishes in the transformation is the traditional culture Jia’s concern is seemingly shared by the state, which calls for a regeneration and renaissance of Chinese traditional culture. A “new mainstream culture” is in the making with the cooperation of the state and the national elites, and Jia is chosen to assume the responsibility.

Notes 1 Clarence Tsui, “Filmmaking Almost an Afterthought for Jia Zhangke, Chinese Movie Mogul in the Making,” South China Morning Post, Friday, 10 November 2017. www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2119297/filmmaking-almost-­afterthoughtjia-zhangke-chinese-movie-mogul. Accessed August 26, 2018. 2 See the news report, “China Focus: Meet Fresh Faces at China’s Top Legislature,” Source: Xinhua, March 15, www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/15/ c_137040967.htm. Accessed August 26, 2018. 3 Wang Xiaoping, Ideology and Utopia in China’s New Wave Cinema: G ­ lobalization and Its Chinese Discontents, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 249. 4 Ibid., 253. 5 Wang Xiaoping, Postsocialist Conditions: Ideas and History in China’s “Independent Cinema,” 1988–2008, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018, 436. 6 Tonglin Lu, “Trapped Freedom and Localized Globalism,” in Paul G. P ­ ickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent: Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006, 125. 7 Ibid., 125. 8 Ibid., 125. 9 Ban Wang, “Epic Narrative, Authenticity, and the Memory of Realism: ­Reflections on Jia Zhangke’s Platform,” in Ching Kwan Lee and Guobin Yang, eds. Re-envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2007, 211, 212. 10 See Ouyang Jianghe欧阳江河 ed., Zhongguo duli dianying fangtanlu 中国独立电影 访谈录 [On the Edge: Chinese Independent Film], Hong Kong: Oxford ­University Press, 2007, 260–261. 11 Zhang Xudong, “Poetics of Vanishing: The Films of Jia Zhangke,” New Left Review 63 (May–June, 2010): 87. 12 Ibid., 88. 13 Ouyang Jianghe ed., Zhongguo duli dianying fangtanlu, 260–261. 14 Esther M.K. Cheung, “Realisms within Conundrum: The Personal and ­Authentic Appeal in Jia Zhangke’s Accented Films,” China Perspectives 1 (2010): 19. 15 Ibid.

194 Conclusion 16 Ibid. 17 Sebastian Veg and Jia Zhangke, “Building a Public Consciousness: A Conversation with Jia Zhangke,” China Perspectives 1 (2010): 64. 18 Chris Berry, “Jia Zhangke and the Temporality of Post-Socialist Chinese ­Cinema: In the Now (and Then),” in Olivia Khoo and Sean Metzger, eds., ­Futures of Chinese Cinema: Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures, Bristol and Chicago: Intellect, 2009, 117. 19 Hubert Vigilla, “The Director and Star of A Touch of Sin Discuss the Changing Face of China,” October 9, 2013. www.flixist.com/interview-jia-zhangke-­zhaotao-a-touch-of-sin- 216577.phtml. Accessed January 15, 2016. 20 Ibid. 21 Rhoda Howard, “Dignity, Community, and Human Rights,” in A. A. ­A n-Na’im, ed., Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspective: A Request for Consensus, ­Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992, 83. 22 Doron Shultziner, “Human Dignity – Functions and Meanings,” Global Jurist 3, no. 3 (2003): 17. 23 Wang Hui, “Two Kinds of New Poor and Their Future,” in Saul Thomas ed., China’s Twentieth Century: Revolution, Retreat, and the Road to Equality, ­London and New York: Verso, 2016, 182–183. 24 Ibid., 183. 25 Ibid., 221. 26 Paddy McQueen, “Social and Political Recognition,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. www.iep.utm.edu/recog_sp/. Accessed March 17, 2016. 27 See Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition, New York: Routledge, 1997, 19. 28 Wang Xiaoping, Ideology and Utopia in China’s New Wave Cinema, 251. 29 Zhang Xudong, “Poetics of Vanishing: The Films of Jia Zhangke,” 88.

