Director: Zhangke Jia
Writers: Zhangke Jia, Na Guan, Jiamin Sun
Photography: Nelson Lik-wai Yu
Music: Giong Lim
Editor: Jinlei Kong
Cast: Sanming Han, Tao Zhao, Hongwei Wang
Like the Hole album Live Through This, the deceptively bland title of this movie is open to numerous interpretations—most obviously a type of painting or photography, a description of animals holding position, and a heartening observation of the will to live. In one way or another, all those aspects are represented in Still Life. I have seen it described as a movie in which nothing happens, so caveats, but I think really what is happening may be so monumental it’s almost bigger than perception. The broad setting is China’s Three Gorges Dam in the late stages of that massive, multi-decade project. The ancient town of Fengjie, established circa 300 BCE, is slowly evacuating, preparing to be flooded and submerged in coming weeks. Two characters wander into this chaos—Sanming (Sanming Han) and Shen Hong (Tao Zhao)—and both are looking for people long absent from their lives.
It’s fair to say very little happens in this movie, at least on the surface. The two characters don’t know each other and never cross paths, though they seem to have a random connection in at least one person. Sanming is searching for a daughter he has not seen in 16 years since she was an infant and Shen Hong is looking for a husband who has been away working for two years. She has an urgent message for him. Still Life is slow and a little cryptic, never helping us much with these two and what they are about. But the feelings they raise in their determined, patient searches, plus the scope of the dam project literally consuming the town of Fengjie and everything all around us, somehow make it wholly satisfying to follow, absorb, and gawk at.
Like the Hole album Live Through This, the deceptively bland title of this movie is open to numerous interpretations—most obviously a type of painting or photography, a description of animals holding position, and a heartening observation of the will to live. In one way or another, all those aspects are represented in Still Life. I have seen it described as a movie in which nothing happens, so caveats, but I think really what is happening may be so monumental it’s almost bigger than perception. The broad setting is China’s Three Gorges Dam in the late stages of that massive, multi-decade project. The ancient town of Fengjie, established circa 300 BCE, is slowly evacuating, preparing to be flooded and submerged in coming weeks. Two characters wander into this chaos—Sanming (Sanming Han) and Shen Hong (Tao Zhao)—and both are looking for people long absent from their lives.
It’s fair to say very little happens in this movie, at least on the surface. The two characters don’t know each other and never cross paths, though they seem to have a random connection in at least one person. Sanming is searching for a daughter he has not seen in 16 years since she was an infant and Shen Hong is looking for a husband who has been away working for two years. She has an urgent message for him. Still Life is slow and a little cryptic, never helping us much with these two and what they are about. But the feelings they raise in their determined, patient searches, plus the scope of the dam project literally consuming the town of Fengjie and everything all around us, somehow make it wholly satisfying to follow, absorb, and gawk at.
It's formally divided into four sections labeled as commodities— Cigarettes, Liquor, Tea, and Toffee—but they are only loosely unifying elements in the scope of the story, suggestions perhaps for ways to flavor thinking about the action. In the background, buildings are being demolished by sledgehammers, one blow at a time. The pounding and occasionally collapsing walls are a constant refrain.
People restlessly make their plans to move away, leave. They don’t always know where they will go. Some seem to think they can stay. Friendships and connections heave up from nowhere and then evaporate or sometimes return. Nothing is certain except the end is near. Still Life is decked out with other demolitions as well, such as a controlled Western-style implosion of a tall building that takes place in the distant background of one shot. Or, more fancifully, a playground structure that is launched away like a rocket—a rare moment of whimsy here.
The landscape is nearly equally a character in the movie, these stunning vistas of hills and the Yangtze River cutting through them, seen from high above as well as from on the water. Still Life is scenic and has a lot of scenery, but it is much more than merely a picture with spectacular cinematography (oh, hello, Terrence Malick), as the land itself is cunningly made to feel brooding over time and changes itself, as if it is searching too for something nostalgic and long lost. Humans crawl across the surface like ants, busy like ants, pecking away and altering the face of everything one grain at a time.