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Appendix

Filmography

1997 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2013 2015 2018

Pickpocket (Aka Xiaowu, 小武) Platform (Zhantai, 站台) Unknown Pleasures (Ren Xiaoyao, 任逍遥) The World (Shijie, 世界) Still Life (Sanxia haoren,三峡好人) 24 City (Ershishichengji, 二十四城记) I Wish I Knew (Haishang Chuanqi, 海上传奇) A Touch of Sin (Tianzhuding, 天注定) Mountains May Depart (Shanhe guren, 山河故人) Ash Is Purest White (Jianghu ernü, 江湖儿女)

Index

Balzac 170 Baudelaire 86, 87, 189, 195 Benjamin, Walter 9, 84, 85, 86, 87, 195 Berry, Chris 14, 15, 16, 52, 53, 54, 55, 61, 69, 70, 191, 195, 196 Berry, Michael 9, 16, 52, 53, 54, 55, 70, 195, 196 bourgeoisie 13, 53, 167 Brecht 101, 102, 140, 191 brotherhood 10, 44, 46, 52, 54, 93, 96, 100, 102, 183, 190 bureaucratism 3, 11, 139

class feeling 83, 97 class restructuration 3, 40, 62 class struggle 155 cognitive mapping 38, 180 commercial 1, 14, 22, 29, 30, 31, 33, 43, 50, 61, 63, 70, 76, 79, 84, 85, 127, 177, 188, 189, 190 commercialization 31, 33, 85, 190 commodification 3, 85 commodity economy 2, 46, 47, 50 communist 20, 26, 53, 126, 127, 135, 153, 154, 155, 156, 164, 196, 200 Confucian 47, 48 conservative 13, 22, 24, 32, 43, 44, 108, 158, 160, 176, 179, 185 consumerism 33, 61, 62, 65, 68, 82, 84, 85 corruption 3, 11, 16, 61, 96, 98, 105, 109, 116, 121, 135, 156, 181, 182 cosmopolitanism 82, 83 cinematography 34 crime 41, 44, 46, 52, 56, 63, 94, 95, 107, 116, 119 cultural-political 1, 5, 7, 8, 51, 171, 189 cultural politics 6, 139, 188 Cultural Revolution 2, 23, 30, 135, 147, 158, 159, 160, 163

capitalism (i, ii, iii), 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 13, 53, 68, 78, 86, 96, 118, 157, 177 Chen Kaige 1 Chiang Kai-shek 154 China consciousness 6, 170 China rise 176 Christianity 119 civil society 107 civil war 153, 155, 156 class analysis 82, 85, 149, 166, 189 class consciousness 12, 84

Deleuze 49, 54, 55, 197 demonization 42 Deng (Xiaoping) 20, 35, 104, 116, 175 Deng, Teresa 23 depoliticization 27, 154, 166, 182 depoliticized 11, 12, 16, 59, 133, 141, 182, 202 depression 25, 57, 59, 65, 127 desolation 56, 85, 143 developmentalism 23, 58, 62, 95 diceng 2, 3

Adorno, Theodore 15，195 aesthetic 5, 7, 9, 15, 22, 29, 30, 36, 49, 50, 52, 54, 117, 126, 143, 182, 190, 191, 195, 200 agnosticism 166, 190 a-historical 11, 88, 98 allegory 7, 15, 57, 168, 202 amateur cinema 2, 5, 9 amateurism 5 American Dream 82 anachronism 42 Antonioni, Michelangelo 160 authenticity 25, 34, 50, 152, 165, 189, 190, 193, 202

208 Index diegetic 10, 12, 26, 32, 33, 34, 49, 63, 75, 92, 93, 96, 162, 170, 171, 185, 187 differentiation 32, 40, 76, 181 dignity 1, 7, 13, 44, 50, 55, 67, 92, 100, 105, 108, 115, 118, 178, 190, 191, 192, 194, 198, 201 documentary 2, 5, 12, 15, 33, 49, 50, 56, 55, 88, 101, 125, 126, 141, 147, 162, 164, 166, 168, 198, 199 drama 9, 16, 26, 102, 170, 171, 184, 186, 196 Dream of Red Chamber 129 egalitarian 40, 41, 44, 100, 190 elite 2, 3, 37, 44, 62, 92, 148, 152, 153, 157, 163, 190, 193 elitism 3, 4, 7, 119 ethnographical 12, 127 existentialist 10 exploitation 10, 28, 34, 43, 60, 79, 85, 112, 114, 116, 118, 186 factory flowers 131, 140 feminist 85 feudalist 20, 44, 93, 100 fifth generation 4 fragmentation 76, 80 Frankfurt school 67 freedom 10, 31, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 114, 126, 145, 164, 167, 168, 171, 175, 176, 182, 191, 193, 196, 202 gender 10, 84, 142, 192 global capitalism (i, ii, iii), 2, 8, 53, 68, 96 globalism 14, 82, 193 globalization (i, vi, ix), 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 57, 62, 75, 76, 79, 81, 82, 84, 87, 170, 171, 176, 177, 178, 184, 185, 186, 189, 193, 198, 202 habitus 11, 158, 190 Han Han 163 hedonism 5, 10, 56, 57, 58, 59, 65, 69, 70, 71, 82 hegemonic 12, 23, 26, 27, 47, 49 hegemony 98 hermeneutics 8 historicism 6, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169 historicity 3, 154, 161, 165, 184, 192 historiography 11, 19, 35, 53, 148, 154, 166, 199

Hong Kong 13, 16, 25, 29, 44, 51, 67, 90, 93, 120, 132, 149, 153, 157, 158, 159, 172, 183, 193, 195, 200 human nature 11, 26, 67, 68, 88, 98, 108, 119, 141, 188 human rights 175 humanism 10, 117, 189 humanist 9, 49, 51, 69, 84, 98, 149, 188, 190 humanitarian 10, 68, 84, 188 idealism 33, 39, 54, 82 identity 14, 31, 49, 54, 76, 84, 85, 109, 113, 127, 130, 135, 136, 143, 149, 189, 202, 203 ideology (ix), 7, 27, 30, 32, 36, 42, 44, 49, 64, 65, 67, 68, 93, 100, 109, 139, 141, 184, 189, 192, 193, 194, 202 imperialism 81, 87 imperialist 155 independent cinema (ix), 36, 52, 53, 54, 71, 193, 197, 200, 202 independent films 2 individualism 67, 125, 140, 144 internationalism 20, 82, 83 ISA 20 Jameson, Fredric 198 Jia Zhangke (i), 1, 2, 4, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 36, 37, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 69, 71, 80, 84, 87, 101, 102, 103, 114, 118, 120, 121, 125, 136, 139, 144, 145, 146, 157, 167, 168, 169, 170, 186, 187, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203 KMT 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 154 Kracauer, Siegfried 50, 55, 87, 197, 199 laboring class 12, 100, 166, 192 legitimize 41, 43 Liang Xiaobin 185, 187, 199 long take 34, 49, 51, 55 lumpen-proletariat 44 Lust, Caution 129 lyricist (v), 1, 8 McGrath, Jason 14, 15, 36, 52, 53, 54, 71, 200 mainstream 4, 43, 44, 84, 97, 117, 139, 142, 144, 188, 192, 193 mammonism 49 Mao era 3, 10, 12, 20, 25, 35, 39, 42, 49, 61, 87, 97, 109, 133, 138, 155, 158, 159, 161

Index  209 Maoist 4, 11, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, 33, 34, 50, 54, 59, 109, 117, 120, 133, 141 market economy 4, 12, 27, 28, 33, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 51, 89, 102, 113, 140, 175, 192 market society (v), 56, 58, 133, 149 marketization 3, 4, 9, 31, 56 Marx, Karl 3, 4, 9, 31, 56 Marxist 82, 128, 132, 189 materialism 43, 49, 58, 62, 192 melancholy 32, 33, 51, 153, 170 melodrama 13, 171, 181, 189 middle class 11, 65, 88, 89, 97, 100, 149, 154, 192 mimicry 82 mise-en-scene (vii), 38, 39, 53, 55, 181 modernity (v), 1, 8, 14, 15, 24, 25, 85, 183, 189, 200 modernization 7, 10, 12, 13, 20, 22, 23, 26, 33, 36, 80, 98, 117, 144, 151, 158, 166, 183