I will also say the stories of the two characters were always interesting to me. Even the way they approached their searches marked them as interesting enough to know. Shen Hong reflects her class privilege in the way she can press her social connections to track down her husband. Sanming is a humble laborer who must find work in Fengjie while he waits for leads to develop. He strikes up a friendship with a young hoodlum who brags about his illicit intimidation work and argues with him good-naturedly about cellphone ringtones.
The rhythms of Still Life propel it constantly. It never really flags. It languidly spends time on Sanming’s search, cuts in landscapes and exposition about the ongoing project, then picks up Shen Hong’s story and basically takes it to completion. Then it returns to Sanming again. The landscapes are just there, a constant in the background, taken for granted by all who live there, long used to them and knowing they are going to change unimaginably and before long. The pinging and pounding sledgehammers are a constant reminder.
I’m not sure why I go for movies like this sometimes and not others. Still Life has been a rare pleasure for me both times I’ve seen it. It roams across its mammoth surface and tells small stories with a good deal of emotional impact, sweetened with doses of Asian pop music and those amazing vistas. It has the feeling of the aftermath of a giant festival now crumbling back to humdrum nothingness. You can’t quite believe it’s happening, it’s all so big. But it’s happening.
People restlessly make their plans to move away, leave. They don’t always know where they will go. Some seem to think they can stay. Friendships and connections heave up from nowhere and then evaporate or sometimes return. Nothing is certain except the end is near. Still Life is decked out with other demolitions as well, such as a controlled Western-style implosion of a tall building that takes place in the distant background of one shot. Or, more fancifully, a playground structure that is launched away like a rocket—a rare moment of whimsy here.
The landscape is nearly equally a character in the movie, these stunning vistas of hills and the Yangtze River cutting through them, seen from high above as well as from on the water. Still Life is scenic and has a lot of scenery, but it is much more than merely a picture with spectacular cinematography (oh, hello, Terrence Malick), as the land itself is cunningly made to feel brooding over time and changes itself, as if it is searching too for something nostalgic and long lost. Humans crawl across the surface like ants, busy like ants, pecking away and altering the face of everything one grain at a time.
I will also say the stories of the two characters were always interesting to me. Even the way they approached their searches marked them as interesting enough to know. Shen Hong reflects her class privilege in the way she can press her social connections to track down her husband. Sanming is a humble laborer who must find work in Fengjie while he waits for leads to develop. He strikes up a friendship with a young hoodlum who brags about his illicit intimidation work and argues with him good-naturedly about cellphone ringtones.
The rhythms of Still Life propel it constantly. It never really flags. It languidly spends time on Sanming’s search, cuts in landscapes and exposition about the ongoing project, then picks up Shen Hong’s story and basically takes it to completion. Then it returns to Sanming again. The landscapes are just there, a constant in the background, taken for granted by all who live there, long used to them and knowing they are going to change unimaginably and before long. The pinging and pounding sledgehammers are a constant reminder.
I’m not sure why I go for movies like this sometimes and not others. Still Life has been a rare pleasure for me both times I’ve seen it. It roams across its mammoth surface and tells small stories with a good deal of emotional impact, sweetened with doses of Asian pop music and those amazing vistas. It has the feeling of the aftermath of a giant festival now crumbling back to humdrum nothingness. You can’t quite believe it’s happening, it’s all so big. But it’s happening.
Liked this one a lot. I was struck first by the ceaseless smog suffusing everything, every scene, and how everyone seems oblivious to it, no masks. The subject, I think, is the Three Gorges Dam project and it's devastating impact on human lives and common people's tenacity to survive in such circumstances, persisting doggedly in their efforts to connect with others amidst the colossal change, and frequently failing. But they keep going anyway. I've maybe seen his A Touch of Sin as well. -Skip
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