politics of dignity i, 7, 10, 115, 192 pop culture 10, 29, 61, 63, 64, 67, 69, 70 populism 4, 7 postmodern v, vi, 13, 63, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 116, 147, 148, 149, 154, 166, 170, 176, 184, 190 post-revolutionary 20, 25, 28, 37–55, 156, 181 postsocialism 3, 14, 200 postsocialist v, ix, 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 35, 36, 38, 47, 49, 51, 52, 54, 57, 59, 61, 63, 69, 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 98, 141, 143, 145, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 197, 200, 202, 203 pragmatism 33, 43, 47, 49, 53, 62 privatization 3, 4, 12, 34, 61, 62, 94, 96, 99, 105, 109, 116, 134, 138, 81 proletariat v, 10, 44, 75, 84, 93, 96 prostitution 41, 43, 61

narrative strategy 108, 127, 185 national character 100 nationalist 20, 62, 65, 129, 145, 147, 155 Nationalist Party 129, 145 neoliberal 129, 145 new poor 7, 194, 202 nihilism v, 10, 33, 49, 51, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 166, 203 nostalgia 32, 98, 99, 100, 126, 129, 131, 174, 184

realism: critical realism 11, 23, 88, 96, 103, 104, 118; revolutionary realism v, 11, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 108, 113; socialist realism v, 4, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102 rebellion 4, 25, 103, 108, 115, 158 recognition 120, 138, 180, 192, 194, 200 republican 13, 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 157, 158 revolutionary v, 4, 11, 13, 20, 25, 27, 28, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 62, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 108, 113, 114, 120, 128, 130, 133, 148, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 181, 182, 195

objectivity 6, 7 Oedipus Complex 13 on-the-spot 9, 191 ontology 191 opportunistic 53, 58, 61 oral history 126, 139, 148, 149, 155, 167 oral narrative (narration) 176 orientalism 4, 162 Ouyang Jianghe 16, 189, 193, 200 patriarchal 48, 61, 62, 151 phenomenology 32 Pickowicze, Paul 8, 14 poetics vi, 8, 15, 16, 35, 51, 53, 55, 102, 116, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194, 199, 202, 203 political economic i, 1, 3, 57, 68, 93, 192 political unconscious 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 15, 39, 46, 49, 50, 51, 189, 199, 198

secularization 23 simulacrum 86, 89 sin v, 11, 15, 16, 103, 115, 119, 120, 121, 191, 194, 195, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 205 Six-Generation i Social Darwinism 63, 101 socialism 11, 53, 82, 142, 161, 192 SOE (state-owned enterprise) 99, 128, 134 subaltern 7, 11, 36, 64, 67, 68, 83, 88, 89, 97, 98, 100, 101, 192

210 Index subjectivity 6, 14, 35, 49, 52, 64, 96, 144, 149, 166, 191, 203 subtext 92, 96, 99, 177 surrealistic 170, 184 symptom 61

vagrant 30, 31 Veg, Sebastian 14, 15, 55, 194, 201 violence 8, 11, 64, 85, 94, 96, 103, 105, 107, 108, 109, 115, 116, 117, 119, 191 Vishnevetsky, Ignatiy 13, 14, 187, 201

totality 9, 38, 47, 49, 50, 92, 100, 143 tradition 88, 89, 96, 98, 103, 107, 170, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185, 187 tragedy 12, 83, 84, 105, 108, 110, 119, 121, 159, 182 trilogy 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, 35, 36, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 70, 196, 199 truth 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 14, 35, 42, 43, 47, 49, 50, 52, 55, 92, 141, 152, 153, 154, 174, 182, 184, 189, 203

Wang, Ban (Ban Wang) 202 westernization 184 Wang Hui 16, 192, 194, 202 Water Margin 105, 106, 107, 108 working class 12, 28, 93, 97, 98, 125, 127, 134, 137, 138, 143, 144, 145, 161, 162, 163, 199

underclass 21, 43, 44, 45, 76, 77, 88, 97, 119, 120, 188, 192 unofficial history 9, 11, 19 urbanization 183, 190

Xavier, Ismail 7, 8, 15, 202 xianchang 5, 190 Zhang Jiayi 113 Zhang Xudong 189, 192, 193, 194, 203 Zhang Yingjin 14, 51, 203 Zhang Zhen 2, 3, 5, 14, 15, 16, 36, 52, 200, 203